Monday, September 1, 2008

Resolving Interpersonal Conflicts

I heard this story from my friend and hope good solutions may come by. (",)

My friend (A) and her friend (B) went for some exchange for about 5 months with another 3 students. They were rather good friends. When they were there, they shopped together, ate together, cooked together and even solved their own disputes among themselves. But, just one silly incident or comment and everything changed.

When A was packing the house a few days before they fly back, she accidentally saw a piece of paper on the table. Then, she realized that B had been mistaken her for an action. But it was too late, those words on the paper was too hurtful and scary. It was due to just one phone call.

The incident was happened just the night before she saw the paper. As they were coming back soon, they had to cut off the phone lines and internet access, so everyone of them just took turn and called their loved ones. When B was talking on the phone, A was just commenting out softly on some stuffs she saw on the phone. She don't mean anything at all. As the character of A, she is someone who is crazy and cheerful, can talk and smile at anything. To the horror, B thought that A purposely said it loud and indirectly to ask her to put down the phone. And A don't know about it because everything seems so normal.

A felt so disappointed in her friend that she felt of her another way, which she should have know her even better that she don't mean anything when she said that, and also feel regretful for her little actions that she don't mean anything at all. All of a sudden, she just felt a tinge of despondent fell on her. Someone who is so close to her in that few months just turned and become someone who said all kinds of nasty things of A. A still treat B as a friend physically but there is still a barrier between them mentally.

Soon, a few months after they came back, B knew about the whole thing as she feel some distant from A. But she claimed that she forget about those words she mentioned.

If you were A (my friend), what will u do? *She is trying to forget everything but sometimes, is easier said than done.*

Personally, I feel that simple actions or comments can really trigger someone's feelings and thoughts. Moreover, i feel that it is hard to feel the same as what the both party encountered. If two people think and know the exact actions of each other, misunderstandings will be avoided but it will seldom happen in this world.

2 comments:

Derek ong plays a bit of pingpong said...

Hi Shao bin,

I guess this is actually a fairly simple situation. If you have read my blog, I believe that the closer people are, the easier it is for them to lose their temper with each other. We do so believing that the other party will forgive us easily.

Besides this, I think their situation arose from a period of living together for too long. It is scientifically proven that if 2 parties stay together and see each other everyday, it is easy to lose patience with the other and feel easily frustrated with the other party. Even though they should know each other well, it is normal to be offended after a period living in each's shadow. Besides, I believe a little conflict if resolved well can help a relationship to grow stronger actually. In my opinion, they should have a honest thrashing out session, and they communicate to each other their frank opinion. It should be easy, since they are good friends with each other already.

Hope I gave some good insight. Good luck to your friend!

Stephany said...

Hi Shao Bin,

I am wondering, what was the paper that A saw? Was it B's letter of dismay? I believe that B was so affected by A's actions particulary because they were on exchange and were away from home. B probably was feeling home-sick and hence the impact of A's words, though with no intention to hurt, fell on her as hard.

Most of the time, what seems to be a simple matter actually result in unfavourable consequences. Perhaps A should take it as a lesson and learn to be more tactful in future. The fact that A has a cheerful character probably didn't cross B's mind at that point of time, when she was trying to make use of the limited time on the phone to call home.

Let go, and hopefully time can heal the relationship.