If only I knew.....

To be honest, when I read the details of the instructions for this week’s blog post, I got quite worried. We were required to describe a conflict, its context, the main problem, possible causes etc. The chief reason for my worry was this: if I knew what the problem was, the situation would not have escalated into a conflict where relationships turn sour. Hence I thought I should try to write up a hypothetical situation where all these details will be very clear for everyone to read and perhaps score for being concise and descriptive.

However after much deliberation, I felt that I should not conjure up a “perfect” conflict situation. Rather I should attempt to tell my situation as best as I can. After all, we are here to learn from real life situations rather than made-up, ideal conflicts which can be solved. Also, since this is a class where everyone is learning and sharing, it may be a good chance to hear the views of other people.

This is the story of my conflict with Ace told as best as I can:

Ace and I had been good friends since we were young. We lived in the same apartment block, studied in the same primary school and secondary school. We spend a lot of time together in each other’s company. I would say that you could consider us to be close childhood friends. Unfortunately, it was really to be only childhood friends.

Our relationship in primary school was very different when we went into secondary school. In primary school, we were in the same class and were close, even in lower secondary, though we were no longer in the same class, we still keep in contact and met up often. Things changed when we traded our school short pants for long pants. Due to commitments, we could rarely meet up to have a good time. We began to have our own separate close group of friends and eventually our meet ups came to a stop.

I thought we have simply moved on in life. However I was wrong. For some reason, our relationship became a little hostile (or at least that is what I feel). Walking past each other in school, Ace would ignore me or look away or seem “engaged” in an activity. Even though I try to say “Hi” on several occasions, it was returned with ignorance and seemingly displeasure. It came to a point where I decided to try to confront the issue by meeting him face-to-face to identify the problem. We met alone somewhere in school and I asked him if he was ignoring me and whether it was because of something I had done which offended him. The reply he gave was that we have moved on with our lives and there was nothing much to talk about. Since that incident, we never talked again.

That is my story.

Reading my story, I guess you would understand why I was quite worried about using this incident. How can one identify the problem, analyse it and state possible causes if one does not even understand the root cause of the conflict? Hence I would only attempt to suggest hypothetical causes and solutions to this situation.

A possible reason (and the only one that I can think of) is possible clash of interest. I believe that there is truth in him saying that we have moved on in life. We were no longer the same as when we were kids. Growing up as teenagers, our interests, beliefs and values might have change such that it clashes in a way that we cannot seem to co-exist. Maybe it is not the clash of individual interest but a clash of interest of the group of friends that we have. As I did mention, in upper secondary, we had our own group of close.  In terms of dynamics, the two groups were quite different. Firstly, the groups were from different classes. Secondly, my group was more of a “geeky” type while his group was the crazy “havoc” type. My group would enjoyed chilling out together at the movies, library or even over a cup of coffee while friends group prefer to go out to play computer games, have late night outings, stayovers etc. Hence for some reason  which I cannot fathom, there maybe clashes of interest as a group.

Looking at the situation, I am still clueless as to what had happened but one thing I am sure of is that for some reason, there was hurt and offense in Ace though I never got to find out what it was. I feel that the only possible solution might simply be that I would attempt to step out of my comfort zone to try to contact him again. Perhaps time has healed all possible wounds of offenses from the past such that somehow we can start all over again? Can time really heal any wounds of conflict? What do you think I should do?