Conflict. An ugly word.

Conflict, a complication in inter-personal communication which happens when the intended meaning is not conveyed accurately to the recipient. It is a culprit in causing the souring of one’s relationship with another. Recently, I encountered a conflict with this particular friend and our friendship was in jeopardy as a result. The below account describes what happened.

I have two close male friends, let’s name them X and Y. The three of us have known each other since our secondary school days. I have always thought that no matter what misunderstandings or problems we encounter, our friendship will stay strong. However, this assumption was proven wrong when both X and Y were serving their National Service (NS) liability.

X has always been very popular and well-liked by teachers in school, and he was well-known as a ‘girl-killer’. He felt that it was a combination of his flawless skin, ideal height and body build that attributed to his ‘fame’ and popularity over the years. Indeed, X, with a height of 183 cm and a well-toned body, is handsome in the opinions of many.

However, his high self-esteem started to dwindle when he started serving his NS liability. He experienced a serious pimple outbreak. He felt that he was no longer as popular as before and had lost his charm. He started to lose confidence in himself and felt that people, especially girls, were starting to shun away from him due to the condition of his face. He felt very depressed and he confided his problem to my friend Y and I. At that time, both of us thought that it was just a temporary down period in his life, and assured him that he would recover by seeking medical treatment. As his close friends, we helped him by finding affordable medical facial treatment services. Also, we advised him to stay patient and optimistic, for the skin healing and regeneration process would take a long time.

However, X simply did not heed our advice and was overly-anxious about his face recovery. As he no longer could withstand all the odd stares from passer-bys, he was eager to sign up for a facial package that cost a whooping $2,388 from ABCD Skin Solution, which his army friends had recommended and endorsed the speedy recovery. As a result he asked both Y and I out one day, with the intention of borrowing a large sum of money from us for this purpose.

Of course, after hearing his words, both of us felt that he was being irrational and ridiculous, as he had previously spent a bomb on all the medication and facial products. Moreover, we had lent him quite a sum of money for his facial treatment and hence we rejected his request. To our dismay, he reacted strongly to our answers, and got so angry that he started swearing at us. He scolded us for being stingy and not understanding. He felt that we despised him because of his facial condition. As a result of such ugly words, the three of us got into a heated argument. In the end, X stormed off, saying that that was the end of our friendship.

SInce that incident, he never contacted us anymore. Both Y and I were quite upset by his rash actions and blunt words. We thought that we could stay by him and tide over this problem together with him.

So now, readers of this blog post, what do you think Y and I should do to salvage our friendship with X?

Why the need for Effective Communication?

What does communication mean to you?

To me, I have always thought that communication is the simplest and effortless way of letting others know my thoughts and feelings. All I need to do is to open my mouth and speak whatever that comes to my mind. I assume that my intended recipents understand my messages and hence the ideas that I am trying to put across to them.

However, through the lesson on ‘Effective Communication’, I have learnt that this assumption is often the root of all disputes. If people do not express their message clearly and unambiguously, it is highly likely that the intended meaning behind each message is distorted. Therefore many misunderstandings are bound to arise.

Indeed, being able to communicate effectively is important, be it in school, work or at home. In school, when doing an oral presentation, it is essential for us to deliver our speeches and ideas concisely, so that our audience can understand our project’s aims. At work, it is important for the officers in the top management to communicate well with their fellow surbodinates, so that strong working bonds can be forged, leading to an efficient workteam. At home, if parents are able to communicate effectively with their children or vice versa, parent-child understanding will be brought to a higher level and hence strong family bonds can be forged. This applies the same to friendships and relationships, which deep trust and understanding are established through communication.

I would like to use a short personal incident of mine to complement the importance of effective communication. This incident happened a month ago, between me and my tutee named Fredric. And this was how it went:

I was trying to teach him geometry as part of the Primary 3 Mathematics syllabus, and we came across questions on parallel and perpendicular lines. So I asked him if he knew how to distinguish between the two different sets of lines. He shook his head. I drew the lines on a piece of paper and told him that if the two lines did not meet each other, they were considered as parallel; if the two lines did intersect with each other, then they were considered as perpendicular and hence had a angle of 90^o. However, I forgot to emphasize that the small square that appeared between the intersected lines was a symbol representing an angle of 90^o. In the end, for questions that did not have the small square symbol, he assumed that the answers were 90^o.

So there you see, if I am able to express my thoughts in a clear, precise and organised way at that time, he may be able to grasp the correct concept.

I hope through all the practices in this module, I am able to emerge as a skilled ‘artist’, for communication is an art!