When I knew that I had to write about interpersonal
conflicts in this blog post, the memory which came to mind was the vacation I
had in Melbourne with a friend during last summer break. Many things happened
in this trip but I thought I should just mention one incident in brief.
When we first landed in Melbourne, our prime concern was to buy a local sim card. We each bought one from 7/11 and started figuring out the steps to activate the card. It took us extremely long to figure it out, because the instructions were not clear and the shop assistant was also clueless about it. Luckily for us, we found a tourist information centre and finally cracked the code only after about three unfortunate hours. All this time, the access code was actually the 7/11 receipt number of our purchase! However, by the time we realized that, my friend had somehow misplaced the receipt and her AUD $10 phone card was then rendered useless.
She was quite worked up when it happened and became irritable. I tried my best to help her and even went back to the 7/11 store to ask if another receipt can be generated, all to no avail. When all else failed, she was extremely devastated and threw a fit over it. I knew she had a nasty temper, so I kept quiet while she fumbled through her luggage angrily, and raised her voice while she complained. People were staring and I felt embarrassed because it looked like we were having a fight. My sympathy slowly turned into annoyance because to me, it was unnecessary to make a big fuss and dampen the high-spirited vacation mood over $10. I still did try comforting her and casually said that losing $10 beats losing the entire wallet, in an attempt to lighten the mood. I didn’t realize that she would think it was inappropriate and “bad luck” to say something like that and she actually yelled, “Why would you say this kind of thing!?!” Faces turned and everyone within a 5 meter radius could hear her. I was utterly embarrassed and startled. She turned her back towards me and walked away towards the train station leaving me behind in shock. I couldn’t believe my friend of six years left me behind like that, but could only control my anger and tagged along dejectedly.
This was just the start to many conflicts we faced during this vacation and I was extremely exhausted and upset after the trip. Most of our conflicts arose due to differences in values and being too quick to judge the situation. Also, perhaps the argument we faced at the start of the trip built up inner grievance and unhappiness, causing us to lose our temper more easily from then onwards.
Looking back, if I could have done things differently, I would lose my narrow-mindedness and learn to cast my pride aside and forgive my friend for her behavior. Because I couldn’t let go my own unhappiness, it made the trip tormenting for me and it probably affected her too. Although I didn’t feel it was right for her to throw her temper at me, there were things I could have done on my part to lessen the tension. I could have talk things through with her instead of keeping all the pent up emotions to myself and clarify the matter and understand each other’s point of view. What would you have done differently in my shoes?
