What Conflicts Can Lead To

Interpersonal conflicts are so common in our lives that we will never need to fear the lack of them to “hype up” our lives. Since they are such a common sight, we need to know how to resolve them effectively.


If we were to fight and battle to resolve every single conflict we have, we would be battered before we even reach adulthood.

I’ve been involved in countless of conflicts with people around me, but this particular conflict left a rather deep impression in me.

This incident happened while I was in JC and it was between me and an "ex-good friend" whom I shall name Ellen. I belonged to a clique of 5 with 4 other friends (inclusive of Ellen) and I shall name the 3 other friends Fion, Gina and Helen.

The problem with having a clique of odd number is that one will always be left out because the others will always be in pairs. Say for eg, taking a bus and going for lab sessions. So needless to say, I was the one who often got left out. To add on, E, F, G and H were considered high-profiled in school. So obviously being the low profiled one, I often felt left out while I was with them.

So the incident happened when Ellen who was attached then, had a crush on this guy from another class, whom had a thing going on for Ellen too. Not wanting the guy to lose interest in her, she decided that it was best not to say anything about her boyfriend then, and that included not letting him know that she was attached.

On that fateful day, I was chatting with a dance mate over some random stuff and chanced upon the topic on Ellen and the guy. I had a slip of tongue and leaked out Ellen's status. It was only then did I realise I had just done something "dreadful". I instantly "begged" my friend to not breathe a word out because that guy happened to be her friend as well.

Feeling guilty, I confessed to Ellen later that night about the incident and apologised profusely. She got angry even though I had apologised and assured her that my dance mate would not breathe a word out. She hung up on me and refused to talk to me. I didn’t join the clique the next day in school because I knew I would be out casted. Fion, Gina and Helen did not make any effort to get me to join them. I know things would be different if it was either F, G or H who spilled the beans. They're after all the high profiled ones in school.

So that's all our friendship was worth.

I did not bother to confront her because I knew there was no use. I made no attempts to salvage the friendship either because I knew she did not cherish the friendship we had. It may be my fault on my end, but I did not feel that there wasn’t a need to go to the extremes.

However, I did question myself about whether I made the right choice by confessing to her. If I had just pretended that nothing happened, would we still be friends now? On the other hand, if something as trivial as this can break up the friendship, would some other event break up the friendship if not for the former?

And to end off, here’s an interesting quote. “You cannot say you've lost a friend. If a friendship is capable of ending, it is because it never existed." How true is this?