This conflict occurred
last year during one of my classes. It was the week after our mid-term
examinations and the tension in class was high as the lecturer was returning us
our exam scripts. As the lecturer returned our scripts, I observed my
classmates’ expressions varied from smiles to looks of disappointment.There was
also a heavy discussion of results between different cliques in the class.
Suddenly, there was a conflict between two of my classmates. For convenience
sake, I will address them as Tom and Jerry.
Tom, who scored well on his exam, had asked jerry about his results.
Jerry then raised his voice and said:
“Why do you want to know?”. Tom was taken aback by jerry’s reaction to his
question and said: “I was just asking,
why are you so angry?”. Jerry flared up and claimed that Tom was asking because
he had good results and wanted to show off. Tom was angered by the accusation
and said that he was just asking out of concern for jerry. Upon hearing this,
Jerry just stormed out of the class. From then on, the friendship between tom
and jerry had turned sour.
From the scenario above,
we can tell that the conflict occurred due to a misunderstanding on jerry’s
part. Tom had asked jerry about his results out of goodwill because he was
concerned for his classmate and could offer help if he needed it. On the other
hand, jerry did not score well and felt embarrassed about his results which had
caused him to become defensive and accuse tom of showing off. In my
opinion, jerry should not have become defensive as tom was just concerned about
jerry’s results. If jerry had put aside his ego and apologized to tom, he could have salvaged their friendship.
After reading this
scenario, what would you have done if you were in the same situation as
jerry?
