Dear Aunt Agony...

Below is a hypothetical situation in which an interpersonal conflict has arisen.

Dear readers,

I am very upset and disappointed with my friend. Although I do cherish her friendship, I feel that she is making use of me only when she needs me. We have quarreled recently and since we’re from the same class, it is very awkward as everyone knows we were good friends. One can feel the tension hanging in the air during class.

I met X in school last year when we were both assigned to the same class. From then on we ‘clicked’ and became friends, going to each other’s house and staying up to talk late at night on msn and on the phone. However, recently X made a new friend, Y. They have become very close and recently, I have been feeling left out.

Only that’s not all. Y has a boyfriend with whom she periodically has problems with. When she is having problems with her boyfriend, she would confide in X and both of them would be inseparable and are the best of buddies. However, when all is smooth sailing in Y’s relationship with her boyfriend, she spends more time with him than X. When this happens, X would come to me and start gossiping about Y behind her back, and about how she feels chucked aside whenever Y’s boyfriend is around. At this point in time, X becomes very nice to me and “clings” on to me. But, every time Y has problems with her boyfriend and shares them with X, X would rush to her side in an instant and spends all her time with Y.

Feeling very left out and angry that X was being very two-faced, I confronted her about what she was doing to our friendship. I pointed out that whatever she was unhappy about Y doing to her, she was doing the exact same thing to me without even realising it. Furthermore, she did not like it when Y did it to her and now she was treating me in the exact same way. However, X became angry and said that the two situations were very different, and that I was being too possessive over her friendship.

What should I do? Was I wrong to point out that X was being very duplicitous? Was I feeling too possessive over our friendship as X put it? Please help.

-A very troubled teen.

Communication! Communication! Communication!

“Are you listening to me?”

*Blank and sheepish look*

Many of us have been asked that question however we fall into the habit of ‘in one ear, and out the other’ type of listening. Or even at times, where we suddenly cut into people’s conversations midway and sidetrack the topic with our responses and own experiences, which I like others have been guilty of doing so, much to my chagrin. However, old habits die hard and taking this module in effective communication is important to me as I would like to learn to engage the speaker not only through attentive and active listening but to be able to provide good feedback pertaining to what the speaker is trying to bring across. This would be especially useful in terms of during lecture, where I tend to zone out midway as it drags on partly due to the fact that I do not understand what the lecturer is talking about and also partly due to being easily distracted by other things. So now I understand that to engage in effective communication would be to at least scan through the notes on what the lecturer is going to talk about as well as focus on the lecturer and try to digest what he is saying.

Talking about effective communication brings up one situation which I experienced to mind. I applied for and got a post as vice director organizing an event in an activities club. And being a first year student and being very new to the university environment and its way of operation, I was quite lost as to how to handle the project. However, my boss was not clear as to how I was supposed to support him as we went about trying to create an exciting event. And we mostly communicated via sms, emails and through msn, which now I look back on was quite a huge mistake as many things which he wanted done in a specific way was not conveyed to me, as these channels were only means of almost only linear communication, lacking the depth of face-to-face conversations. And that made me very stressed because I had to keep on clarifying with him and it felt like I was not doing my job properly because of the many times I had to double check with him. This went on till the point where I did not really like to ask for his clarification any longer. The event took off with a few hitches, although the amount of stress it caused us could have been lessened if we had only communicated properly to each other.

Through this incident I realized how important effective communication is for a project to be smoothly carried out without much incidences and misunderstandings. And I really do hope that through this module, I would be a more effective communicator and through this be able to achieve my potential in life.



PS: looks like its going to be a fun module :)