Back in uni, I was young(er?), with a lot of energy and passionate about always doing the right thing and helping people, full of ideals… the perfect target for politicians and parties…
It didn’t took long to be recruited by a political organization, it wasn’t a political party, it was an independent NGO which worked with political parties to get the youth into activism, but it wasn’t officially linked to any party and the best part of it was that everyone I was working with were friends I went to school with and also we all were going to the same Faculty, we all also played the guitar so we jammed from time to time, IT WAS GREAT!
We did so many things, we attended many meetings with important politicians in the country, we coordinated the youth-focused campaign for two candidates running for president, we went out at night to paint graffitis protesting many of the government’s wrongdoings, we did many protests with huge media coverage, we had interviews, we then joined a political party and the work continued, meetings, interviews, more activities with the youth… until one night… when I was driving back home and crashed my car… they never called me again…
No more invitations to meetings, no more invitation to even participate in activities, no more guitar jams… not even a call to check if I was OK…
It took me a while to accept I was used… I worked for free getting my “friend” to activities, meetings, doing some hands-on work to paint graffiti, some web development and consulting for the NGO as well as the party…
What’s worse was that I later found out my “friend” was getting a wage from both the NGO and the party to cover his expenses and I was driving him everywhere for free and sometimes paying for his meals because “he didn’t have money”. I wasted almost 2.5 years in “political work” for free, I graduated 2 years late because of that… looking back and seeing it in perspective, getting into this nonsense was the stupidest thing I’ve ever done, a complete waste of time, we did not make any difference, the country is still screwed up and the only difference we made was helping this guy get a chair in the City Council.
Later I also found out that little bastard did the same to other “friends” of him who were also members of his team, they also did a lot of hard work, long hours working on the logistics of protests and other events and when he didn’t need them anymore, he just stopped calling and returning the calls or texts… not even a “thank you”
To this day, over 15 years after, I’m still having a hard time forgiving myself for letting this guy use me this way… don’t let anyone use you… IT SUCKS!