Dealing With Conflict

July 28, 2014

Discuss a time you had an emotional conflict with someone. What was it about? What happened?

Not too long ago I got into an argument with a friend because he refuses to tell people what he does for a living. I'm really proud of my friend and the success he has had in his career. It is clear that he loves what he does (at least when he is willing to express that), but he is afraid to tell people the truth upon meeting them. He believes that he will be judged by his success, and that people will either have certain expectations of him or that they will treat him differently. I understand his concern, but don't agree that he should feel the need to be dishonest when meeting people. I think he should be proud of all that he is done and is doing. He should be proud of his success and shouldn't assume that others will judge him for it.

Anyway, this guy is one of my best friends, so naturally my other friends ask about him sometimes. On several occasions, my friends have asked this guy in person about his occupation, which I had already disclosed to them, which has resulted in severely awkward moments when he is very clearly making something up as a response. Ultimately I confronted him about this, telling him he doesn't need to do that, that people won't judge him, that I don't understand why he isn't honest, etc.. but he just wasn't having it. It resulted in a relatively emotional argument between the two of us on why he was acting the way he was and his justification.

What was the source of the conflict?

The source of the conflict was me not understanding my friend's behavior. I hadn't taken the time to truly understand why he might be acting like this. I just took it at face value and acted on it after getting frustrated enough with his actions. In addition to that, he never sat me down and expressed his true reasoning.

How did you handle that conflict?

Ultimately, after confronting my buddy and arguing with him for a while, trying to tell him he's acting immature and that his actions have no merit, I could see that he was becoming visibly upset. Like, really sad upset. Like he was reflecting on something that happened a long time ago that I was forcing him to revisit. It became very clear that continually expressing my dissatisfaction with his actions was the wrong way to handle the conflict.

Did your actions make the conflict better or worse?

Definitely worse, as they made my friend really upset. I forcefully made my friend revisit a time in his life that he didn't want to go back to - which was the source of his cover-ups when asked about his occupation. As I stood there perplexed that my friend was crying, he began verbalizing what was going on in his head, providing me context to his actions. I felt so bad that I had forced an explanation from him.

If you could go back, what would you do differently, if anything?

I would have stopped prying when it was evident that my friend didn't want to talk about it. As a good friend, I should have taken that for what it is, and stopped asking. On the other hand, I may have just approached asking the question differently. The way I handled it was kind of in an accusatory manner, like "You're doing this and I don't know why!". I should have openly said 'If you don't want to talk about this, let me know. That's ok.' and let him know that if he did want to talk about anything I'd be there to listen.

What did you learn from this experience?