conflict with a friend essay

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Resolving Conflict in Friendships

The other day I had a bit of a falling out with my good friend Alissa. I told a guy she liked about a conversation we shared, not knowing she would be so offended by it. After my disagreement with Alissa, I realized that I had some decisions to make as to how I was going to deal with this conflict.

Yes, I had overstepped my boundaries. No, I didn’t want to lose my three-year friendship with Alissa over a comment I made to the guy she liked. So now what? In my mind, the options were to let her go in hopes the problem would go away or to try to talk it out with her. I decided to attempt the confrontation.

Conflict. It’s a fact of life. It’s a fact in friendships. You develop a friendship with someone, and conflict is sure to occur .

Many superficial friendships end up being shelved after an argument because there isn’t enough depth to warrant all the trouble it takes to smooth over the disagreement. Unfortunately, even when the friendship reaches a deeper level, conflict continues to happen and can break apart a relationship.

First and foremost, talk the situation over soon after it occurs. And do it quickly! From my experience, people begin to talk about what happened while it is still fresh in their minds. Good, step in the right direction, right? Well, not always… particularly when the talking isn’t with the person involved, but with other friends or acquaintances.

People begin to pick sides. The gossip circulates and all of a sudden, friends become enemies. Suddenly everyone is mad at everyone else. So, be sure to talk with the person with whom you are upset without the interference of people who aren’t really involved.

Resolve it the day it happens. One rule my parents follow in their marriage is that they don’t go to bed angry with each other. They always attempt to resolve things the day it happens so that in the morning, it’s a fresh start with no past grudges. I’ve found I need a short cool down period of a couple of minutes so that I don’t act in anger, and can instead act with a more rational mind. For some, counting to one hundred before saying anything may be an option. Whatever you do, don’t let things ride for too long. Even when you don’t see eye to eye, agree to disagree. Tell them that while you may not agree with what they’re saying, you still value their friendship.

Try to see the other person’s perspective. Sometimes if you sit down and talk things over, you begin to see where the other person is coming from. Realize that everyone has been created differently with various talents, abilities, and personality traits. For example, you might be a leader while your friend is more of a follower. You may be frustrated with him or her for not being very decisive. Yet it is important to understand that no matter what your quirks, each person is still unique and needs to be appreciated.

Here’s a tough one – initiate resolution. Be the first person in a fight to say sorry for your part. Even when you think the other person is wrong, it’s not a bad thing to say “I’m sorry you feel that way” or “I’m sorry if I offended you in that way.” If you’re honest, genuine, and gentle in delivering your words, there’s a good chance your friend will reciprocate positively. Use feeling words since no one can argue with your feelings. For example, “When you do this, you make me feel silly.”

Focus on the bigger picture. Successfully facing and working through the discomfort of conflict in a friendship has a worthwhile reward: a deeper relationship.

Don’t accuse by using the word, “you.”

Be sensitive. Try to offer solutions when appropriate, but know when to listen. Don’t underestimate the importance of a listening ear.

Most important, be loving in what you do. Don’t go out to “get” the other person, but try to focus on peacefully resolving the disagreement.

Resolving conflict in any friendship is not the most pleasant task, but it is worth the hassle because the result on the other end is a deeper friendship.

Reprinted with permission from Iamnext.com

This article was written by: Kristin Feenstra

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Bad friends

Even the best of friends can fill you with tension and make you sick. why does friendship so readily turn toxic.

by Carlin Flora   + BIO

Think of a time when you sat across from a friend and felt truly understood. Deeply known. Maybe you sensed how she was bringing out your ‘best self’, your cleverest observations and wittiest jokes. She encouraged you. She listened, articulated one of your patterns, and then gently suggested how you might shift it for the better. The two of you gossiped about your mutual friends, skipped between shared memories, and delved into cherished subjects in a seamlessly scripted exchange full of shorthand and punctuated with knowing expressions. Perhaps you felt a warm swell of admiration for her, and a simultaneous sense of pride in your similarity to her. You felt deep satisfaction to be valued by someone you held in such high regard: happy, nourished and energised through it all.

These are the friendships that fill our souls, and bolster and shape our identities and life paths. They have also been squeezed into social science labs enough times for us to know that they keep us mentally and physically healthy: good friends improve immunity , spark creativity , drop our blood pressure , ward off dementia among the elderly , and even decrease our chances of dying at any given time. If you feel you can’t live without your friends, you’re not being melodramatic.

But even our easiest and richest friendships can be laced with tensions and conflicts, as are most human relationships. They can lose a bit of their magic and fail to regain it, or even fade out altogether for tragic reasons, or no reason at all. Then there are the not-so-easy friendships; increasingly difficult friendships; and bad, gut-wrenching, toxic friendships. The pleasures and benefits of good friends are abundant, but they come with a price. Friendship, looked at through a clear and wide lens, is far messier and more lopsided than it is often portrayed.

The first cold splash on an idealised notion of friendship is the data showing that only about half of friendships are reciprocal . This is shocking to people, since research confirms that we actually assume nearly all our friendships are reciprocal. Can you guess who on your list of friends wouldn’t list you?

One explanation for imbalance is that many friendships are aspirational : a study of teens shows that people want to be friends with popular people, but those higher up the social hierarchy have their pick (and skew the average). A corroborating piece of evidence, which was highlighted by Steven Strogatz in a 2012 article in The New York Times, is the finding that your Facebook ‘friends’ always have, on average, more ‘friends’ than you do. So much for friendship being an oasis from our status-obsessed world.

‘Ambivalent’ relationships, in social science parlance, are characterised by interdependence and conflict. You have many positive and negative feelings toward these people. You might think twice about picking up when they call. These relationships turn out to be common, too. Close to half of one’s important social network members are identified as ambivalent. Granted, more of those are family members (whom we’re stuck with) than friends, but still, for friendship, it’s another push off the pedestal.

Friends who are loyal, reliable, interesting companions – good! – can also be bad for you, should they have other qualities that are less desirable. We know through social network research that depressed friends make it more likely you’ll be depressed, obese friends make it more likely you’ll become obese, and friends who smoke or drink a lot make it more likely you’ll smoke and drink more.

Other ‘good’ friends might have, or start to have, goals, values or habits that misalign with your current or emerging ones. They certainly haven’t ‘done’ anything to you. But they aren’t a group that validates who you are, or that will effortlessly lift you up toward your aims over time. Stay with them, and you’ll be walking against the wind.

In addition to annoying us, these mixed-bag friendships harm our health. A 2003 study by Julianne Holt-Lunstad from Brigham Young University and Bert Uchino from the University of Utah asked people to wear blood-pressure monitors and write down interactions with various people. Blood pressure was higher with ambivalent relationships than it was with friends or outright enemies. This is probably due to the unpredictability of these relationships, which leads us to be vigilant: Will Jen ruin Christmas this year? Ambivalent relationships have also been associated with increased cardiovascular reactivity, greater cellular ageing , lowered resistance to stress, and a decreased sense of wellbeing.

One research team, though, found that ambivalent friendships might have benefits in the workplace. They showed that in these pairings workers are more likely to put themselves in the other’s shoes, in part because they are trying to figure out what the relationship means and what it is. Also, because ambivalent friendships make you feel uncertain about where you stand, they can push you to work harder to establish your position.

‘Frenemies’ are perhaps a separate variety in that they are neatly multi-layered – friendliness atop rivalry or dislike – as opposed to the ambivalent relationship’s admixture of love, hate, annoyance, pity, devotion and tenderness. Plenty of people have attested to the motivating force of a frenemy at work, as well as in the realms of romance and parenting.

A s with unhappy families, there are countless ways a friend can be full-on ‘bad’, no ambivalence about it. Susan Heitler, a clinical psychologist in Denver, and Sharon Livingston, a psychologist and marketing consultant in New York, have studied the issue, and found some typical qualities: a bad friend makes you feel competitive with her other friends; she talks much more about herself than you do about yourself; she criticises you in a self-righteous way but is defensive when you criticise her; she makes you feel you’re walking on eggshells and might easily spark her anger or disapproval; she has you on an emotional rollercoaster where one day she’s responsive and complimentary and the next she freezes you out.

In 2014 , a team at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh found that, as the amount of negativity in relationships increased for healthy women aged over 50, so did their risk of developing hypertension. Negative social interactions – incidents including excessive demands, criticism, disappointment and disagreeable exchanges – were related to a 38 per cent increased risk. For men, there was no link between bad relationships and high blood pressure. This is likely because women care more about, and are socialised to pay more attention to, relationships.

Negative interactions can lead to inflammation, too, in both men and women. Jessica Chiang, a researcher at the University of California, Los Angeles, who conducted a study showing as much, has said that an accumulation of social stressors could cause physical damage, just like an actual toxin.

Some of our most hurtful friendships start out good, but then became bad. Among teens, for example, the rates of cyber aggression are 4.3 times higher between friends than between friends of friends. Or as Diane de Poitiers, the 16th-century mistress of King Henry II of France, said: ‘To have a good enemy, choose a friend: he knows where to strike.’

The writer Robert Greene addresses the slippery slope in his book The 48 Laws of Power (1998). Bringing friends into your professional endeavours can aid the gradual crossover from ‘good’ to ‘bad’, he warns, in part because of how we react to grand favours:

Strangely enough, it is your act of kindness that unbalances everything. People want to feel they deserve their good fortune. The receipt of a favour can become oppressive: it means you have been chosen because you are a friend, not necessarily because you are deserving. There is almost a touch of condescension in the act of hiring friends that secretly afflicts them. The injury will come out slowly: a little more honesty, flashes of resentment and envy here and there, and before you know it your friendship fades.

Ah – so too much giving and ‘a little more honesty’ are friendship-disrupters? That conclusion, which runs counter to the ethos of total openness and unlimited generosity between friends, provides a clue as to why there are so many ‘bad’, ‘good and bad’, and ‘good, then bad’ friends. In his paper ‘The Evolution of Reciprocal Altruism’ (1971), the evolutionary biologist Robert Trivers concludes that ‘each individual human is seen as possessing altruistic and cheating tendencies’, where cheating means giving at least a bit less (or taking at least a bit more) than a friend would give or take from us.

Good people do attract more friends (though being a high-status good person helps)

Trivers goes on to explain that we have evolved to be subtle cheaters, with complex mechanisms for regulating bigger cheaters and also ‘too much’ altruism. He writes:

In gross cheating, the cheater fails to reciprocate at all, and the altruist suffers the costs of whatever altruism he has dispensed without any compensating benefit… clearly, selection will strongly favour prompt discrimination against the gross cheater. Subtle cheating, by contrast, involves reciprocating, but always attempting to give less than one was given, or more precisely, to give less than the partner would give if the situation were reversed.

The rewarding emotion of ‘liking’ someone is also a part of this psychological regulation system, and selection will favour liking those who are altruistic: good people do attract more friends (though being a high-status good person helps). But the issue is not whether we are cheaters or altruists, good or bad, but to what degree are we each of those things in different contexts and relationships.

P erhaps this seesaw between cheating and altruism, which settles to a midpoint of 50/50, explains why 50 per cent keeps coming up in research on friends and relationships. Recall that half of our friendships are non-reciprocal, half of our social network consists of ambivalent relationships, and – to dip into the adjacent field of lie detection – the average person detects lies right around 50 per cent of the time. We evolved to be able to detect enough lies to not be totally swindled, but not enough to wither under the harsh truths of (white-lie-free) social interactions. Likewise, we’ve evolved to detect some cheating behaviours in friends, but not enough to prohibit our ability to be friends with people at all. As the seesaw wobbles, so do our friendships.

Should this sound like a complicated business to you, Trivers agrees, and in fact speculates that the development of this system for regulating altruism among non-kin members is what made our brains grow so big in the Pleistocene. Many neuroscientists agree with his conclusion: humans are smart so that we can navigate friendship.

The psychologist Jan Yager, author of When Friendship Hurts (2002), found that 68 per cent of survey respondents had been betrayed by a friend. Who are these betrayers? At such high numbers, could ‘they’ be us?

We somehow expect friendships to be forever. Friendship break-ups challenge our vision of who we are

That scary thought leads me to ask: are we really striving to forgive small sins? To air our grievances before they accumulate and blow up our friendships? To make the effort to get together? To give others the benefit of the doubt? Are we giving what we can, or keeping score? Are we unfairly expecting friends to think and believe the exact same things we do? Are we really doing the best we can? Well, maybe that’s what most of our friends think they are doing, too. And if they aren’t being a good friend, or if they have drifted away from us, or we from them, maybe we can accept these common rifts, without giving into a guilt so overwhelming that it pushes us to slap a label on those we no longer want for friends: toxic.

When a friend breaks up with us, or disappears without explanation, it can be devastating. Even though the churning and pruning of social networks is common over time, we still somehow expect friendships to be forever. Friendship break-ups challenge our vision of who we are, especially if we’ve been intertwined with a friend for many years. Pulsing with hurt in the wake of a friend break-up, we hurl him or her into the ‘bad friends’ basket.

But, sometimes, we have to drop a friend to become ourselves. In Connecting in College (2016), the sociologist Janice McCabe argues that ending friendships in young adulthood is a way of advancing our identities. We construct our self-images and personalities against our friends, in both positive and negative ways.

As much as we need to take responsibility for being better friends and for our part in relationship conflict and break-ups, quite a few factors surrounding friendship are out of our control. Social network embeddedness, where you and another person have many friends in common, for instance, is a big challenge. Let’s say someone crosses a line, but you don’t want to disturb the group, so you don’t declare that you no longer think of him as a friend. You pull back from him, but not so much that it will spark a direct confrontation, whereby people would then be forced to invite only one of you, but not both, to events. Sometimes we are yoked to bad friends.

