31 Jul 4-6 page paper Editing
Before I started learning this course, I was thinking that conflict means quarrel, arguing and physical fights. Based on the study of this semester, I realized I had a misunderstanding about what conflict really is. Quarrel, arguing and physical conflicts are just expression of conflicts. It means a disagreement with another person. Understanding how conflicts come into being and managing conflicts will help me to maintain good relations with people around me, especially people who are close to me.
Recently, I am struggling in a conflict with my roommate. We have very different work and rest schedules. For example, I am used to going to bed at 11:00 p.m. and she is used to going to bed after 3:00 a.m.. Usually, I wake up around 9:00 a.m., but she sleeps until the afternoon. Usually different work and sleep times would not be an issue because both of us have a separate bedroom and bathroom. However, our apartment has very terrible sound insulation, which means we can hear clearly what the other person is doing. Every night, when I am almost asleep, I will be awakened by the sound of her shower, exhaust fan, or hair dryer. It is hard for me to fall asleep again after being awakened. In the morning, when I wake up and prepare my breakfast, she will be likewise bothered by all the sound I make.
We discussed the situation and we have tried to figure out a solution together. At the beginning, we were trying to change our habits, like she would take a shower before I go to bed and I would give up eating breakfast. After a few days, we found it did not work. Because she is not used to taking a shower a few hours early before sleeping, she was unable to sleep for a few days and I had a stomachache without eating breakfast. So we decided to change our work and sleep times. Both of us go to bed around 11: 00 p.m. and try to wake up around 9:00a.m..But it is still challenging to her. She went to bed at 11:00 p.m. and lay in bed for a few hours without sleeping. The next morning, when I woke up at 9:00 a.m., she was still sleeping until the afternoon. It is impossible to change the sound insulation of the apartment and I would not move to another place, because I only have one year left until graduation. But this conflict does affect us in everyday life and within a short time, we cannot find a solution for it.
Before we became roommates, we were really good friends who hung out with each other, talked or texted almost every single day and shared every interesting thing that happened. Based on that, we decided to move in together and we were dreaming of a happy time, living with good friends. However, everything is going the wrong way. Because of the conflict of different sleep schedules, we complain more and more to each other. These increasing complaints broke our dream about happy life living with good friends and also had some negative influence on our relationship.
I read article “Seven college roommate conflicts — and solutions” written by Jessica Yadegaran. In this article, Jessica listed total seven examples about different types of roommate conflicts which all happened in college students’ daily life. I realized most of their roommates are people who did not know each other prior to college and most college students may be facing more tough conflicts than I do. For example, Jessica mentioned a real case that happened to one college student, Ali. Ali has a messy flat mate who always creates extra trash, unwashed dishes and messed up shared area (Yadegaran). I do like this article, because these examples listed are all from real cases of college students and in the end of the article, Jessica gave five steps about how to deal all these conflict with roommates which are to talk face to face, be open and flexible, be open to learning a different approach, use your resources and write up a roommate contract (Yadegaran). For the first step, Jessica emphasized that if you want to solve this conflict, you have to talk with your roommate face to face instead of texting. I do agree this point, face to face talking is good for observing people’s facial expressions and body language, and these observations will give me more information about how is this person really thinking. Jessica also emphasized being open and flexible. Because of increasing complaints, my roommate and I talk less and less. Both of us know that we do have some disagreements and that we are upset with each other. But now no one wants to talk about it. We choose to avoid it instead of facing problem and be open to talking.
In article “Deciding to Dissolve: Individual- and Relationship-Level Predictors of Roommate Breakup”, author Angela was focusing on studying predictors of roommate breakup. She sent first survey to college freshmen who just got in college and started sharing room life with their new college roommate. About ten weeks later which is almost the end of semester, Angela sent out the second survey to the same freshmen. All these two questionnaires are about their rooming desires for the following semester. Angela provided few questions for questionnaires from personality and mental health, social and communication patterns and academic achievement attitudes (Bahns). Based on these two researches, Jessica and her team found out about 10% students indicated they want to change roommates, 19% students have no preference about whether to stay with or change roommates and over 70% students want to stay with their roommates (Bahns). They compared these students who wants to change roommates and people who wants to stay with their present roommates, Jessica found out that people wants to stay with roommates who has good social and communication skills (Bahns). This article reminded me avoiding is not a good and positive way to deal the conflict between my roommate and I. Communication is very necessary for our situation and avoiding talking is also a dangerous predictor about roommates relationship break up.
Another article, “Failure to communicate” written by Abigail Sullivan Moore who is working on college housing office and close to all these real roommates conflicts. Based on these talks with students who was applying for change roommates, because of roommate conflicts, Moore found out in most dramatic conflict problems, students used bad communication skills. Moore mentioned that at the beginning of most conflicts, students would choose avoidance which often comes escalation of conflicts and when they had enough dissatisfied with their roommates, they would try to communicate and solve conflicts, but usually came with bad attitudes and bad communication skills (Moore). Now the conflict between my roommate and I is on the stage of avoidance which means this conflict may expand if I still do nothing. In the articles, Moore also referred to few examples about conflicts with failure communication. These examples reminded me, communication is good for solving conflicts. However, how to communicate is also important.
Based on the situation I am in right now, it may be hard for me to solve my roommate conflict essentially. Because it is hard to change someone’s life style. However, I should be open and flexible to start communicate about this problem with my roommate. May be we could not change our life style at the end, but we can talk about why we avoid talking to each other, what complaints we have to each other and why our relationship becomes weird, instead of escalating conflict. It is also very important about how to communicate. I do understand that during a communication about conflict, atmosphere would often become very intense, which may lead to a failure of communication. So it is significant to control emotions, pay attention on the other’s feelings and manage the process of communication. As Jessica said, to talk face to face, be open and flexible, be open to learning a different approach, use your resources and write up a roommate contract would be my process to start solve conflict with my roommate. And also I will pay attention on how to communication, instead of communication failure and mess up everything.
References
Yadegaran, Jessica. “Seven college roommate conflicts — and solutions”. Contra Costa times, August 16 2013. Link,http://bi.galegroup.com.ezproxy1.lib.asu.edu/global/article/GALE%7CA339794710/188fe750fc14c340cb5477e95fa1e2f6?u=asuniv
Tao Jiang, Amy Canevello, Jonathan S. Gore, Jennifer Hartsell Hahn, Jennifer Crocker. (2017) The association between compassionate goals and relational-interdependent self-construal . Self and Identity 16:2, pages 143-170.
Moore, Abigail Sullivan. “Failure to communicate.” New York Times, 25 July 2010, p. 20(L). Opposing Viewpoints in Context, link.galegroup.com/apps/doc/A232522249/OVIC?u=asuniv&xid=2537a484. Accessed 17 Apr. 2017.
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