Close live, close friends?
Before I came to NUS, I studied in Harbin Institute of Technology (HIT). In HIT, 5 other friends (Cai, Zhao, Zhou, Yao and Li) were sharing a room with me. We were from different parts of China. And as freshmen, we had few friends, so we were always together for lecture, dinner, bath and almost everything. We were close to each other, however, perhaps we would never become close friends.
Within the 3 months of my stay in HIT, I tried to minimize interpersonal conflicts between my roommates and me, as I had experience of living in dormitory before. But things were different for my roommates, in addition that we were from different backgrounds and had different personalities.
Gradually we found that Cai was never considerate to others. We were always awakened by his noise of snore and turning over. Sometimes Cai came back very late, even after all of us fell asleep. But he did not open and close the door gently. We had informed him several times, but he never apologized and improved.
Zhao was at the lower berth of Cai, thus he was most influenced by Cai. One day, Zhao lost his temper on Cai, he expected Cai to improve, but Cai behaved innocent. And Zhao tells me that since then he seldom talks to Cai.
Li was interesting as he always interfered with others’ business, and we did not know if it was because he was enthusiastic to help others at anytime, or he was just curious about others. And such a person could not resolve the conflicts between Zhao and Cai, but sometimes caused more conflicts.
Yao and Zhou were quiet all the time. Even when they were awakened by Cai, they just complained a bit. And they could not contribute to resolve the conflicts of others. Also we would never know their ideas.
So how do you resolve the conflicts, which are mainly caused by personality clash rather than communication skills?
Hellooo Zhang Jiao,
ReplyDeletePersonality clash situations are probably the most delicate ones to solve. Often we may not have the choice to decide who we want to work with or cohabitat with, and I believe it is most important that we learn to compromise and accommodate together.
Everyone should agree to an open discussion one day and this could happen over dinner or tea time. You could bring up the Golden Rule: Do unto others as you would have them do unto you. You should take the initiative to bring up about Cai causing a disturbance when he returns at night, and that Cai wouldn't have liked the same treatment. As for Li, I believe you should give him the benefit of the doubt as he may sincerely be making an effort to ease the tension. You should instead thank him for his efforts and not be judgmental.
Lastly, I'm am unclear as to what the situation between Zhao and Cai is, but it appears that Zhao and Cai had a squabble and matters got out of hand. As such, taken it upon yourself to ask both of them to speak their mind as the tension between them will only spill over to their non-verbal cues anyhow.
I believe for any situation to be resolved, one person has to make the first step. As much as there may be a chance your efforts may backfire, you will never know until you try. Everyone has to come to a compromised living arrangement agreement given that all of you are living together. Making peace will not only make day-to-day happenings more pleasant, your friendship may bear more fruits for you to savour.
Warm Regards,
Eric Li
Dear Zhang Jiao
ReplyDeleteI see you are trying hard to make less grammatical errors. This effort is good. Maybe the next step is to be concise.
Perhaps you might want to reconsider whether it is in fact a personality clash. When living in a dormitory, there are rules. Have these rules been established clearly? What are the consequences if the rules are broken? Are these stated?
Maybe Eric is right to say that the relationship between Zhao and Cai might have been strained previously and it is just building up, perhaps waiting to explode.
Most importantly, you should do something. Call for a dormitory meeting; say how it has affected you. Practice the steps of resolving a conflict.
Assuming this is based on a real experience, how did you resolve this conflict?
Regards,
Happy