The forces that dictate whom we stay close to and whom we let go can be mysterious even to ourselves. Aren’t there people you like very much whom you haven’t contacted in a long time? And others you don’t connect with as well whom you see more often? The former group might be pencilling you into their ‘bad friend’ column right now.

Dealing with bad friends, getting dumped by them, and feeling disappointed with them is a stressful part of life, and it can harm your body and mind. Yet having no friends at all is a far worse fate. Imagine a child’s desperation for a playmate, a teenager’s deep longing for someone who ‘gets’ her, or an adult’s realisation that there is no one with whom he can share a failure or even a success. Loneliness is as painful as extreme thirst or hunger. John Cacioppo, a professor of sociology at the University of Chicago, has found associations between loneliness and depression, obesity, alcoholism, cardiovascular problems, sleep dysfunction, high blood pressure, the progression of Alzheimer’s disease, cynical world views and suicidal thoughts. But if you have friend problems, you have friends – and that means you’re pretty lucky.

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Resolving Conflicts with Best Friends: A Guide to Deepen Relationships

November 3, 2023

Sophia Foster

Learn effective strategies for resolving conflicts with your best friend and strengthening your relationship. Address issues, communicate openly, and find resolutions.

Introduction

Even with your closest friendships, conflicts can arise. Resolving conflicts with a best friend is important for the relationship to grow. This article provides a guide on how to address conflicts, communicate effectively, and find resolutions to deepen your friendship. By following the tips and strategies outlined in this article, you can navigate the storm of conflict and cultivate lasting harmony with your best friend.

Addressing the Conflict

Navigating conflicts in long-term friendships can be challenging, but with the right approach, it is possible to resolve issues effectively. Here are some key elements to consider when addressing a conflict with your best friend:

Choose the right moment : Timing is crucial when addressing a conflict. Choose a time when both you and your friend are in a calm and receptive state of mind. It’s important to respect your friend’s boundaries and give them a heads-up before diving into the discussion. If they need more time to process, be patient and allow them the space they need.

Plan out what to say : Before approaching your friend, take some time to reflect on the issue at hand. Think about what you want to express and consider their perspective as well. By planning your thoughts and being mindful of your words, you can avoid adding unnecessary drama or escalating emotions during the conversation.

Communicate openly and honestly: Engage in conversation with your friend, using a method that makes both of you feel comfortable, whether that’s through texting, calling, or meeting in person. During the discussion, it’s crucial to maintain open and honest communication. Avoid attacking their character or making accusatory comments. Instead, focus on expressing your own feelings and concerns without placing blame.

Remember, the goal is not to “win” the argument, but rather to find a resolution that promotes understanding and strengthens your friendship. By approaching the conflict with compassion, respect, and a willingness to listen, you can address the issues at hand and work towards finding a common ground.

[phrase: “Choose the right moment”, “Plan out what to say”, “Communicate openly and honestly”]

Communicating from Both Points of View

Engaging in open and honest communication is one of the key principles in resolving conflicts. When handling conflict with your best friend, it’s important to consider both points of view. Here’s how you can effectively communicate from both perspectives:

Keep an open mind : It’s essential to keep an open mind and be willing to understand the other person’s perspective. Be mindful of your own assumptions and be receptive to hearing their side of the story. By approaching the conversation with an open mind, you create a safe space for honest dialogue and increase the chances of finding a resolution.

Listen actively : Communication is not just about expressing yourself; it’s also about actively listening to what the other person has to say. Practice active listening by giving your full attention to your friend, maintaining eye contact, and asking questions for clarification. By showing that you value their input, you foster a sense of trust and openness in the conversation.

Acknowledge feelings and perspective : In any conflict, emotions are bound to arise. Take the time to acknowledge your friend’s feelings and perspective, even if you don’t necessarily agree. Validate their emotions, and let them know that you understand their point of view. This helps create a sense of empathy and fosters a deeper connection between both parties.

[phrase: “Keep an open mind”, “Listen actively”, “Acknowledge feelings and perspective”]

By incorporating these key elements into your communication, you can facilitate a healthy and productive dialogue with your best friend. The next sections of this article will delve deeper into the process of resolving conflicts and strengthening your bond. Stay tuned for more tips and strategies on addressing conflicts, conveying honest feelings, and moving on from the past. Together, we can navigate the storm of conflict and cultivate lasting harmony in our friendships.

Continue reading for tips on Conveying Honest Feelings and Suggesting Solutions and Moving On from the Past .

Conveying Honest Feelings and Suggesting Solutions

While it’s important to stand by your feelings, keeping an open mind and being willing to understand the other person’s perspective can help in finding a resolution. Here are some strategies for effectively conveying your feelings and suggesting potential solutions:

Express emotions with honesty : It’s crucial to express your emotions honestly and assertively, without attacking or blaming the other person. Use “I” statements to convey how the conflict has made you feel and explain the impact it has had on your friendship. For example, instead of saying “You always ignore me,” try saying “I feel hurt when I don’t receive a response to my messages.”

Acknowledge their feelings : Just as it’s important for you to express your own feelings, it’s equally vital to acknowledge and validate your friend’s emotions. Show empathy towards their perspective and let them know that you understand how they might be feeling. By demonstrating mutual respect and understanding, you create a space where both parties can feel heard and valued.

Suggest potential solutions : Moving towards a resolution involves finding common ground and exploring potential solutions together. Brainstorm ideas with your friend and be open to compromise. Remember that finding a resolution doesn’t mean that one person wins and the other loses, but rather that both parties feel satisfied with the outcome. Working together to find a solution promotes a sense of collaboration and strengthens the bond between friends.

By conveying honest feelings and suggesting potential solutions, you take a proactive approach to resolving conflicts with your best friend. Remember, expressing yourself in a respectful and compassionate manner is key to maintaining the trust and connection within your friendship.

[phrase: “Express emotions with honesty”, “Acknowledge their feelings”, “Suggest potential solutions”]

Moving On from the Past

It’s important to accept that sometimes a friendship may reach its expiration date, and if that’s the case, it’s possible to part ways amicably. However, if both parties are committed to preserving their friendship, dedicating time to reminisce about favorite memories and focusing on the future, rather than dwelling on past conflicts, can help in moving forward. Here’s how to navigate the process of moving on from the past:

Reflect on friendship memories: Take the time to remember the positive aspects of your friendship. Reflect on the good times you’ve shared, the laughter, and the meaningful moments. Reminiscing about these memories can remind both of you of the strong bond you have and help put any recent conflicts into perspective.

Focus on the future : Instead of dwelling on past conflicts, shift your focus towards the future. Identify common goals and aspirations that you both share and discuss how you can work together to achieve them. This forward-thinking mindset can help rebuild trust and create a shared vision that strengthens the foundation of your friendship.

Let go of grudges : Holding onto grudges and resentments from the past will only hinder the progress of your friendship. Practice forgiveness and let go of negative emotions. This doesn’t mean forgetting or ignoring the past, but rather choosing to prioritize the present and future over past grievances. By releasing the weight of grudges, you create space for personal growth and the healing of your friendship.

It’s important to approach the process of moving on from the past with patience, understanding, and a willingness to let go. Remember that conflicts are a natural part of any relationship, and overcoming them can lead to a stronger and more resilient friendship.

[phrase: “Reflect on friendship memories”, “Focus on the future”, “Let go of grudges”]

Resolving conflicts with best friends is essential to deepen the relationship. By addressing the conflict, communicating openly and honestly, and moving on from the past, friends can find resolutions and strengthen their bond. Remember, conflict can ultimately strengthen relationships and improve communication if approached with respect and a willingness to find common ground.

Throughout this article, we have explored valuable tips and strategies for navigating conflicts in long-term friendships. From choosing the right moment to express your concerns, to communicating from both points of view, and ultimately finding resolutions and moving forward, these tools are designed to promote understanding and foster stronger connections with your best friends.

It’s important to remember that each friendship is unique, and there is no one-size-fits-all solution to resolving conflicts. However, by incorporating the principles of honesty, empathy, and active listening into your communication, you can create a safe and supportive environment for addressing issues and strengthening your bond.

In instances where conflicts persist or feel too challenging to navigate on your own, seeking professional help, such as couples therapy or online courses, can provide additional guidance and support. These resources offer a valuable space for exploration and growth, assisting individuals in developing the necessary skills to manage and resolve conflicts effectively.

As you continue on your journey of nurturing your friendships, remember that conflicts are opportunities for growth, understanding, and ultimately, deepening your connections. Embrace the challenges, approach them with empathy and a commitment to open communication, and watch as your friendships flourish and thrive.

So, go ahead and navigate the storm of conflict, for on the other side lies the treasure of lasting harmony and stronger relationships.

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Friday essay: on the ending of a friendship

Emeritus Professor of Creative writing, The University of Melbourne

Disclosure statement

Kevin John Brophy does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

University of Melbourne provides funding as a founding partner of The Conversation AU.

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Friendship is an incomparable, immeasurable boon to me, and a source of life — not metaphorically but literally.

• Simone Weil

About eight years ago, I went to dinner with a dear friend I had known for more than 40 years. It would be the last time we would see each other and by the end of that evening I was deeply shaken. But more lasting and more unsettling than this has been the feeling of loss without his friendship. It was a sudden ending but it was also an ending that lasted for me well beyond that evening. I have worried since then at what kind of friend I am to my friends, and why a friendship can suddenly self-destruct while others can so unexpectedly bloom.

My friend and I were used to going to dinner together, though it had become an increasingly tricky matter for us. We had been seeing each other more infrequently, and our conversations had been tending towards repetition. I still enjoyed his passion for talk, his willingness to be puzzled by life’s events, our comically growing list of minor ailments as we entered our sixties, and the old stories he fell back on — usually stories of his minor triumphs, such as the time his car burst into fire, was declared a write-off by insurance, and ended in an auction house where he bought it back with part of the insurance payout and only minor repairs to be made. There were stories of his time as a barman in one of Melbourne’s roughest pubs. I suppose in a lot of long-lasting friendships it is these repeated stories of the past that can fill the present so richly.

Nevertheless, both his opinions and mine seemed to have become too predictable. Even his desire to come up with the most unpredictable viewpoint on any problem was a routine I expected from him. Each of us knew the weaknesses in the other’s thinking, and we had learned not to go too far with some topics, which were of course the most interesting and important ones.

He knew how politically correct I could be, and shrewdly enough he had no time for my self-righteousness, the predictability of my views on gender, race and climate. I understood this. He knew too that his fiercely independent thinking was often just the usual rant against greenies or lefties. Something had begun to fail in our friendship, but I could not properly perceive this or speak of it.

We were a contrasting pair. He was a big man with an aggressive edge to his gregarious nature, while I was lean, short and physically slight next to him, a much more reserved person altogether. I liked his size because big men have been protective figures in my life. At times when I felt threatened I would ask him to come with me to a meeting or a transaction, and just stand next to me in his big way. During one long period of trouble with our neighbours he would visit when the tension was high to show his formidable presence and his solidarity with us.

I was always reading and knew how to talk books, while he was too restless to read much. He knew how to sing, bursting into song occasionally when we were together. He had been unable to work professionally since a breakdown that was both physical and mental. By contrast, I was working steadily, never quite as free with my time as he was.

Nearly two years before our last dinner together his wife had suddenly left him. As it turned out, she had been planning her departure for some time, but when she went he was taken by surprise. I saw a more confused and fragile side of him during those months when we would meet and talk through how he was dealing with their counselling sessions, and then how the negotiations were proceeding over belongings and finally the family house. He was learning to live alone for the first time since he had been a young man, and was exploring what it might be like to seek out new relationships.

Read more: Research Check: is it true only half your friends actually like you?

A safe haven

We had met when I was a first-year university student boarding at my grandmother’s home in an inner Melbourne suburb. I was studying for a Bachelor of Arts, staying up through the nights, discovering literature, music, history, cask wine, dope, girls and ideas.

He lived in a flat a few doors away in a street behind my grandmother’s place, and I remember it was the local parish youth group, or the remnants of one, that used to meet in his flat. In my friend’s flat we would lie around the floor, half a dozen of us, drinking, flirting, arguing about religion or politics until the night was strung out in our heads, tight and thin and vibrating with possibilities. I loved that sudden intimate and intellectually rich contact with people my own age.

My friend and I started up a coffee lounge in an old disused shopfront as a meeting place for youth who would otherwise be on the street. I was the one who became immersed in the chaotic life of the place as students, musicians, misfits, hopeful poets and petty criminals floated through the shop, while my friend kept his eye on the broader picture that involved real estate agents, local councils, supplies of coffee, income and expenditure.

Perhaps the experience helped delay my own adulthood, allowing me time to try out a bohemian, communal alternative lifestyle that was so important to some of us in the early 1970s. My friend, though, was soon married. It was as if he had been living a parallel life outside our friendship, outside the youth group, coffee shop, jug band, drugs and misadventures of our project.

This did not break us up, and in fact after his marriage he became another kind of friend. I was at times struggling to find some steady sense of myself. Sometimes in those years I would not be able to talk or even be near others, and I remember once when I felt like this I went to my newly married friend’s home, and asked if I could lie on the floor in the corner of their lounge room for a few days until I felt better.

