Resolving Interpersonal Conflict

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.