It is quite common
to have interpersonal conflict, even between best friends, as people have their
own minds thus it is impossible for everyone to share the same opinion all the
time.
Fortunately, most
conflicts are resolvable. In this blog, I will talk about my own interpersonal
conflict experience and what I did to resolve the conflict.
Last year, I
accommodated outside the campus for around a month. During the holiday before
moving out, I was too busy to ask any friends to live with me. As a result, I
had to search posts from online forums, and pair up randomly.
I came across a well-written
thread and I thought he could be a nice and decent guy, with a clean and regular
lifestyle. However, it turned out that he was exactly the opposite kind of
person.
He had been living
there for one year and on the first day I moved in I found the room smelly. He was
definitely not the type of person that he had described on the forum. The room
was messy and gross, with dirty underwear and socks on the floor. And I was
shocked about the fact that I never found him showering during that whole
month.
I could not sleep
well on the first night. He kept playing computer games until 2:00 am. He was
apparently that kind of person who never went out and met people. There was no
way he could be empathetic enough to realize what a hard time I was going
through.
What was more, when
he finally decided to get to bed, it should be the time I could relax, right? No,
that was never the case. He never had trouble falling asleep within 10 minutes.
And the reason I could tell this was that he snored every night, punctually,
with no exception. I told it to my friends as a joke that there were only two
phases for his entire life, playing DOTA (his favorite game) and snoring.
That was the
toughest time ever for me. After one month of suffering, I told him that I
decided to move out. And here came the most ridiculous part. He refused to
return my $300 one time deposit that was paid when I first moved in. I tried my
best not to freak out and analyzed the situation together. My point was that,
given I had paid rental fees for two months, and it was still at the beginning
of the second month, he could easily find a new roommate without paying more,
and it should be the new comer’s obligation to keep the deposit. Fair enough?
There are all kinds of people in the world,
thus it is not necessary to be a Mr-I-am-cool-with-anyone. When you encounter a
conflict, analyze the situation, and negotiate with him/her. Never give up
basic rights and dignity that you deserve. There are things that you should
never compromise, however intense the conflict is.