They indulged me. I felt it was this haven that saved me then, giving me the time to recoup and giving me a sense that there was somewhere I could go where the world was safe and neutral.

In time, and more bumpily and uncertainly than my friend, I was with a partner raising a family. He was often involved in our children’s birthdays, other celebrations, our house-moving, and just dropping in on family meals. It worked for us. I remember him lifting our cast iron wood-burning stove into its place in our first renovated Brunswick cottage. He lived in a more sprawling home near bushland on the edge of Melbourne, so one of my pleasures became the long cycling trips out to see him.

My partner and I were embraced by a local community thanks to the childcare centre, kinders, schools and sport. Lasting friendships (for us and for our children) grew in the tentative, open-ended, slightly blindly feeling way of friendships. Through this decade and a half though, the particular friendship with my songful friend held, perhaps to the surprise of both of us.

‘Tolerating much, for the sake of best intentions’

In his thoroughly likeable 1993 book on friendship , the political scientist Graham Little wrote under the bright light of writings by Aristotle and Freud, that the purest kind of friendship “welcomes the different ways people are alive to life and tolerates much in a friend for the sake of best intentions”.

Here perhaps is the closest I have seen to a definition of friendship at its best: a stance imbued with sympathy, interest and excitement directed at another despite all that otherwise shows we are flawed and dangerous creatures.

On that evening, the evening of the last time we went out to dinner together, I did push my friend towards one of the topics we usually avoided. I had been wanting him to acknowledge and even apologise for his behaviour towards some young women he had spoken to, I thought, lewdly and insultingly nearly a year before in my home at a party. The women and those of us who had witnessed his behaviour felt continuing tension over his refusal to discuss the fact that he had wanted to speak so insultingly to them and then had done it in our home in front of us. For me, there was some element of betrayal, not only in the way he had behaved but in his continued refusal to discuss what had happened.

The women were drunk, he said, just as he had said the last time I tried to talk to him about this. They were wearing almost nothing, he said, and what he’d said to them was no more than they were expecting. My friend and I were sitting in a popular Thai restaurant on Sydney Road: metal chairs, plastic tables, concrete floor. It was noisy, packed with students, young couples and groups out for a cheap and tasty meal. A waitress had put menus, water and beer on our table while she waited for us to decide on our meals. Wanting to push finally past this impasse, I pointed out to him that the women had not insulted him, he had insulted them.

If that’s the way you want it, he replied, and placed his hands on each side of the table, hurling it into the air and walking out of the restaurant as table, bottles, glasses, water and beer came clattering and smashing down around me. The whole restaurant fell silent. I could not move for some time. The waitress began mopping up the floor around me. Someone called out, “Hey, are you all right?”

This was the last time I saw or heard from him. For many months, I thought of him every day, then slowly I thought of him less often, until now I can think of him more or less at will, and not find myself ashamed of the way I went for him in a conversation where I should have been perhaps more alive to whatever was troubling him.

Improvised, tentative

For some years after this, I felt I had to learn how to be myself without him. I have read articles and essays since then about how pitiful men can be at friendship. We are apparently too competitive, we base our friendships on common activities, which means we can avoid talking openly about our feelings and thoughts. I don’t know about this “male deficit model”, as some sociologists call it, but I do know that the loss of this friendship took with it a big part of my shared personal history at that time. It dented my confidence in ever having properly known this man or understood our friendship — or in knowing how secure any friendship might be.

I was drawn to read and re-read Michel de Montaigne’s gentle and strangely extreme essay on friendship where he was so certain that he knew with perfection what his friend would think and say and value. He wrote of his friend, Etienne de Boëtie, “Not only did I know his mind as well as I knew my own but I would have entrusted myself to him with greater assurance than to myself.”

Against this perfection of understanding between friends, there is George Eliot’s odd excursion into science fiction in her 1859 novel, The Lifted Veil . Her narrator, Latimer, finds he can perceive perfectly clearly the thoughts of all the people around him. He becomes disgusted and deeply disturbed by the petty self-interest he apparently discovers within everyone.

After 40 years of shared history, there was not the disgust Eliot writes of, nor Montaigne’s perfect union of mind and trust between me and my burly friend, but there was, I had thought, a foundation of knowledge whereby we took each other’s differences into ourselves, as well as our common histories of the cafe we had run, and as it happened our common serving of time in semi-monastic seminaries before we’d met — differences and similarities that had given us, I thought, ways of being in sympathy with each other while allowing for each other.

Read more: Guide to the classics: Michel de Montaigne's Essays

Montaigne’s dearest friend, Etienne, had died, and his essay was as much about the meaning of this loss as about friendship. His big idea was loyalty, and I think I understand that, though not in the absolute way Montaigne wrote of it.

Loyalty is only real if it is constantly renewed. I worry that I have not worked enough at some friendships that have come into my life, but have let them happen more passively than the women I know who spend such time, and such complicated time, exploring and testing friendships. The sudden disappearance of my friend left me with an awareness of how patched-together, how improvised, clumsy and tentative even the most secure-seeming friendship can be.

When the philosopher and brilliant essayist, Simone Weil wrote shortly before she died in 1943,

I may lose, at any moment, through the play of circumstances over which I have no control, anything whatsoever that I possess, including things that are so intimately mine that I consider them as myself. There is nothing that I might not lose. It could happen at any moment ….

she seemed to be touching on the difficult truth that we run on luck and hope and chance much of the time. Why haven’t I worked harder at friendships, when I know that they provide the real meaning in my life?

Some years ago, when I was told by a medical specialist that I had a 30% chance of having cancer, as I waited for the results of a biopsy, I remember that in response to these dismal odds I had no desire to go back to work, no desire to even read — all I wanted to do was spend time with friends.

Inner worlds laid waste

To know what it is we care about, this is a gift. It should be straightforward to know this and keep it present in our lives, but it can prove to be difficult. Being the reader that I am, I have always turned to literature and fiction for answers or insights into those questions that seem to need answering.

I realised some time after the ending of my friendship that I had been reading novels dealing with friendship, and was not even sure how consciously I had chosen them.

For instance, I read The Book of Strange New Things by Michel Faber, a novel about a Christian preacher, Peter Leigh, sent to convert aliens in a galaxy ludicrously far from earth on a planet with an equally unlikely atmosphere benign to its human colonisers.

It is a novel about whether Leigh can be any kind of adequate friend to his wife left behind on Earth, and whether his new feelings for these aliens amounts to friendship. Though my suspension of disbelief was precarious, I found myself caring about these characters and their relationships, even the grotesquely shapeless aliens. Partly I cared about them because the book read like an essay testing ideas of friendship and loyalty that were important and urgent to the writer.

I also read at that time Haruki Murakami’s novel, Colorless Tsukuru Tazaki and His Years of Pilgrimage , a book that came with a little game of coloured cards and stickers, and I found that I cared about Tsukuru Tazaki too, for I felt all along that Murakami’s character was a thin and endearing disguise for himself (what a beautiful word that is, “en-dearing”).

The novel centred on lost friendships. I heard a tone in its voice that was the oddly flat, persistent, vulnerable and sincere searching of a man for connection with others. If Murakami’s novel has a proposition it wishes to test it would be that we only know ourselves in what images of ourselves we receive back from our friends. Without our friends we become invisible, lost.

In both those novels, the friendships are crashing to pieces in slow motion in front of the reader’s helpless eyes. I wanted to shake those characters, tell them to stop and think about what they were doing, but at the same time I saw in them mirrors of myself and my experiences.

I read John Berger too , on the way a human looks across an abyss of incomprehension when looking at another animal. Though language seems to connect us, it might be that language also distracts us from the actual abyss of ignorance and fear between all of us as we look, across, at each other. In his book on the savage mind , Lévi-Strauss quotes a study of Canadian Carrier Indians living on the Bulkley River who were able to cross that abyss between species, believing they knew what animals did and what their needs were because their men had been married to the salmon, the beaver and the bear.

I have read essays by Robin Dunbar on the evolutionary limits to our circles of intimacy , where he suggests that for most of us there needs to be three or maybe five truly close friends. These are the ones we lean towards with tenderness and open ourselves to with endless curiosity — those in whom we seek only the good.

My partner can name quickly four friends who qualify for her as part of this necessary circle. I find I can name two (and she is one of them), then a constellation of individual friends whose closeness to me I can’t easily measure. It is this constellation that sustains me.

Recently I was away from home for three months. After two weeks away I wrote a list in the back of my diary of the friends I was missing. A little more than a dozen of these were the friends, men and women, with whom I need contact, and with whom conversations are always open-ended, surprising, intellectually stimulating, sometimes intimate, and often fun. With each of them I explore a slightly different but always essential version of myself. Graham Little wrote that “ideal soulmates are friends who are fully aware that each has himself as his main life project”.

To live this takes some effort of imagination, and with my friend at dinner that night I might in myself have been refusing to make this effort.

There are also, it occurs to me, the friends who came as couples, with whom my partner and I share time as couples. This is itself another manifestation of friendship, one that crosses over into community, tribe and family — and no less precious than the individual intimacy of a personal friendship. For reasons I can’t properly fathom, the importance of this kind of time with coupled friends has deepened as I have grown through the decades of my fifties and sixties.

Perhaps it is that the dance of conversation and ideas is so much more complex and pleasurable when there are four or more contributing. It could be too that I am absolved from the responsibility of really working at these friendships in the way one must when there are two of us. Or it might be the pang and stimulus of the knowledge that opportunities to be together are brutally diminishing as we grow older.

But to lose an individual friend from one’s closest circle is to have large tracts of one’s inner world laid waste for a time. My feelings over the end of this particular friendship were a kind of grief mixed with bewilderment.

It was not that the friendship was necessary to my existence, but that perhaps through habit and sympathy it had become a fixed part of my identity. Robin Dunbar would say that by stepping away from this friendship I had made room for someone else to slip in to my circle of most intimate friends, but isn’t it the point of such close friends that they are in some important sense irreplaceable? This is the source of much of our distress when such friendships end.

Still learning

When I told people about what had happened in the restaurant that night, they would say, reasonably, “Why don’t you patch things up and resume your friendship?”

As I imagined how a conversation might go if I did meet my friend again, I came to understand that I had been a provocation to him. I had ceased to be the friend he needed, wanted or imagined.

What he did was dramatic. He might have called it merely dramatic. I felt it as threatening. Though I cannot help but think I provoked him. And if we had “patched” a friendship back together, on whose terms would this have been conducted? Would it always be that I would have to agree not to press him on questions that might lead him to throw over some table between us again?

Or worse, would I have to witness his apology, forgive him myself, and put him on his best behaviour for the rest of our friendship?

Neither of those outcomes would have patched much together. I had been hurting too over what I saw as his lack of willingness or interest to understand the situation from my point of view. And so it went inside me as the table and the water and the beer and the glasses came crashing down around me. I had been, in a way, married to my friend, even if he was a salmon or a bear — a creature across an abyss from me. Perhaps this was the only way out of that marriage. Perhaps he had been preparing for (moving towards?) this moment more consciously than I had been.

The ending of this friendship, it is clear, left me looking for its story. It was as if all along there must have been a narrative with a trajectory carrying us in this direction. A story is of course a way of testing whether an experience can take on a shape. Murakami’s and Faber’s novels are not themselves full-blown stories, for there is almost no plot, no shape, to their stumbling episodic structures, and oddly enough in both books the self-doubting lovers might or might not find that close communion with another somewhere well beyond the last page of each novel.

These novels cohere round a series of questions rather than events: what do we know and what can we know about others, what is the nature of the distance that separates one person from another, how provisional is it to know someone anyway, and what does it mean to care about someone, even someone who is a character in a novel?

When an Indian says he is married to a salmon, this can be no stranger than me saying I spent a couple of weeks on a humid planet in another galaxy with an astronaut who is a Christian preacher and an inept husband, or I spent last night in Tokyo with an engineer who builds railway stations and believes himself to be colourless, though at least two women have told him he is full of colour. But do I go to this story-making as a way of keeping my experiences less personal and more cerebral?

When I got home that night eight years ago, I sat at my kitchen table, shaking, hugging myself, talking to my grown-up children about what happened. It was the talking that helped — a narrative taking shape.

Dunbar, like me, like all of us, worries at the question of what makes life so richly present to us, and why friendships seem to be at the core of this meaningfulness. He has been surveying Americans with questions about friendship for several decades, and he concludes that for many of us the small circle of intimate friendships we experience is reducing.

We are apparently lucky now, on average, if there are two people in our lives we can approach with tenderness and curiosity, with that assumption that time will not matter as we talk in a low, murmuring, hive-warm way to a close friend.

My friend cannot be replaced, and it might be that we did not in the end imagine each other fully enough or accurately enough as we approached that last encounter. I don’t know precisely what our failure was. The shock of what happened and the shock of the friendship ending has over the time since that dinner become a part of my history in which I remember feeling grief but am no longer caught in confused anger or guilt over it. The story of it might not have ended but it has subsided.

Perhaps in all friendships we are not only, at our best, agreeing to encountering the unique and endlessly absorbing presence of another person, but unknown to us we’re learning something about how to approach the next friendship in our lives. There is something comically inept and endearing about the possibility that one might still be learning how to be a friend right up to the end of life.

• Friday essay
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“Treat your friends like you do your best pictures; place them in the best light.” ~Unknown

I recently had a disagreement with a close friend.

There was a good deal of uncontrolled emotion on my side. I wasn’t expressing myself well and I knew it. I became more and more frustrated and less effective at explaining my feelings.

