Interpersonal Conflict

Pic adapted from Istockphoto.

The day the conflict happened between the couple…

Activity: Over the phone

Girl: Let’s go to Chinatown later. I want to develop photos over there. Remember to bring the thumb drive. The photos are in it. Anyway, I’m hungry, I haven’t had lunch.

Guy: Ok! Let’s go have lunch at Chinatown later as well.

Activity: Meeting on the bus

Girl: Good, this time round you are not late. You have the thumb drive with you right?

Guy: OH SHIT! I forgot about it. Why didn’t you remind me again?

Girl: I already told you, didn’t I?

Guy: I was rushing out since you said you were hungry. So how? Do I go back to my place to take the thumb drive?

Girl: Hmm. How? We are already on the bus.

Activity: Continuing on the journey to Chinatown without any idea what to do over there other than having lunch

Activity: Eating in Chinatown

Girl: Do you want anything for yourself?

Guy: Nope, I’ve eaten.

Activity: Guy trying to be funny by placing his used tissue paper near the noodle sauce, causing Girl to finally flare up.

Girl: What are you doing?!?! I’m still eating, you know?!?! You are so f***ing irritating.

Activity: The cold war starts

Activity: Girl has finished eating and wants to leave

Girl: EH, let’s go.

Activity: Guy stayed still

Girl: Why you don’t want to leave? Became a statue?

Guy: Because you said I’m f***ing irritating, so I’m staying still.

Girl: What do you want?!

Guy: Why are you, a girl, using such foul language?!

Activity: Both, feeling angry and annoyed, left the eating place.

Why was there so much anger and displeasure between the two? Was it because the guy forgot about the thumb drive and yet he continued to cause annoyance to the girl? Or was it because the girl was feeling sore about the thumb drive and the unhappiness continued to accumulate until it was finally released in the terms of foul language?

Will smoothing out the first problem, the incident about the thumb drive, prevent the conflict from happening? Will a better management of feelings take control of the situation to prevent any outbreak? Will a better communication prevent even the first problem from happening or is it just the responsibility of the guy to prevent the first problem from happening?

To me, it is a conflict due to roles and responsibility in a close relationship. And precisely because of the close relationship, it is tough to manage the feelings well. We tend to treat people, whom we are close to, in a manner that we will not treat others. At times, there will be less courtesy and more arguments as we know that the people who are closer to us can tolerate our misdeeds better. Hence our behaviours are allowed to go awry and we lose control of our feelings. However, I believe that having conflict is not the biggest problem. The biggest problem is to face the conflict, find a solution to it and eventually learn and grow from it.

Importance of Effective Communication

Why do people misunderstand each other? Why is it that people often find it tough to decipher what the other person is trying to say or express? Communication breakdown happens very often and it can happen to anyone in any situation. Effective communication is the solution that reduces and prevents communication breakdown. It is about building the communication bridge between any two people and being able to bring across the ideas shared between this communication bridge.

To be able to communicate effectively, it involves not only the language, but also the tone of the language. There are also other factors to consider, such as individual ‘filters’ that exist possibly due to one’s biasness against certain matters and the non-verbal language that might be one’s way of expressing emotions.

In this world of highly advanced technology, we communicate with people through channels such as emailing, instant messaging and sending messages through mobile phone due to convenience and our busy lifestyles. By using these channels, we would not be able to observe the non-verbal language of the speaker and we might also interpret the tone of the language wrongly. For example, by saying “I’m unhappy with what you have done today.” The listener might interpret it as the speaker being angry or upset but the speaker might only be disappointed. These constitute a range of different emotions but it was only represented by one word ‘unhappy’. In this kind of situation, it is easy for misunderstandings to occur and people will have to rack their brains to think what is the true meaning that the speaker wants to bring across, which is why people should also practice effective communication in the channels of technology.