The spat happened like this. I was about to board the train at Gare
du Nord. As my luggage emerged
from the scanner, I nudged a brown suitcase out the way because it was
squashing my much flimsier bag. The owner
of the suitcase shouted at me: “Madam, wait your turn!”
I returned, equally
sharply: “Your bag was squashing mine!”
“You should be patient!” she snapped back.
"My bag was getting squashed under yours - what was I supposed to do?" I said, and both of
us separated, justifying our indignation to ourselves and our travelling
companions. Adrenalin was
high; it was an emotional exchange, upsetting as these unexpected rows are.
So why did it happen
like that, this angry response springing apparently from nowhere?
Well, firstly, it
didn’t come from nowhere - not at all.
Working backwards, from my point of view, several things had
contributed.
First, the bag that
was getting caught under the suitcase contained a box of macaroons. A controversial box. Over priced, and from a shop we'd walked too far to find.
Second, the woman
under whose suitcase they were getting caught had annoyed me already by pushing
in to the queue for the scanner.
She hadn’t acknowledged the push-in, as pusher-inners tend not to
do.
Third, when I say nudged what I actually did was give her
suitcase a fairly strenuous push.
It didn’t do it harm, it was a hard cased thing, securely fastened, but
my act might have seemed aggressive.
These were my
reflections; there were, no doubt, reasons behind the sharpness of her response;
things I can only guess at.
The point for me, as a
conflict resolver and mediator, is that these scraps, uncomfortable and
embarrassing, don’t spring from thin air, but are built on a whole series of
influences and events, perceptions and chance happenings, much of which may
even be unconscious in the mind of the disputant him or herself, and is almost
certainly invisible to the other party.
It’s okay that this
happens. It’s how we are, as human
beings, as members of society, as animals. But it’s a good idea to identify these influences, be aware
of them and use them to explain your behaviour to yourself, and at the same
time justify or at least rationalise the behaviour of the other.
This little spat
didn’t matter. It was over and
forgotten by the time we’d boarded the train and I’ll never see the woman
again. But sometimes these flashpoints
happen not with strangers, but with friends, colleagues, family members, where
looking underneath the frothy top of the argument in a non judgemental,
unprejudiced way, is critical to the future of the relationship. An analysis of this sort can often have
the added advantage of transforming something that’s uncomfortable and negative
into a vehicle for greater understanding both of yourself and the other
person.
Next time you find
yourself rising to the quarrel, have a think about what’s gone on before it,
for you, for them. Then see if you
feel as cross.