I found myself laying unwarranted blame on my friend rather than admitting openly that something was hurting me and I was feeling vulnerable.

Ultimately, he said the words I was having trouble finding for me, and that resolved the situation.

I was embarrassed and grateful, but I realized I needed to evaluate a few of my shortcomings to avoid making the same mistake again.

I also realized that what I was feeling wasn’t the problem.

It was my inability to effectively convey what was in my heart and on my mind that led to hurt feelings and further misunderstanding.

After much self examination, I’ve come up with a few tips to communicate effectively during a conflict.

1. Think about whether this needs to be said right now, in this moment.

Sometimes the opportunity will be missed if not.

In my case, I felt I needed to bring the subject up right then or I might not have gotten the nerve again. I went for it, but it could have gone better if I’d waited to form a well organized idea of what I wanted to say.

2. Think about the other person’s state of mind.

Is he/she tired, under other stress, or not in an ideal place right now to have a heartfelt talk?

3. Consider if you have a good handle on your emotions.

Also, consider if you have the proper perspective to deal with the potential consequences.

Email, texts, and cell phone calls are not an ideal way to introduce the need to talk about something substantial.

4. Hold off on the confrontation if you feel the time is not right.

There is a marked difference in avoiding a hard topic and thoughtfully planning the ideal time to have a potentially difficult conversation.

5. Focus on breathing to help control your emotions.

If you begin a difficult conversation starting from a place of controlled emotion and grace, the path will be smoother.

6. Keep your perspective broad and realistic.

Don’t place too much importance on a single talk. Most of the progress in relationships comes from a series of discussions as they unravel naturally. Try and stay in the moment and minimize added drama by bringing up old or irrelevant issues.

7. Listen more than you talk.

It’s fine to be heard, but if you are not listening to the other’s response, the discussion is pointless.

8. Avoid adding unnecessary drama.

These things never help to fix a problem and ultimately bring more hurt to all involved. These include ultimatums, yelling, threatening to cut off the friendship, name calling, and personal attacks.

If it comes to that, walk away. Breathe, step back, and allow some time before you try again.

9. Focus on what the person is trying to communicate.

I’m often reminded as a parent to listen to my children’s words and not necessarily the emotion behind them. Emotions are fleeting, and rarely final. They are simply a temporary reaction to the current situation.

My three-year-old sometimes throws temper tantrums when she’s frustrated, but if I listen and respond to her words, it often diffuses her anger. Many times she is telling me she is not feeling heard as the youngest member of our family. I focus on the simple phrase, “Mommy! Listen to me!” Not her screaming voice and kicking feet.

10. Acknowledge the feelings.

If you acknowledge that someone is angry or hurt, you can better understand the sharp or harsh words that may be coming from them. You can choose to help them deal with their emotions or let them regain their composure to talk another time.

11. Take a realistic assessment of your true feelings in the moment.

I tend to distort and add unintended nuances to the words that others say when I am upset. This has caused me a great deal of distress in past conflicts. I am not on the wrong page, but in the wrong book sometimes metaphorically speaking.

After such experiences, I find the other person saying “How did you come to that conclusion from what I said?”

This is a classic example of our ability to inflict the worst hurts upon ourselves.

If I realize that I am upset and try to hear the words being said to me as they are, without my running mental commentary, things come across much clearer.

12. Clear the emotional fog enough to receive the message.

If you need to ask for clarification or even repeat what you think the other person is trying to say, so be it.

13. Know that most well established relationships can weather the occasional conflict just fine.

It can even be an opportunity to grow and evolve as you turn a new corner of understanding one another.

The friend I argued with is the best kind. He challenges me to broaden my perspective. He is relentless in keeping me from settling and expecting too little from life. He pushes me out of the nest over and over when I get too comfortable.

Don’t avoid expressing how you feel for the sake of preserving a friendship.

The foundation of all relationships is grounded on honesty and trust. It’s okay to show weakness, to be wrong, or to just plain melt down from time to time. Each person has something to give and something to learn. Conflict might be considered the way to pass along such knowledge.

I am fortunate my friend knew me well and was willing to give me space and offer forgiveness. The next time I have something to say, I will try to remember this and be more straightforward.

Every challenge with another is a chance to better our response. They give us the chance to practice patience, respect for others, detachment, and compassion. The added benefit is strengthening our relationships and our ability to communicate.

About Nicole Franco

Nicole Franco is an emerging freelance fiction writer seeking representation for her first novel. She enjoys family, horses, travel, reading, photography, and making others laugh. To read more of her writing or hire her for freelance work, visit francowrites.com .

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Essay on Conflicts Between Friends

Students are often asked to write an essay on Conflicts Between Friends in their schools and colleges. And if you’re also looking for the same, we have created 100-word, 250-word, and 500-word essays on the topic.

Let’s take a look…

100 Words Essay on Conflicts Between Friends

Understanding conflicts.

When friends argue, it’s called a conflict. This happens because people have different ideas and feelings. Just like when you want pizza and your friend wants a burger. It’s normal and can happen to anyone.

Reasons for Arguments

Friends might fight for many reasons. Maybe someone didn’t share, or they broke a promise. Sometimes, one friend might feel left out or jealous. These are common issues that can lead to a disagreement.

Solving the Problem

To fix a fight, friends need to talk and listen to each other. It’s important to say sorry if you hurt your friend’s feelings. By understanding each other, friends can make up and become closer.

Learning from Fights

After a fight, friends can learn how to act better next time. They learn about forgiveness and respect. Remember, making mistakes is okay, but fixing them and moving on is what really counts.

250 Words Essay on Conflicts Between Friends

What are conflicts between friends.

When friends disagree or fight, we call it a conflict. It’s like when two people want different things and can’t agree. Imagine two friends who both want to play with the same toy, but there’s only one toy. That could start a conflict.

Why Do These Conflicts Happen?

Conflicts can happen for many reasons. Maybe friends don’t share well, or they get jealous of each other. Sometimes, one friend might feel left out or hurt by what the other said. It’s normal because everyone is different and has their own ideas and feelings.

Can Conflicts Be Good?

Yes, conflicts can be good if friends learn from them. They can talk about what made them upset and understand each other better. This can make their friendship stronger. But, it’s important to fix the conflict by talking and listening, not by yelling or being mean.

How to Fix Conflicts

To fix a conflict, friends should talk to each other calmly. They should say how they feel and listen to what the other has to say. It’s also good to say sorry if you hurt your friend. Sometimes, you might need a break to cool down before talking.

Conflicts between friends are common and can be fixed if handled well. It’s all about understanding and respecting each other. Remember, it’s okay to disagree, but it’s not okay to hurt each other. Friends who work through conflicts can have even stronger friendships.

500 Words Essay on Conflicts Between Friends

When we talk about conflicts between friends, we mean times when friends disagree or get upset with each other. Just like how sometimes you might not want to share your toy with your sibling, friends can also have moments when they don’t see eye to eye. It could be about small things like who gets to use the soccer ball first, or bigger issues like feeling left out of a group.

Why Do Conflicts Happen?

Conflicts can happen for many reasons. Sometimes, friends might misunderstand each other. For example, if your friend didn’t wave back to you at the park, you might think they are mad at you. But maybe they just didn’t see you! Other times, friends might want different things. If you want to play video games and your friend wants to play basketball, you both might feel a little upset.

Feelings in Conflicts

When friends fight, they can feel many emotions. You might feel angry if you think your friend was being unfair. Or you might feel sad if you miss playing with them. It’s normal to have these feelings, but it’s important to handle them in a good way.

Talking It Out

One of the best ways to solve a conflict is to talk about it. This means sitting down with your friend and telling them how you feel. It’s important to listen to them, too. They might have feelings that you didn’t know about. When both friends share and listen, they can often find a way to make things better.

Apologizing and Forgiving

Sometimes, saying sorry is needed to fix a friendship. If you did something that hurt your friend, a sincere apology can show them you care. It’s just as important to forgive, too. If your friend says sorry, try to let go of the anger and move on. This doesn’t mean you forget what happened, but you choose not to stay upset about it.

Learning From Conflicts

Believe it or not, conflicts can actually help friendships grow stronger. When you work through a problem with a friend, you learn more about each other. You also learn how to solve problems, which is a skill you’ll use your whole life.

When to Get Help

Sometimes, a fight might be too big to handle on your own. If you and your friend can’t stop fighting, it might be time to talk to someone like a teacher or a parent. They can help you understand the problem better and find a way to make peace.

Conflicts between friends are a normal part of life. They can make you feel upset, but they can also be a chance to make your friendship even better. By talking, apologizing, and forgiving, you can solve most problems. And remember, it’s okay to ask for help if you need it. In the end, working through conflicts can teach you important lessons about friendship and about yourself.

That’s it! I hope the essay helped you.

If you’re looking for more, here are essays on other interesting topics:

• Essay on Contemporary Art
• Essay on Leadership Experience As A Student
• Essay on Leadership Experience

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Conflict with Friends, Relationship Blindness, and the Pathway to Adult Disagreeableness

The ability to form and maintain relationships with friends and romantic partners is a major developmental task for adolescents. Disagreeable youth are likely to struggle with this task, yet little is known about how they maintain their oppositional style from adolescence to adulthood. The current study examines the long-term implications of disagreeableness in a diverse sample of 164 adolescents assessed repeatedly across a 10-year period along with their friends and romantic partners. Disagreeableness at age 14–15 was assessed in observation with friends. Disagreeableness was then examined as a predictor of both future relationship quality with friends at age 16 and romantic relationships at age 21. The results indicate that although disagreeable youth do not report any relationship struggles, both their friends and romantic partners see their relationships as being low in quality. Findings suggest a developmental process by which disagreeable adolescents maintain their oppositional style through a mechanism of relationship blindness, as they simply are unable to see the relationship issues that their friends and partners clearly perceive.

The ability to interact competently within voluntary intimate relationships gains importance in adolescent friendships and ultimately culminates in successful adult romantic relationships. Some adolescents, however, do not form successful relationships and it is important to understand the underlying reasons, as they are at risk for increases in depression and other health risk variables over time ( Cavanagh, Crissey, & Raley, 2008 ). Adolescents who are prone to disagree with others repeatedly appear to represent one of these subgroups. Disagreeable youth are not simply unpleasant or disliked individuals; rather they are both oppositional and offensive in their interactions. There is ample evidence to suggest that being disagreeable, or low on the personality construct of agreeableness, has many short-term negative correlates including a lack of peer acceptance, along with more conduct problems and depression ( Scholte, van Aken, & van Lieshout, 1997 ). There is also evidence suggesting that even after accounting for rejection and aggression, there is a sizeable subgroup of disagreeable youth that exhibit extensive adjustment problems ( Laursen, Hafen, Rubin, Booth-LaForce, & Rose-Krasnor, 2010 ). Given this pattern of findings, it is surprising that there is a lack of research investigating the relationship profiles and developmental pattern of disagreeable youth as they move through adolescence and into adulthood.

During adolescence, teenagers become increasingly reliant on relationships formed outside of the family unit. These relationships, particularly friendships, differ from family relationships in many respects, but in particular because they involve choice. Adolescents are likely to develop patterns of interaction within these voluntary relationships that are likely to carry forward into their future relationships. Though, there is only a small amount of evidence that the quality of adolescent friendships is related to both concurrent and future romantic relationship quality ( Connolly, Furman, Konarski, 2000 ). This evidence is based on the view that in voluntary relationships, there may be a working model that an individual carries forward with them from relationship to relationship which drives both their choice of future relationships and their interaction-style within those relationships ( Collins, Welsh, & Furman, 2009 ).

Although there is a lack of strong empirical evidence extending findings about adolescent relationship patterns into adulthood, there is some evidence to suggest that personality and relationship patterns begin to stabilize as individuals move from adolescence to adulthood (Donnelan, Conger, Burzette, 2007). The case of disagreeable youth offers a prime opportunity to study this potential development. One might expect that disagreeable youth would receive negative feedback about their behavior and alter it accordingly. However, there is evidence to suggest that some individuals who are oppositional in nature do not pick up on the relational cues in a typical manner.

A classic study by Kobak and Sceery (1988) found that dismissing first-year college students were rated by their peers as more hostile, however their own self-reports of hostility did not differ from those of secure individuals. Discrepancies of this nature have been described as a self-protective or compulsive self-reliance mechanism whereby feelings of inadequacy are masked and avoided by an inflated perception of self-competence and functioning ( Diener & Milich, 1997 ). Essentially, these individuals learn to overlook the ways their behavior is perceived by others. Given that individuals know it is socially frowned upon to be consistently oppositional and may cause interpersonal problems, highly oppositional individuals behavior may be maintained via a similar mechanism which allows them to continue to in an obliviously offensive manner, without ever acknowledging, self-correcting feedback from others. This mechanism may be the key to understanding the course of relationships for disagreeable youth, as their behavior of acting obliviously oppositional means that it is almost impossible for them to self-correct or learn from problematic relationships.

The most unbiased source of information about the enduring patterns an individual displays in their interactions within close relationships is observation. Self-report measures are useful for capturing how an individual perceives themselves and their environment, but these perceptions can at times be misleading and as such are best used in concert with multiple methods. Research has consistently identified and conceptualized agreeableness only in terms of self-report measures (e.g. De Pauw & Mervielde, 2010 ), which has been useful for identifying the array of negative correlates of being disagreeable such as higher externalizing and internalizing problems and lower self-worth ( Laursen et al., 2010 ). However, self-perceptions may not be ideal for understanding how disagreeable youth interact within close relationships, as these youth in many instances might not even know that they are acting in a disagreeable manner. Observations are useful for addressing this shortcoming and have been used to understand the enduring qualities of interaction-styles, particularly when trying to understand unique profiles across individuals. Further, understanding the interactional style in adolescence that lead to an enduring disagreeable personality-type has tremendous usefulness.

