Conflict Management: F.R.I.E.N.D.S.

Best Friends For The Rest Of Our Lives. We all have people in our lives that we have known for a long time, or has become very close within a year. We all know who our friends are, and we know some friends are much closer than others. The friends who are most significant in your life is likely to be your best friend.  Often people have lifelong friends they met in grade school, work, college, or through mutual friends that have the potential to remain in one’s life over extended periods of time.        Now consider one of your best friends, preferably same-sex, and think about a conflict or disagreement that recently occurred. What was it like? Who said what? What was the real problem? What was the result? Now STOP, if you thought about everything ‘THEY’ did wrong just now, I would like you to throw yourself into reverse and try it again. Think about what you did that fueled the conflict, how did you react? How did you manage the conflict? H...

     When I worked for my step grandfather’s contracting company one summer in between my sophomore and junior year of high school, I got into a conflict with the members of the group that I had to work with during the first week I worked for the company. The conflict started an hour after I got to the job site. I asked for help because I did not know what to do on certain tasks and they did not help me. When I asked why they wouldn’t help me, they said that it was because I was the grandson of their boss that I should know what I’m doing when I didn’t.      I explained to the men that I was working with that I had no idea what I was doing because I had never worked on a job site before. They still did not believe me, so I talked to my grandfather and told him what was going on. He listened to me and he said that he would talk to the guys in charge at the job site that I was working at. He told them that I had no experience and they listened to him and st...

Oh, Hey there! I didn’t see you come in. Well I’m glad you stopped by because I’m about to talk about some conflict! No! Don’t go! It’ll be fun! This post will teach you what it’s like dealing with a close friend’s additional friend.  You know that one friend that your close friend always brings around now that you don’t really like, but have to deal with them because your friend is friends with them.  Right, now that we have something in common let’s get right into it! Go ahead and read this article about a triadic friendship (A friendship with three people involved).  http://eds.a.ebscohost.com.ezproxy2.rmc.edu/ehost/pdfviewer/pdfviewer?vid=4&sid=9cd33fd3-2b4d-4975-aae3-dfb1792eb79b%40sessionmgr4007&hid=4111 See, it wasn’t that bad.  This article discusses the conflicts between same-sex, nonromantic friendship triads.  Within this article it talks about how people approach conflict differently based on the significance of the relationship ...

How many of you readers have a friend that “lives far enough away [that you are unable to] interact with him or her on a daily basis because of physical distance”? [1]  Okay, perfect.  Now how many of you use social media as your main form of communication with them to keep in touch?  A lot of you?  Good!  Then this is the blog for you. So sit back and relax, put your phone on “Do Not Disturb”—you’ll thank me later—and prepare to learn about the impact social media can have on long distance friendships and how it relates to your far-away-BFF and you. Comfy?  Good.  Now, below is a link to a very interesting article on the dangers of a popular app called Snapchat regarding teenagers and their friendships.  Go ahead, click the link and read. http://www.businessinsider.com/teens-are-obsessed-with-snap-streaks-on-snapchat-2016-12 Perfect, you made it back here safe and sound.  Okay, so in the article above, Jacob Shamsian—a journal...

***Spoiler Alert*** When thinking about all of your friendships, whether you have been friends for a week or sixteen years, they all had to start somewhere.   College is a time when many new friendships are formed simply because students are surrounded with a brand new group of people.   Establishing these new friendships is key to the college experience.   Even being at a small college campus, I still establish new friendships on a regular basis as a sophomore.    New friendships can be complex even though they are just getting started because of the potential problems that could arise, which makes them the perfect basis for many television shows and movies. Mean Girls has all kinds of conflict throughout the film.   The film provides many conflicts in the context of new friendships and Communication Privacy Management Theory. Communication Privacy Management Theory is simple.   It is centered around the idea of how pr...