Every friendship requires mutual respect and trust. Many friendships fail due to miscommunication. For that reason, interpersonal skills are one of the main factors that endures a true friendship. Effective communication is necessary in order to build and maintain a friendship. People need real, human, personal interactions for relationships and connections to develop, according to Statistics New Zealand, the public service department of New Zealand charged with collecting and producing information of a statistical nature.
A lack of communication should be a warning for a friendship because it can cause friends to fight and possibly lead to the end of a relationship.
“Without communication, a friendship is not a possible thing,” Plattsburgh State junior psychology major Allison Dix said. “You have to have communication in order to be friends with someone.”
Dix said communication in friendship means being able to talk it out with your friends about anything.
“No matter what the situation is, if you have a problem with someone, you have to be able to talk to them about it,” she said.
In a Huffington Post article titled “Don’t let the friendship boil over — Talk it out”, Harriet Cabelly wrote: “Relationships are easy when everything is sailing along smoothly.”
“If my friend and I have to talk about something when a problem comes up, we will try not to say anything insulting to each other,” Dix said. “We always try to keep things light.”
She also said not everybody is able to communicate with and confront their friends when it comes to a conflict or disagreement.
“I am a terrible communicator,” Dix said. “I do not like communicating when I am angry because it might make me say something that I might regret later on.”
She said she often avoids people who she has conflicts with in order to get her thoughts together first.
“It always causes miscommunication,” Dix said.
She said people do not know what she is trying to do and interpret it in a different way.
Miscommunication can take place in any relationship. It could be misunderstanding conversations or misinterpret something said. Sophomore business management and hotel restaurant and tourism management major Jonalynn Lao used to have a conflict with her friends. They solved it by talking it out and being honest to one another.
“We had a quick mediation,” she said. “We all sat down as a group and talked it out together, and at the end of the day, we are still close to one another.”
Conflict is normal in friendships. Therefore, Lao said communication is vital in any kind of relationship. She said it is all about respecting each other and understanding what others have to say, regardless of different point of view.
“We will not always agree on everything, and we both can disagree with each other on a lot of things,” she said. “That’s why we need to respect each other and learn to accept the differences.”
Communication is about talking and listening to each other. Sophomore nursing major Caitlyn Poleto said communication can help prevent many problems from rising in a friendship.
“It also helps you and your friend get over the hard time because you guys are able to talk about what is going on in your life and be open to each other,” she said. “My definition of communication in a friendship is just being honest to people when you talk to them and tell them just how you feel.”
Honesty is the foundation of a good friendship, which means that the person is able to communicate freely, confront his or her friends at times and be open to each other. It requires the person the ability to express himself and being a good listener at the same time.
“It is essential that both individuals or both parties are able to talk together,” Lao said. “The closer you get to a friend, the more you know how to act and communicate with each other.”
Email Hilly Nguyen at cp@cardinalpointsonline.com
