Blogpost #2 : Resolving Interpersonal Conflict

Interpersonal conflict is like a struggle between two different perception. Because we think differently, feel differently, we cannot have a balance between our ideas and that is usually when conflict arises. Indeed, interpersonal conflicts are seen everywhere, it's like unavoidable or should I say, inevitable? I'm sure everyone has their own fair share of dealing with interpersonal conflicts, including me. I would say most of the time, interpersonal conflicts usually bring about a tear or an end to the relationship.

Of course, I see myself facing an interpersonal conflict with my very own best friend, i call her (still ) my BFF, 'best friend forever'. We've been friends for almost 7-8 years now. We've been through thick and thin, knew exactly how interpersonal conflict had once menacingly brought our friendship to a sore, yet once again, this friendship continues to be tested.

I remembered how the incident 5 years ago had nearly brought an end to our friendship. We were only 15 years old then. One day, she fell for a guy in our school. Knowing that her mom would never approve of this "puppy love", she had me lying to her mom about her whereabouts so that she could go on dates with the guy. However, lies cannot withhold the truth and days after, BFF confronted me in school and labeled me as a blabbermouth. I was taken aback, and clueless about her reason for the accusation. I kept my word and helped her, how do I deserve such a term from her?

The truth came to light after days of a cold war with her. It seems that the countless of calls from her mom finally got on the nerves of my own mom. My mom took the endless calls as a form of harrassment and told her mom all the truth about her own daughter. Her mom questioned my BFF and told her, "your best friend has already told me all about you seeing a guy, so stop lying!". So her mom has conveniently made me a scapegoat and had my BFF thinking that it was me who sold her out.

Fortunately the conflict was resolved after we had a good talk. But many a times, not all interpersonal conflicts could be resolved, and I would like to believe that the more people are involved, the more complicated the conflict could be, the harder it is to fix it. There are also cases where such conflicts never come to an end.

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I've read through some of the blogposts written by my groupmates, it seems that the interpersonal conflicts they shared mostly have got something to do with their best friends. So it makes me wonder, is it that the more we care for him/her, the more interpersonal conflict is likely to arise? Then, wouldn't it be an irony?

Effective Communications- Why is it important to me?

Moved to blogspot because I realised all of you are using blogspot.com. hehehe.

Anyway, ideas about effective communications and how it is important to me has never crossed my mind until last Thursday where we talked about effective communication during the ES2007S class. I know that communication is essential because it gets your ideas through, be it important messages or just the daily gossips we share with our friends everyday. But there's actually more to it, from what I understand, communication could be enhanced or crippled. Enchanced communication would be what we learn as effective communication while the latter would be called a communication breakdown.

So after the class, it sets me pondering about how effective communication could be important to me. Effective communication, as the name suggests, happens when the message we intend to transmit is the same as what the receipient perceives. It takes care of various components such as the tone used, gestures, expresion, words used and etc. True enough, when a communication is effective, it really prevents unwanted misunderstandings. I believe that online communication is seldom effective because of the lack of the essential verbal cues but it makes it challenging all the more since we are all heavily involved and reliant on online tools, like the internet(e-mails,msn etc) and handphones(text messages).

For example, I have been managing an online store for a few months now and the customers I deal with are all complete strangers. They do not know me in person so effective communication is vital here because the wrong tone would suggest an offensive take to the message and I would have to spend time clearing doubts and misunderstandings.When it doesn't clear up, things could turn really nasty and we're talking about a reputation at stake. We all know how reputation can affect a business. To earn, I have to earn customers and through effective communications, it helps. Every customer would want to deal with a buyer who can communicate effectively with you. So I have to bear in mind the importance of effective communications.


There are all sorts of people in this world, we could only handle them with effective communication.