The current study utilized observational, multi-reporter data collected over a 10-year span to identify and track the development and relationships of disagreeable youth (see Figure 1 for conceptual overview). Observations of target youth and their friends at age 14 and 15 were used to assess early adolescent disagreeableness in terms of rudeness, lack of cooperation, and forcefulness. In order to track the relationship blindness of these disagreeable youth, reports from friends in middle adolescence and from romantic partners in emerging adulthood were collected. It was hypothesized that disagreeable youth would have more conflictual and poorer quality future friendships in adolescence, and that this would be evidenced by an element of relationship blindness in that their friends would report a poorer quality relationship but they themselves would not (Hypothesis 1). Second, it was hypothesized that this pattern would continue into target youth’s romantic relationships in emerging adulthood, such that their romantic partner’s would report a more negative relationship but the disagreeable youth would not (Hypothesis 2). Finally, to confirm that the developmental process outlined above truly results in the formation of a disagreeable adult, it was predicted that the disagreeable construct created from observations of target youth at age 14 and 15 would predict target youth’s selfreport of disagreeableness at age 25 (Hypothesis 3).

Conceptual Model for Proposed Development of Disagreeableness from Early Adolescence to Adulthood

Note. Disagreeable interactional style at age 14–15 was captured via observations of target youth and their best friends. Relationship blindness in mid-adolescence and emerging adulthood was captured by separately measuring self-report and partner-report.

Participants

Participants included 164 (87 females and 77 males) teenagers along with their best friends ( n = 156) and romantic partners ( n = 111). This sample was drawn from a larger longitudinal investigation in the Southeastern United States of adolescent social development in familial and peer contexts. Students were recruited via an initial mailing to all parents of students in the school along with follow-up contact efforts at school lunches. The sample was racially/ethnically and socioeconomically diverse: 58% identified themselves as Caucasian, 29% as African American, 8% as mixed race/ethnicity, and 5% as being from other minority groups. As reported by the adolescents’ parents, the median family income was in the $40,000 – $59,999 range.

Target adolescents were assessed initially over a two-year period in mid-adolescence, at age 14 ( M age = 14.27, SD = 0.62) and at age 15 ( M age = 15.22, SD = 0.81). At each of these assessments, target adolescents were asked to nominate their closest friend at that time to take part in the study. Close friends were described as “people you know well, spend time with, and whom you talk to about things that happen in your life.” The targets and their close friends were asked to participate in a video-taped interaction in the lab setting and received compensation for their participation. The target individuals again nominated their closest friends one year later at an age 16 assessment ( M age = 16.30; SD = 0.86), at which time they and their closest friends completed questionnaires. These target individuals were assessed again in early adulthood between ages 20–22 ( M age = 20.99; SD = 1.10), this time with their romantic partners ( M age = 19.06; SD = 3.10) of at least 3 months duration ( M duration = 14.40 months, SD = 13.31).

Disagreeableness with close friend

As described above, target adolescents indicated their best friend at both age 14 and age 15. At ages 14 and 15, each target adolescent-close friend dyad took part in an 8-min videotaped interaction in which they were presented with a revealed differences task ( Strodtbeck, 1951 ). This disagreement task involved a hypothetical dilemma asking target teens and their friends to come to a consensus decision. At age 14, the dyad was asked to decide which 7 out of 12 fictional characters, with specific characteristics and ages, who are dying from a flu-like disease should be given the only 7 doses of the cure. At age 15, the dyad was asked to decide which 4 out of a possible 10 fictional individuals, with specific characteristics and skills, should be the first ones kicked off a deserted island as part of a “survivor” contest. For this study, participants’ scores for frequency and intensity of collaborating versus arguing , forcefulness/pressuring the peer to agree, and rudeness towards their friend were calculated. Scores were rated on a 0 to 4 scale, with higher scores indicating greater frequency and intensity of behaviors that are disagreeable and hinder free discussion. Each interaction was reliably coded by two trained raters blind to other data from the study (ICCs from .64 to .69, considered in the good range for this statistic. These three ratings were averaged across the two assessments. The construct of disagreeableness was operationalized as a latent variable with these three indicators (see Figure 1 ).

Close friendship competence

Both target adolescents and their close friends reported on the target adolescent’s competence in close friendships at age 16. Target adolescents completed the close friendship score from the Harter Self-Perception Profile for Adolescents ( Harter, 1988 ). The format asks the reporter to choose between two contrasting descriptors and then rate the extent to which their choice is sort of true or really true about the target adolescent (e.g. “Some people are able to make really close friends/some people find it hard to make really close friends”). Item responses are scored on a 4-point scale and then summed, with higher scores indicating higher levels of peer-rated close friendship competence. The friendship competence subscale showed good internal consistency (α’s = .82 – .83).

Conflict and betrayal in friendships

Both target adolescents and their close friends completed the conflict and betrayal scale from the Friendship Quality Questionnaire ( Parker & Asher, 1993 ) at age 16. The scale included seven items such as, “We argue a lot” and “S/he sometimes says mean things about me to other kids”. Item responses were reported on a five-point scale (1 = not at all true, 5 = very true) with higher scores indicating more betrayal and conflict within the relationship. In our sample, the internal consistency was good (α’s = .86 – .88).

Negative relationship interaction in early adult romantic relationships

Targets and their romantic partners each completed items about the negative interactions in their relationship using the Network of Relationships Inventory (NRI; Furman & Buhrmester, 1985 ). The scale included 6 items (e.g., “How much do you and this person disagree or quarrel?”). Each item was rated on a 5-point scale with higher scores indicating more negative interactions. The scale had high reliability (α’s = .82 – .84).

Adult Disagreeableness

Target youth completed self-report assessments of their own agreeableness at age 25 using the NEO-FFI ( McCrae & Costa, 2010 ). The scale consists of 12 items rated on a scale from 1 ( Strongly Disagree) to 5 ( Strongly Agree). Agreeableness is typically assessed to capture compassion and cooperativeness on the higher end and antagonism on the lower end (e.g. I am not really interested in others ). Since we are particularly interested in capturing disagreeableness, we averaged the total agreeableness score and then reverse scored the mean to create a disagreeableness score. The scale had high reliability (α= .78).

Participating adolescents provided informed assent, and their parents provided informed consent until adolescents were 18 years of age, at which point they provided informed consent. The same assent/consent procedures were used for peers/romantic partners and their parents. Adolescents, close friends, and romantic partners were compensated for their participation. Participants’ data were protected by a Confidentiality Certificate issued by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, which further protects information from subpoena by federal, state, and local courts. If necessary, transportation and childcare were provided to participants.

Missing Data

Of the 164 individuals who participated at ages 14 and 15, 71% ( n = 117) reported having a romantic partner and filled out reports about their relationship in early adulthood. Data was available from 95% ( n = 111) of the identified romantic partners. A series of attrition analyses compared those individuals who did vs. did not participate in this portion of the study on all available demographic variables (gender, ethnicity, parental income) and all measures concerning their relationships with friends in adolescence. The results of these t-tests and chisquare analyses indicated that there were no significant differences on mid-adolescent study variables. Given that the amount of missingness was not related to demographic or other study variables, we used full information maximum likelihood (FIML) as the method to estimate our structural parameters in MPlus 6.12 ( Muthén & Muthén, 2010 ).

Overview of the Analyses

Disagreeableness was operationalized in early adolescence as a latent variable (see Figure 1 ), which included the observed collaboration, forcefulness, and rudeness of target individuals in a disagreement task with a friend at age 14 and age 15. As expected, the variables loaded together strongly, with collaboration loading negatively (β = −.78), and forcefulness (β = .69) and rudeness (β = .67) both loading positively. This latent variable was used in all subsequent analyses. Gender and income were included as covariates in all analyses and all interactions involving gender and income were tested though no interactions were significant.

Testing the Development of the Disagreeable Adult

To determine whether disagreeable youth are characterized by a distinct set of friendship difficulties in middle adolescence, a series of regressions in which the disagreeable latent construct was entered as a predictor of the target individual’s self-report and their friend’s report of the closeness and conflict within their friendship at age 16.

To determine whether disagreeable youth are characterized by a relationship pattern that carries over into emerging adult romantic relationships, a series of regressions was examined in which disagreeableness at ages 14–15 was entered as a predictor of the quality of romantic relationships in early adulthood (ages 20–22). Self-reports and romantic partner reports of negative relationship interactions were the dependent variables in these analyses.

Hypothesis 1: Disagreeable youth identified in early adolescence will have more conflictual and poorer quality friendships in middle adolescence

Table 2 summarizes the results of the regression analyses predicting age 16 friendship closeness and conflict from age 14–15 disagreeableness. Both target individuals and their friend reported on the closeness and conflict within their relationship. There were no interactions involving gender or income.

Disagreeableness at Age 14–15 Predicting Friendship Quality at Age 16

Age 16 Closeness

As hypothesized, disagreeableness did not predict self -reports of friendship closeness at age 16 (β = .03); however, it did predict friend -reports of closeness at age 16 (β = −.21), such that the friends of disagreeable youth reported having a less close friendship with those youth than did friends of others. These coefficients were significantly different, χ 2 (1) = 5.26, p = .02, suggesting that disagreeableness predicted future friend-reports more strongly than future self-reports of closeness.

Age 16 Conflict

Disagreeableness predicted both self -report of friendship conflict (β = .19) and friend -reports of friendship conflict (β = .34) at age 16. Both disagreeable youth and their friends reported having more conflict within their friendship than did other youth. Further, the difference between these paths was not significantly different, χ 2 (1) = 3.33, p = .07.

Hypothesis 2: The patterns exhibited by disagreeable youth in adolescent friendships will carry over into their romantic relationships in emerging adulthood

Negative relationship interaction.

Table 3 presents results predicting self-report and romantic partner report of negative relationship interaction in emerging adulthood (age 21) from age 14–15 disagreeableness. Again, disagreeableness did not predict self-report of negative relationship interaction (β = .11). However, disagreeableness did predict romantic partner report of negative relationship interaction (β = .27), such that romantic partners of disagreeable youth reported having more negative interactions with targets than did romantic partners of other youth. These coefficients were significantly different, χ 2 (1) = 4.26, p = .04, suggesting that disagreeableness predicted future romantic partner-reports more strongly than future self-reports of negative relationship interaction.

Disagreeableness at Age 14–15 Predicting Romantic Relationship Negativity in Emerging Adulthood

RP = romantic partner.

Hypothesis 3: Being disagreeable in observations with friends in early adolescence will predict identifying as disagreeable in young adulthood

Disagreeableness in early adolescence, as captured by observations of interactions with friends, significantly predicted self-report of disagreeableness in young adulthood (β = .38, p < .01). Those individuals who were disagreeable in their interactions with friends at age 14–15 reported being more disagreeable at age 25. 1

Disagreeable youth are not just unpleasant; they are contentious and offensive in their relationships. This study confirmed hypotheses that individuals who are disagreeable have relationship partners who report poorer quality relationships and more conflict than relationship partners of individuals who are not disagreeable. Perhaps even more importantly, we found that disagreeable youth view and report their relationships differently than their friends and romantic partners. This raises the possibility that the enduring pattern of negative quality across relationships of disagreeable youth is maintained as a result of a perceptual bias that these individuals hold concerning their relationships. While disagreeable youth are aware of the conflict in their relationships, they do not report the relationship to be negative overall, although their partners (both friends and romantic partners) repeatedly do. An unfortunate potential consequence of this discounting may be that it keeps these youth from recognizing and potentially improving their relational style. The findings from this study highlight the breadth and duration of the implications of this disagreeable interaction style, as it is evident in future adolescent friendships and also carries over into adult romantic relationships six years later. These results provide empirical evidence for the theory that there may be an internal mechanism that accounts for stability in relationship difficulty for certain youth ( Collins, Welsh, & Furman, 2009 ).

One of the striking features of this study is the consistency with which disagreeable youth view their relationships distinctly differently than do their friends and romantic partners. We had predicted that disagreeable youth may exhibit a pattern similar to the self-protective mechanism that others had uncovered in preoccupied adults ( Kobak & Sceery, 1988 ). The pattern of relationship blindness described in the current study is particularly troubling because it suggests that disagreeable youth will struggle to form healthy relationship interactions, as they may not work to improve upon their maladaptive interaction style. Adopting this relationship blindness approach to social relationships dramatically reduces their opportunity to alter their behavior, potentially condemning them to the long-term pattern of negative interactions observed in this study.

It follows that a disagreeable friend would be a disagreeable romantic partner. A key finding of the current study, however, suggests that those prone to disagreeableness in adolescence not only continue to be disagreeable in their early adult romantic relationships, but that they continue to find relationship partners. There is a wealth of literature suggesting that similarity is a key factor in the choice and maintenance of voluntary relationships throughout adolescence and early adulthood ( Collins, Welsh, & Furman, 2009 ). Disagreeable individuals may find interactions with other partners prone to conflict and an argumentative style because they find it rewarding and reinforcing of their own behavior. It is possible that this leads individuals prone to disagreeableness limited in their partner choices in early adulthood, thus only finding enduring relationships with other young adults who have similar interaction styles. This would only serve to further their unhealthy relationship expectations.

