The other day my girlfriend and I had a lovers spat. We got into a heated argument about something over the phone. There was a long stream of text messages that ended with me responding to a question she had asked with a simple, ‘OK.’ Little did I know that this would be one of the biggest mistakes I had ever made.
Her instant response was quite heated. The fact that I had written this two letter word seemed to bother her quite a bit. I, on the other hand, thought that it would do just the opposite, that I was simply agreeing with what she was saying, and letting her win the fight. Yet it seemed that she didn’t quite get the message.
After hours and hours of trying to make it up to her, things had cooled down. However, I still couldn’t wrap my head around what had her fuming.
While doing my chapter quizzes for my Organisational Behaviour class the other day, I came across a section in the book called, “Barriers to communication.” It was almost like I was in a movie, and a lightbulb has shone over my head. One of the barriers, according to the textbook was emotions. It stated that emotions, such as anger and happiness, may cause the same message to be interpreted in many different ways.
I realised then that a simple ‘Ok.’ was probably the least appropriate thing to have written at the time! No wonder she had blown a fuse.
In the heat of the moment, I must’ve come across as smug and annoyed by whatever she was asking me, or at least that must’ve been the way that she perceived it. Though my intentions may have been good, the lack of proper communications and the role of emotions in encoding said communication lead to the continuation of the fight.
Communication is essential to any relationship, whether it’s with your girlfriend, your boss, or your peers. It is of utmost importance to realise the role it plays in our day to day functioning. The situation could possibly have been avoided had I not made a simple error and ignored the barriers of communication that existed at the time.
Lesson learnt, I guess…
Word count: 373