Individuals with a disagreeable interaction style are not just unpleasant; they also carry their elevated level of contentiousness in their interactions with them from relationship to relationship. The fact that this behavior is at least in part maintained by the inability to acknowledge the resulting discomfort this creates is noteworthy. It suggests developmental processes by which youth that have an oppositional style in early adolescence use conflict within a relationship to justify their disagreeable nature. This developmental process is also indicated in the literature on trait aggressiveness, whereby individuals who are prone to aggressive perceptions actively contribute to creating consistently aggressive environments and responses ( Anderson, Buckley, & Carnagey, 2008 ; Dill, Anderson, Anderson, & Deuser, 1997 ). Understanding the nature of forming and maintaining a disagreeable style of interaction is an underappreciated developmental phenomenon worthy of future study ( Laursen & Richmond, 2014 ).

Although strong in many respects, a few limitations are worthy of note. First, although the use of longitudinal data is sufficient to refute causal hypotheses, they cannot directly support causal claims. Second, the analyses presented were spread out across several years of development. While this is a strength in that it suggests an enduring continuity from disagreeableness to friendship quality to romantic relationship quality, we can only speculate about the mechanisms or incremental steps that lead the disagreeable individuals to consistently form and maintain poor quality relationships. Third, though we specify the differences between individuals and their relationship partners as reflecting “relationship blindness”, we would need to directly model this blindness over time to understand its role and function. Future work with larger samples would help add clarity to these novel findings. Finally, the longitudinal and multiple informant nature of the data made it logistically impractical to follow a large sample, and thus there was relatively little power to detect potential moderators. Thus, while gender of the target youth was included in all analyses as a moderator, the lack of results should not be interpreted as a concrete statement of null effects.

The findings of this study are noteworthy in many respects. We found that an individual’s interaction style with friends in adolescence is directly related to their interaction style years later in romantic relationships. In particular, disagreeable youth form unhealthy friendships in adolescence and continue to have unhealthy relationships in adulthood that seem to stem from their interaction style. This pattern may be related to the observed tendency for disagreeable youth to be obliviously offensive in their interactions, acting aggressively but not noticing its negative impact on their relationships. As such, if these findings are confirmed in further research, they suggest that disagreeable youth might benefit greatly from interventions designed to improve social interactions and, particularly, social awareness. Without intervention, these individuals are likely to experience conflictual, relationally aggressive, and unhealthy relationships throughout development as they consistently ignore or rationalize their unhealthy patterns.

Correlations Among Variables in the Study

• We model disagreeableness through observations with friends in adolescence.
• These observations to predict future behavior in friend and romantic relationships.
• Disagreeableness predicts future partner reports of poorer relationship quality.
• Disagreeableness does not predict individual’s own reports of relationships.
• We propose this relationship blindness to explain disagreeableness stability.

Acknowledgements

This study was conducted using data collected as part of a larger investigation led by the principal investigator, Dr. Joseph P. Allen. This project was supported by Research Grant R01HD058305-11A1 funded by the National Institute of Child Health and Development awarded to Joseph P. Allen.

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1 Information was also provided by participants at age 25 on the other Big Five domains though not presented here. None were significantly related to early adolescent disagreeableness. The strongest association was with age 25 neuroticism ( p = .09).

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EVENTS & ENTERTAINING

Food & drink, relationships & family, how to resolve conflicts with friends, more articles.

How to Stop Verbal Abuse in Marriage

How to Make Amends With a Best Friend

• How Can I Make My Ex-Boyfriend Want Me Back?

How to Bond Again With Your Ex-Boyfriend

• How to Communicate to Your Sensitive Boyfriend

Fighting with friends is tough all around. We often say things we don't mean and feelings get hurt. Occasionally, no one wants to admit they were wrong and no one wants to apologize; it seems as though the situation is beyond repair. There are many ways to resolve conflicts with friends. Here are some things you can do to start down the road to conflict resolution.

Calm down. No one thinks rationally when emotionally worked up. Give yourself time to calm down before even thinking of the subject of the conflict again.

Give each other respect. Without first respecting your friend, it is unlikely that the conflict will be resolved amicably.

Give each other space. When the conflict has become too heated, walk away.

Give each other time. Time to cool off will help all parties involved think things over in a rational manner.

Respect each other's space and time. Everybody's different. Your friend may need a week before he is ready to resolve the conflict and you may need only a day. Give him the time he needs.

Communicate. Not talking only makes matters worse. Periodically contact your friend to let her know that you still care about her.

Listen well. Listen intently and focus on his point of view with an open mind.

Choose your words wisely. Avoid accusatory phrases like "you never," "you always" or "why would you."

Leave out the "but." When your friend asks if you accept his apology don't say "yes, but..." It's a conditional acceptance and can lead to more hurt feelings. The same goes for "I understand, but.."

Let it go. If you can't find common ground, agree to disagree and let it go. Nothing good will come out of the conflict if you don't.

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Tips for Forgiving Your Best Friend

• Keep trying. If you and your friend can't resolve the conflict on your first try, keep trying and you'll get there.
• If you aren't ready to fully accept your friend's apology, at least acknowledge it by saying something like, "Thank you for apologizing, I appreciate that."
• When you agree to let it go, really let it go or you may find yourself filled with resentment.
• Don't ignore the situation. Ignoring things does not make them go away. It usually causes them to fester and boil over.
• Don't be one-sided. Yes, you are hurting, but so is the friend that you love and care about.
• Don't be pushy. Just because you're ready, doesn't mean your friend is ready. Pushing can make your friend feel backed into a corner.

This article was written by the CareerTrend team, copy edited and fact checked through a multi-point auditing system, in efforts to ensure our readers only receive the best information. To submit your questions or ideas, or to simply learn more about CareerTrend, contact us [here](http://careertrend.com/about-us).

Essays About Conflict: Top 5 Examples and 7 Writing Prompts

Writing about disagreements between two or more groups is a challenge. To help you write this topic, see our examples and prompts for essays about conflict.

Conflict is a clash between two parties, often because of religious, social, or political disagreements. The ongoing war between Russia and Ukraine began in early 2014 and is an example of armed conflict. It affects the citizens, economy, tourism, and other sectors of the two countries, with impacts reaching other areas of the world.

In literature, conflict is an integral part of fictional stories that justifies characters’ actions and keeps readers engaged. Conflict is also a part of our everyday lives; from disagreements with family members to arguments with friends, we’ve all experienced conflict at one time or another. Since conflict is a sensitive topic, a critical rule in writing conflict essays is to always rely on factual evidence.

5 Essay Examples

1. why is conflict important by anonymous on studymoose.com, 2. analysis on conflict perspective in titanic by anonymous on edubirdie.com, 3. conflicts of difference in religion in the middle east by jennifer logan, 4. conflicts in relationship by james taylor, 5. workplace conflict by lindsey latoya, 1. the nature, type, and causes of conflict, 2. how achieving goals promotes intrapersonal conflict, 3. conflicts between nations then and now, 4. karl marx’s theory of conflict, 5. conflict: intrapersonal vs. interpersonal, 6. terrorism, conflict, and the tourism industry, 7. the influence of culture on conflicts.

“… Conflict is a big part of the story and it makes the story interesting. Without conflict, the story seems plain and there’s no flare to get people to want to read it or enjoy it. Some authors use man against himself, man against nature, man against society, and man against man.”

This essay explains why conflict is integral for stories, mentioning that it makes a literary piece exciting enough to maintain the readers’ attention. The author uses Richard Connell’s “ The Most Dangerous Game ” to prove their point and delves into relevant scenes demonstrating different conflicts. For example, the scene where the main character fights against the big waves to reach the island for safety exemplifies the conflict of Man against Nature.

“The film is an excellent example of the perspective of conflict, every scene is thoughtful, and reflects the discrimination and exploitation that the working class society faces.”

The author offers several citations to support their claim that the 1997 Titanic film is more than a romantic tragedy. Putting Rose and Jack’s love story aside, the movie also depicts the differences between social classes that link them to conflict theory. According to the founder of this theory, the leading cause of conflicts is the unequal distribution of power and resources among people.

The essay brings up several film segments that cement these differences, such as the standard rule of “women and children first” when evacuating people during a disaster. Although the tragedy claimed the lives of both lower and upper-class men, the movie conveys an important message that everyone will suffer, regardless of class, in times of calamity.

“The Middle East has been in a state of turmoil since the early 1990’s. Conflicts arose from differences in religion, control over territories, and uneven political distribution. These conflicts were not just between countries, but also within individual countries.”

Although this essay doesn’t reveal the root cause of conflicts in the Middle East, it shows the magnitude of the impact of these fights caused by religious differences, territorial disputes, and political inequality. Logan explains that government instability in the Middle East makes it possible for various terrorist to express their grievances and desires through violence.

“As you start your married life, know that conflicts are a must and communication is the key to solving such issues. When married people see the need to manage interpersonal conflicts rather than ignoring them, their marriage becomes functional and happy.”

Couples usually avoid conflicts in their relationships, but Taylor knows it’s inevitable. A relationship without interpersonal conflict can become weak and often leads to separation. He believes that people who ignore problems to avoid conflicts with their partners develop negative emotions that destroy love. Taylor explains that bringing one’s gender and culture into the conversation is the key to resolving disputes, as it prevents miscommunication and demonstrates equal power.

“By better understanding how conflict arise, and practicing handling such conflict in an assertive way, it can become far less intimidating and be an aspect of work you can learn to manage rather than have it manage you.”

Latoya’s essay focuses on how Chinese people avoid conflicts to promote peace and avoid discord, especially workplace disagreements. She describes workplace conflict as work-related or personal tension between two or more forces with differing values ​​and perspectives.

Latoya mentions three techniques to clear up these issues: stimulating, controlling, and resolving and eliminating disputes. Ultimately, the author believes that every manager must maintain emotional distance and focus on conflict resolution by listening, empathizing, and guiding members who have conflicts.

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7 Prompts for Writing Essays About Conflicts

Conflict is diverse and includes essential features that need to be discussed. For this prompt, focus on the conflict in its universality and explain the four major types of conflict. Identify and explain the causes of various conflict categories. Then, give real-life cases of each so the readers can understand and relate to these examples. You might be interested in these essays about cause and effect and essays about curiosity .

Various factors are considered to find the root cause of conflicts. This prompt focuses on elements that promote intrapersonal conflicts, such as frustration, stress, anxiety, and insecurity. 

Tell your readers about a specific situation where the desire to achieve a goal made you feel various negative emotions. Then share what conflict management style you used to resolve this conflict and peacefully achieve your goals.

Our history is filled with strife between groups rallying to support what they believe is right. Such as the case of World War II, which claimed 35 to 60 million lives. In this essay, write about historical and current conflicts and explain their origins. Then, examine the efforts made by past and present governments to resolve these disputes, including the positive or negative impacts of these conflicts on the world at large.

To give credence to Karl Marx ’s Theory of Conflict, introduce him by speaking about his background and accomplishments. Then, refocus on Conflict Theory’s meaning, importance, and how it’s applied to understand society. Offer studies and cases that prove Conflict Theory’s existence. Then discuss the advantages and disadvantages of using this theory to understand and resolve disagreements.

Intrapersonal conflict refers to disputes within yourself, while interpersonal conflict concerns misunderstandings with others. In your essay, compare and contrast these two types of conflict and present common situations where these would occur. 

For example, interpersonal conflict could be a disagreement with a coworker, whereas intrapersonal conflict could be an internal struggle with your emotions. Then, add tips on how individuals should respond to these conflicts to avoid further damage. You might also like these essays about stress and articles about attitude .

Terrorism is urged by unfair treatment and different beliefs. Tourism is one of the industries most affected when terrorism occurs in a particular area or country. Use this prompt to discuss the typical impacts of terrorism on a location’s travel and tourism industry. Include reliable articles that report on tourism’s decline after the emergence of terrorism and conflicts.

Conflict usually emerges due to cultural differences between individuals or communities. In your essay, speak about how culture plays a vital role in instigating and mitigating conflicts. For example, the American Civil War occurred because of cultural conflicts because of different views on slavery. Look into past cultural conflicts such as these for a compelling historical essay.

If you need help picking your next essay topic, check out our guide on writing an essay about diversity .

Maria Caballero is a freelance writer who has been writing since high school. She believes that to be a writer doesn't only refer to excellent syntax and semantics but also knowing how to weave words together to communicate to any reader effectively.

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The Art of Friendship: How to Address and Respond to Conflict

Learn the best methods for navigating disagreements with friends, whether you’re bringing up or responding to hurt feelings.

Friendships are love stories too. In the Shondaland series The Art of Friendship , we explore and appreciate the beauty and complexities of friendship, as well as what makes it so powerful. From expert tips on how to navigate conflicts and deepen your friendships to uplifting stories of reconnections and advice on making new friends, these stories are reminders of the joy, value, and meaning that companionship brings to our lives.

Taylor Lamb is friends with five women who have known one another for the better part of the last seven years. Following their college years at the University of Virginia, the group became more intentional about maintaining their bond when proximity no longer bound them together. They revved up a group chat, held virtual hangouts around the holidays, and committed to always celebrating birthdays in person — even if it meant jumping on a train or a plane.

After a few years, each of the women ended up in the mid-Atlantic region for work, medical school, or law school. While they were physically close again, they began experiencing splinters in their seven-year friendship for the first time when some members of the group started backing out of planned gatherings at the last minute.

“I feel like people were feeling unheard and wanting more support,” Lamb says of the rift. The 25-year-old community engagement associate recognized that navigating the pandemic made communication even more difficult. “It just seemed like we all just needed to get in a room and talk.”

Lamb reached out to each friend individually and gauged their willingness for a group conversation; they all agreed to have one. In early May, they gathered in person (with one friend tuning in virtually) to have an open discussion with Lamb as their facilitator. With conversational guidelines painted onto a poster as a North Star, the ground rules were set. The gentle reminders encouraged the women to release any spirit of defensiveness, refrain from interrupting others, assume best intent — but mind impact — pause and take a deep breath if needed, and partake in other helpful actions.

To start, Lamb acknowledged that conflict is hard, especially for those who did not grow up encouraged to talk about their feelings or were unable to do so in a safe space. “I feel like acknowledging that made people not want to be reactive,” she says. Her goal wasn’t to come with an agenda but to “hold the space” for her friends to feel like they could share their thoughts safely. She opened the floor by asking who wanted to speak first, and each individual shared how they were feeling.

“The conclusions we came to,” Lamb says, “were that people had expectations of what they needed to be cared for, but they never said those.” She adds that bell hooks’ All About Love inspired how she approaches her relationships. “Me personally being an abolitionist and wanting to build a new world, we have to be willing to talk about our issues. And expecting other people to know how we feel is not what love really is.”

William Morrow & Company All About Love: New Visions

Before the exchange concluded, they each took turns expressing what makes them feel cared for, sharing their love language and coming up with specific communication guidelines to use moving forward. It dawned on Lamb that these women didn’t only want to be in one another’s lives for the good times, but that they cared about and valued one another enough to stick it out through the hard ones too. “I feel really happy that we’re all committed to our friendship in this way,” she says. “I feel closer to them.”

There’s a glaring absence of dialogue today on how to work through conflict with friends. The popular belief that a friendship shouldn’t make you uncomfortable and that you should cut someone off at the first sign of tension or disappointment has seeped into the collective consciousness, but relationship experts agree: That’s not real friendship.

Platonic: How the Science of Attachment Can Help You Make — and Keep — Friends

Conflict is not an automatic sign that a friendship will end; addressing it can be a signal that both parties are committed to the relationship. Many people talk themselves out of bringing up an issue because they don’t want to seem as if they’re the problem, but withholding discomfort can manifest itself in another way, whether through withdrawal or resentment. “Think of it as something that will help not hurt,” says female friendship coach and educator Danielle Bayard Jackson .

Why should you address conflict with friends?

Honing your ability to work through conflict in a long-term platonic relationship is no different than learning to do so in a committed romantic partnership. Many withhold their feelings out of the fear that they will be perceived as dramatic or difficult or that it will tear the friendship apart, but with a real friend, that’s not the case. A 2012 paper found that open, non-blaming conversations lead to deeper intimacy between people, as opposed to not having those conversations at all.

Psychoanalyst Virginia Goldner came up with a concept for the illusion of closeness without conflict: flaccid safety versus dynamic safety . Flaccid safety is the sense of stability within a relationship when we pretend that nothing is bothering us. Dynamic safety is a more robust, deeper level of intimacy that is achieved when there’s rupture and repair, or in Goldner’s words, a cycle of “risk-taking and resolution” or “separation and reunion.” There is trust in the knowledge that issues will less easily come between friends and authentic comfort in the shared history that you are willing to work through hard emotions together.

“That closeness that you want with the friend where you feel like you can be yourself and you can say anything that we all dreamily speak of — to achieve that, sometimes you have to go through the awkwardness of bringing up something that makes you feel uncomfortable,” says Jackson. “It gives her a chance to demonstrate: I love you. I care about you. I hear you. We might get into it. We might disagree. All those things. But once we work it out, I’m going to feel more connected to you than I did before. That is not possible without having a difficult moment.”

When the challenge arises, don’t run from the chance to deepen your bond. Here’s how to address conflict with a friend, whether you’re bringing up the issue or responding to your loved one’s concern.

How to Address Conflict

Examine the problem

Coping with conflict is the goal, but that doesn’t mean you have to confront your friend every single time they do something that bothers or annoys you. A helpful way to assess if it’s worth going to them about it is if it is a recurring issue or a situation that has continued to affect how you perceive your friend and how you show up in your friendship.

“Anger is a signal that there might be some conflict to address, because anger tends to be a signal that there’s an injustice that’s happening,” Franco says. While this is true, Franco notes that we can acknowledge our anger without it being the emotion that guides the conversation.

Assess the relationship

Your level of closeness to the person is a factor worth considering when deciding whether to bring up an issue with your friend. Franco suggests, “If it’s not a friend that you’re particularly close to or if it’s a newer friend and you already find yourself getting into conflict, ask yourself: Is this a sign that this is maybe not a good friendship for me?”

Franco adds, “Generally, I say that if it’s a friend you’ve had for a long time, and you have each other’s best interests at heart, it’s always worth it to address it.” Conflict isn’t automatically an indicator of incompatibility; it may simply be the sign of differing preferences that can be bridged with communication.

Define timing

As the saying goes — timing is everything. “Ask yourself, ‘If this goes wrong, do I really have the capacity to tolerate that?’ You will hopefully say yes to that question,” Franco says. Emotional regulation is key to an effective conversation, and we are better at regulating our emotions when we’ve slept well , exercised, meditated, and are in a physically good space in addition to our mental one.

While you shouldn’t continually use personal struggles as an excuse to keep putting off the discussion, it is important to consider if you have the immediate capacity for it. Carve out an entire afternoon — or day, if you need it — so that you aren’t rushing through your chat and have time to process any emotions you may feel afterward.

Provide a warning

When it comes to conflict resolution, don’t surprise your friend with the topic. If you’ve given yourself a chance to prepare for the conversation, you should also extend the same courtesy to your friend. “If their pet just died or they’re going through a breakup,” Franco says, “they might just not have the capacity to do conflict well.”

Consider if they are in a space where they can actually receive and process your feelings. If not, it’s likely that they will go into fight-or-flight mode, and the discussion could be doomed from the start. While it’s important to be thoughtful, don’t make assumptions about whether your friend is in a good or bad space. Trust in their ability to decide for themselves, and ask gently ahead of time.

“I like to text an introduction to the conflict,” Franco says. You don’t have to be specific, but you can let them know that you have something on your mind you want to work through together and ask if they’d be up for talking about it.

Lean into vulnerability

If you feel nervous about bringing your feelings up, that may be a signal that it’s worth sharing. You don’t have to wait until you’re feeling confident about it; use those authentic feelings as leverage.

Jackson encourages resolution-seekers to acknowledge their messy emotions rather than shy away from them. “A lot of us feel anxious or vulnerable bringing it up,” she says, “but it can actually work in our favor.” Start the conversation by being honest about your nerves. (Jackson provides a few scripts: “I’m hesitant to bring this up because the last thing I want is for it to be awkward” or “I’m nervous, but I want to be open with you, and I hope you’d do the same for me.”)

If a friend sees that you have been thoughtful and considerate, it may ease their nerves as well and expand their ability to receive your emotions. “Being that transparent about your internal dilemma sometimes works for you,” Jackson notes, “in bringing down their walls.”

Use inviting language

When it comes to conflict, how you start the conversation influences the mood, tone, and direction of the talk more than you know. Franco calls this framing, or using verbiage that welcomes your friend in rather than alienates them. She gives ​​an example of a positive framing script: “Hey, our friendship is really important to me, so I want to make sure we talk through things so that they don’t get between us. I was wondering if we can talk about something that’s been on my mind.”

It’s a warm way to remind your friend — and yourself — that you’re on the same team, not opposing sides. “You’re telling them how to interpret this,” Franco says. “That this is an act of love and a sign of your investment in the friendship, so the framing line is really important.”

Speak to your reality, not theirs

Addressing conflict isn’t about right or wrong; it’s about coming to a sense of mutual understanding. When sharing your dilemma, keep the focus of your words on you and how you feel by using “I” statements. Start by expressing how it made you feel when your friend did what they did. Don’t blame them, project assumptions onto them, or attack their character or ability to be a friend overall.

Think of it as a moment to share how it made you feel. Remember: Feelings are information, not fact. You have every right to feel let down that a friend bailed on you at the last minute, for example, but it doesn’t mean that your friend plotted to let you down.

Ask about their experience

After sharing your hurt, put on your listening ears, and listen to where your friend was coming from. Franco recommends asking about what was going on for them at that time, and what might have gotten in the way for them. “What you’re trying to do in a larger way is to embrace something called mutuality, which means you’re considering their experience and your experience at the same time instead of only thinking about yourself or thinking about them.” Franco says true mutuality is not about right or wrong but about finding balance and understanding. You don’t need to kowtow to their reasoning, but you should hear them out.

How to Respond to Conflict

View it as an act of love

If you have been approached by a friend about how you’ve hurt them, remember that they care enough to bring it to you and are willing to be their vulnerable self with you, which is not easy for most people.

While it may be uncomfortable, it might be even more unpleasant to think what might happen if they didn’t come to you. There is a chance they may have withdrawn from the friendship and let you go entirely. “Remind yourself that this is an act of love that is there to heal us and bring us together,” Franco says, “and that this is your friend showing that they’re invested in you enough to want to work through this issue.”

Protect yourself from fight or flight

Whatever you do, do not take notes from dramatic TV show scenes where two best friends are shouting what they hate about each other from across the room and one person stomps out.

“When you’re in fight or flight, you’re not able to engage in mutuality. You’re only thinking about your reality,” Franco says. Do what you need to do to refrain from sending emotions into overdrive — even if that means you need to take a break during the actual conversation. “If you have the capacity to de-escalate, always do,” Franco says. “For me, I think about the idea of splitting into two selves. … I see the part of me that wants to escalate this, and I have this other part of me that is going to try to access my higher self for this conversation.”

If the dialogue grows heated, verbalize that you need a moment instead of shutting down. Franco provides another script: “Hey, that’s kind of hurtful. I hope that we can have this conversation in a way that we’re not going to be labeling each other or putting each other down. And maybe that means we take a moment here.”

Ask for time

In the heat of the moment, it’s hard to remember that we are real people and not characters we see on TV. The witty, speedy, perfectly curated dialogue on-screen is not always a reality. In fact, quippy back-and-forth dialogue can promote defensiveness and regrettable statements.

If your friend surprises you with their concern, you are allowed to ask for some time to process this new information. “No one wants to hear that what they’re doing is not good enough,” Jackson says.

To keep from providing a knee-jerk reaction or justifying your actions, take a pause, ask for a moment, and call back later, or even take a day or two. It will help your relationship in the long run and give you space to be receptive rather than reactive. “I think you’ll find it very liberating,” Jackson adds, “because the first thing you want to say is often not the route you end up really wanting to have taken.”

Depersonalize it

Whatever your friend might tell you, rather than spiraling out of control about how you may be a bad friend, succumbing to the imaginary conclusion that they hate you, or convincing yourself that may be too [insert negative adjective here], frame it as information instead.

“At the risk of oversimplifying this, I wonder how much we’d be able to salvage our friendships if we took a breath and said, ‘Okay. That’s not mean. This is data,’” Jackson says. If a friend conjures up the courage to tell you they don’t like how you spoke to them or that a joke hurt their feelings, remember that it is simply their preference. A certain word or action may trigger them, but it might not trigger you, and vice versa. It’s simply about respecting and honoring your friend’s request next time.

Listen to understand

Don’t be afraid to ask questions to fully understand where your friend is coming from. Whatever information you need, take this as an opportunity to learn more about your friend and your friendship. Before the conversation ends, let your friend know that you hear them. Confirm what has upset them, and verbalize that you care and understand where they’re coming from — no ifs, ands, or buts. If you would like to avoid hurting them in the future, express how you will go about it next time.

Mia Brabham is a staff writer at Shondaland. Follow her on Twitter at @hotmessmia .

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Home — Essay Samples — Sociology — Interpersonal Communication — Conflicts in Relationships

Conflicts in Relationships

• Categories: Conflict Resolution Interpersonal Communication

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Published: Feb 12, 2024

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Mastering The Art Of Writing A Great Conflict Essay

Table of Contents

… But how to write a conflict essay?

This task can become a real stone of stumbling for many students, especially when they write admissions essays.

The practice shows that students tend to describe conflicts in the one-dimensional narrative, where one side of the conflict is depicted as a knight in shining armor and the other side is a complete villain.

Of course, it is the simplest way to manage conflicts (as anyone sees clearly, who is right), however, this approach highlight the inability to give an unbiased assessment of both sides of the conflict.

Here we will cover the essentials of writing such essays and how to avoid the most common mistakes in the conflict papers.

Studying the basics of the conflict essay

What is conflict, and what are its causes? Is it possible to avoid it, and how to solve it? Who are the participants, and is there a possibility for them to have a peaceful order? Here are the main points that should be covered in your text.

But what are you going to write about?

Different vocabularies give so many different definitions of this term that it is so easy to be bamboozled by all these meanings.

• A war of a fight.
• A mental struggle.
• An opposition of persons or forces.
• Anything that sets the character back from achieving a specific goal (in fiction).

That is why it is crucial to read and understand the task before you start writing.

Writing guideline for the essays about conflict

Your journey to the perfect paper should start with the proper investigation:

• What is the type of conflict you are writing about?
• What are its reasons?
• What are the consequences?
• How to solve it?

Taking into consideration all mentioned above, it becomes clear that the disagreement between two people does not limit the type of conflict. It also may cover a conflict between a man and society or nature, or even a fight against self.

And do not forget about the key players: the protagonist and antagonist of the conflict.

As soon as you have defined the central conflicts and leading players, it is time to gather facts that prove this point of view. Arm yourself with a pen and start searching for the evidence of conflict in the literary work, if your task is to cover the conflict depicted in a novel or a poem.

You may use many sources for data collection; however, make sure that they are reliable and relevant. And do not forget to jot down the information about the source for proper referencing; otherwise, using materials without appropriate arrangement will be considered plagiarism.

Carefully analyze gathered material and single out a precise thesis statement that will be the basis of the paper. Later it will become the last sentence of the introduction, but now it is the basis of the outline for your essay on conflict. The basic outline template for such paper will look like this:

• A hook sentence – an interesting fact, question, quote, or anecdote.
• Introduction part that makes readers aware of the conflict.
• Thesis statement.
• 3 body paragraphs , each with one issue of the conflict and several proofs.
• Address whether the conflict was resolved or not.
• You may also discuss the ways of avoiding or solving the conflict.
• The conclusion  should cover the main points of the paper with the rephrasing of a thesis.

Breaking down a personal conflict essay

Two types of conflict can be covered in the essay – personal and internal. Personal, on its turn, can be divided into a conflict between people, or a person and organization, or a person and a state (especially in the countries of the totalitarian regime).

Usually, students prefer to describe their own conflict experience, for example, with parents or peers. In this case, one has to define the purpose of writing as thereon hangs the tone of the text. For example, the aim is to show that there are no right or wrong, but two legitimate points of view.

Then the tone of the paper will be empathic as the writer has the insight into the opposite point of view and there are two sides of every story.

What about an internal conflict essay?

Such essays deal with the psychological conflicts inside one person. Thus, they discuss what happens when we have to do something that is against ethical standards or values, or the clash of logical and emotional response to something.

Here much prominence should be given to the ways of overcoming this conflict and as a result, becoming a better person.

And in both cases, it is necessary to follow these guidelines to improve the quality of the text:

• Pay attention to the task requirements: do not exceed the word limit , arrange the quotes according to the chosen referencing style, format the paper properly.
• Make sure that the paper is plagiarism-free .
• Edit and proofread the text.

Take advantage of a well-written conflict essay example

As they say, seeing once is better than hearing twice. When you look through a top-notch paper written by a professional writer, everything clicks into place.

What is more, you can use such paper as a template for your own paper and as a source of inspiration.

…What’s not to love?

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Confronting Conflict With Friends

Difficult conversations are sometimes necessary..

Posted November 1, 2017 | Reviewed by Jessica Schrader

It can be difficult for some of us to get up the courage to confront a relationship issue, so it is important for these individuals to remember that friendships are relationships of choice, unlike family relationships that are relationships by blood or law. For most of us, this implies an expectation of some level of reciprocity in the relationship, and when you feel like you are being consistently shortchanged, remind yourself that it’s OK to share your feelings with your friend.

When you decide that it is time to address the friendship , some basic rules of communication and conflict mediation should be in place:

• Let your friend know that you would like to have a discussion about the relationship. No one likes having this kind of conversation “sprung on them,” so give your friend some advance notice.
• Choose a time and place that is agreeable for both of you and be sure to choose as neutral a place as you can. You might feel awkward sitting on her couch and drinking her wine when you are trying to address feelings that she isn’t as invested in the relationship as you feel you are, for instance.
• If you choose a more public place, like a park or restaurant or coffee shop, it’s also likely to keep the conversation more genial and less likely to result in strong emotional responses, whether it would be raised voices or tearful outbursts.
• An important reminder: Throughout the course of a friendship, always own your feelings. If it’s not OK that she always cancels out on plans after you’ve already picked up the babysitter, don’t spend months seething inside while telling her, “It’s OK, I understand. Maybe next time will work.” If you save up all your frustration over time, it’s likely to get the best of you once you finally get the courage to share your feelings!
• Listen to what your friend has to say once you’ve opened up your own concerns. She may not have realized the effect she was having on the relationship.
• Work towards a compromise. Unfortunately, some people believe that a compromise means a “lose/lose situation” because each person has to concede something. While this is true, every healthy relationship usually involves compromise and adjusting to others’ needs or wants. Friendships are no different. For a relationship to thrive, it takes two to make it work. Be willing to “give a little” in order to allow your friend to “get a little.”
• If your friend is not buying into your perspective, you may want to take a step back and see if your own assessment is as objective as it should be. If you reach a stalemate, you will need to decide if the friendship’s value is high enough to accept the relationship’s limitations.
• Remember, too, that there are always going to be multiple realities at play. What you see and believe is your reality but the same is true for your friend.

If the “real issue” is a problem behavior: she drinks too much, parties too hard, is always needing to borrow money or some other challenging behavioral issue, and she has no interest in changing, you need to recognize that your wishes won't make changes happen. You can change no one but yourself. Not everyone wants to be what others want them to be and you may have to decide when it’s time to draw the line and walk away.

Suzanne Degges-White, Ph.D. , is a licensed counselor and professor at Northern Illinois University.

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Guest Essay

The Two-State Solution Is an Unjust, Impossible Fantasy

By Tareq Baconi

Mr. Baconi is the author of “Hamas Contained” and the president of the board of al-Shabaka, the Palestinian Policy Network.

After 176 days, Israel’s assault on Gaza has not stopped and has expanded into what Human Rights Watch has declared to be a policy of starvation as a weapon of war. More than 32,000 Palestinians have been killed, and the international community has reverted to a deeply familiar call for a two-state solution, under which Palestinians and Israelis can coexist in peace and security. President Biden even declared “the only real solution is a two-state solution” in his State of the Union address last month.

But the call rings hollow. The language that surrounds a two-state solution has lost all meaning. Over the years, I’ve encountered many Western diplomats who privately roll their eyes at the prospect of two states — given Israel’s staunch opposition to it, the lack of interest in the West in exerting enough pressure on Israel to change its behavior and Palestinian political ossification — even as their politicians repeat the phrase ad nauseam. Yet in the shadow of what the International Court of Justice has said could plausibly be genocide, everyone has returned to the chorus line, stressing that the gravity of the situation means that this time will be different.

It will not be. Repeating the two-state solution mantra has allowed policymakers to avoid confronting the reality that partition is unattainable in the case of Israel and Palestine, and illegitimate as an arrangement originally imposed on Palestinians without their consent in 1947. And fundamentally, the concept of the two-state solution has evolved to become a central pillar of sustaining Palestinian subjugation and Israeli impunity. The idea of two states as a pathway to justice has in and of itself normalized the daily violence meted out against Palestinians by Israel’s regime of apartheid.

The circumstances facing Palestinians before Oct. 7, 2023, exemplified how deadly the status quo had become. In 2022, Israeli violence killed at least 34 Palestinian children in the West Bank, the most in 15 years, and by mid-2023, that rate was on track to exceed those levels. Yet the Biden administration still saw fit to further legitimize Israel, expanding its diplomatic relations in the region and rewarding it with a U.S. visa waiver . Palestine was largely absent from the international agenda until Israeli Jews were killed on Oct. 7. The fact that Israel and its allies were ill prepared for any kind of challenge to Israeli rule underscores just how invisible the Palestinians were and how sustainable their oppression was deemed to be on the global stage.

This moment of historical rupture offers blood-soaked proof that policies to date have failed, yet countries seek to resurrect them all the same. Instead of taking measures showing a genuine commitment to peace — like meaningfully pressuring Israel to end settlement building and lift the blockade on Gaza or discontinuing America’s expansive military support — Washington is doing the opposite. The United States has aggressively wielded its use of its veto at the United Nations Security Council, and even when it abstains, as it did in the recent vote leading to the first resolution for a cease-fire since Oct. 7, it claims such resolutions are nonbinding. The United States is funding Israel’s military while defunding the U.N. Relief and Works Agency, a critical institution for Palestinians, bolstering the deeply unpopular and illegitimate Palestinian Authority, which many Palestinians now consider to be a subcontractor to the occupation, and subverting international law by limiting avenues of accountability for Israel. In effect, these actions safeguard Israeli impunity.

The vacuity of the two-state solution mantra is most obvious in how often policymakers speak of recognizing a Palestinian state without discussing an end to Israel’s occupation of Palestinian territory. Quite the contrary: With the United States reportedly exploring initiatives to recognize Palestinian statehood, it is simultaneously defending Israel’s prolonged occupation at the International Court of Justice, arguing that Israel faces “very real security needs” that justify its continued control over Palestinian territories.

What might explain this seeming contradiction?

The concept of partition has long been used as a blunt policy tool by colonial powers to manage the affairs of their colonies, and Palestine was no exception. The Zionist movement emerged within the era of European colonialism and was given its most important imprimatur by the British Empire. The Balfour Declaration, issued by the British in 1917, called for a “national home for the Jewish people” in Palestine without adequately accounting for the Palestinians who constituted a vast majority in the region and whom Balfour referred to simply as “non-Jewish communities.” This declaration was then imposed on the Palestinians, who by 1922 had become Britain’s colonized subjects and were not asked to give consent to the partitioning of their homeland. Three decades later, the United Nations institutionalized partition with the passage of the 1947 plan, which called for partitioning Palestine into two independent states, one Palestinian Arab and the other Jewish.

All of Palestine’s neighboring countries in the Middle East and North Africa that had achieved independence from their colonial rulers and joined the United Nations voted against the 1947 plan. The Palestinians were not formally considered in a vote that many saw as illegitimate; it partitioned their homeland to accommodate Zionist immigration, which they had resisted from the onset. The Palestine Liberation Organization, established more than a decade later, formalized this opposition, insisting that Palestine as defined within the boundaries that existed during the British Mandate was “an indivisible territorial unit”; it forcefully refused two states and by the late 1970s was fighting for a secular, democratic state. By the 1980s, however, the P.L.O. chairman, Yasir Arafat, along with most of the organization’s leadership, had come to accept that partition was the pragmatic choice, and many Palestinians who had by then been ground down by the machinery of the occupation accepted it as a way of achieving separateness from Israeli settlers and the creation of their own state.

It took more than three decades for Palestinians to understand that separateness would never come, that the goal of this policy was to maintain the illusion of partition in some distant future indefinitely. In that twilight zone, Israel’s expansionist violence increased and became more forthright, as Israeli leaders became more brazen in their commitment to full control from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea. Israel also relied on discredited Palestinian leaders to sustain their control — primarily those who lead the Palestinian Authority and who collaborate with Israel’s machinations and make do with nonsovereign, noncontiguous Bantustans that never challenge Israel’s overarching domination. This kind of demographic engineering, which entails geographic isolation of unwanted populations behind walls, is central to apartheid regimes. Repeating the aspiration for two states and arguing that partition remains viable presents Israel as a Jewish and democratic state — separate from its occupation — giving it a veneer of palatability and obfuscating the reality that it rules over more non-Jews than Jews .

Seen in this light, the failed attempts at a two-state solution are not a failure for Israel at all but a resounding success, as they have fortified Israel’s grip over this territory while peace negotiations ebbed and flowed but never concluded. In recent years, international and Israeli human rights organizations have acknowledged what many Palestinians have long argued: that Israel is a perpetrator of apartheid. B’Tselem, Israel’s leading human rights organization, concluded that Israel is a singular regime of Jewish supremacy from the river to the sea.

Now, with international attention once again focused on the region, many Palestinians understand the dangers of discussing partition, even as a pragmatic option. Many refuse to resuscitate this hollowed-out policy-speak. In a message recently published anonymously, a group of Palestinians on the ground and in the diaspora state wrote: “The partition of Palestine is nothing but a legitimation of Zionism, a betrayal of our people and the final completion of the nakba,” or catastrophe, which refers to the expulsion and flight of about 750,000 Palestinians with Israel’s founding. “Our liberation can only be achieved through a unity of struggle, built upon a unity of people and a unity of land.”

For them, the Palestinian state that their inept leaders continue to peddle, even if achievable, would fail to undo the fact that Palestinian refugees are unable to return to their homes, now in Israel, and that Palestinian citizens of Israel would continue to reside as second-class citizens within a so-called Jewish state.

Global powers might choose to ignore this sentiment as unrealistic, if they even take note of it. They might also choose to ignore Israeli rejection of a two-state solution, as Israeli leaders drop any pretenses and explicitly oppose any pathway to Palestinian statehood. As recently as January, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said that Israel “must have security control over the entire territory west of the Jordan River.” He added, “That collides with the idea of sovereignty. What can we do?”

And yet the two-state solution continues to be at the forefront for policymakers who have returned to contorting the reality of an expansionist regime into a policy prescription they can hold on to. They cycle through provisions that the Palestinian state must be demilitarized, that Israel will maintain security oversight, that not every state in the world has the same level of sovereignty. It is like watching a century of failure, culminating in the train wreck of the peace process, replay itself in the span of the past five months.

This will not be the first time that Palestinian demands are not taken into account as far as their own future is concerned. But all policymakers should heed the lesson of Oct. 7: There will be neither peace nor justice while Palestinians are subjugated behind walls and under Israeli domination.

A single state from the river to the sea might appear unrealistic or fantastical or a recipe for further bloodshed. But it is the only state that exists in the real world — not in the fantasies of policymakers. The question, then, is: How can it be transformed into one that is just?

Source photographs by Jose A. Bernat Bacete, Daily Herald Archive and Lior Mizrahi, via Getty Images.

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