Conflict Styles Profile Paper

The Thomas-Kilman conflict mode instrument survey is mostly fit in my current situation. Therefore, I’m going to use Thomas-Kilman’s survey result for my paper. I got a highest score from ‘Accommodation’ conflict style which is unassertive and cooperative; neglecting your own concerns to satisfy the other person; self-sacrifice; “ kill your enemies with kindness” or “I’d do anything for you”; concern for other; lose-win approach. Secondly, I also got a high score from ‘Avoidance’ conflict style which is unassertive and uncooperative; unwillingness to address the conflict; “leave well enough alone,” “leave bad enough alone,” or “It’s unimportant”; little concern for self or other; lose-lose approach. In my current situation, I mostly used these two conflict styles as well, but I also used ‘Compromise’ conflict style too. One obvious thing is I never used ‘competition’ conflict style in this situation that I got lowest score.
What happen was I needed to find cheap place to live in order to save the money. Therefore, I was looking for cheap rent for rooms from variety online websites whenever I had a time. But these days, finding a cheap and good room is very hard compare to few years ago. I suddenly realized that my friend’s house has a loft that has little space on the second floor. He is my best friend and he lives with one more female roommate also one of my good friend. I called him to ask about loft where I might able to live and he said, “Yes, you can stay here as long as you want”. It was much easier than I thought. The day after talked with my friend on the phone, I started move things out from my lovely host family’s house who took care of me for almost 4 years since I came to United States to study abroad. I felt comfortable to move out my friend’s house, because they are already my good friends not a stranger. Luckily, my friend asked me to pay incredibly low price to stay at his house. We didn’t have any problem for the first few weeks. But after few weeks later, they started complain about sharing bathroom. My place located in second floor that has very small space, no bathroom and no privacy. Therefore, I needed to share bathroom with them. One bathroom is located in the master room where male friend staying in. Another bathroom located in between kitchen and female friend’s room. I thought I’d better use a male friend’s bathroom. Because sharing bathroom with female might be very difficult and picky. Therefore, I decided to use the bathroom one in my male friend’s room. I had to go through his room to use his bathroom every time. I normally use the bathroom around three to four times a day. It means I’m using the bathroom at least twenty one times during the week. Whenever I use the bathroom, I had to ask him to get the permission. Later on, it seemed like we both stressed out from that situation. So I gathered everyone at the living room to find good solution for everyone as using compromise conflict style that I got a third highest score from the survey. After discuss, we found solution that might be satisfied for everyone. I got limited time to use male friend’s bathroom because of his privacy issue. But then, I was able to use female friend’s bathroom while I couldn’t use male friend’s bathroom. Nobody expected that this solution will bring another problems.
After about one week later from discussing day, female friend had complained about sharing her bathroom. She said that I did not close the toilet cover and I didn’t clean up the bathroom whenever I used the bathroom. Of course I tried to use the bathroom clearly and not remain any mess. In this time, I decided to use ‘Accommodation’ conflict style to make her feel better. Actually, I’m a man who normally clean the bathroom at least one a week not everyday. It was hard to get used to it clean the bathroom every time. But I had no choice because bathroom was not mine. I did my best to do what she said to me about some rules for using her bathroom. I did not say anything to her even thought I was so uncomfortable to try keeping those stupid rules. One day, she came to me and insulted me. The reason why she insulted me was I left some my hair on her bathtub. I couldn’t take it anymore. It was too much for me. I just said sorry to her instead of getting angry. I’m not the person who yelling or shouting to my friends. But In my mind, I already decided to move out from their house. Until I found a new place to live, I used the public restroom or another friend’s house restroom. I literally used ‘Avoidance’ conflict style. From this happening, I learned that sometimes we’d better to use ‘Avoidance’ conflict style to avoid issues that we can’t solve with cooperative conflict styles.
In my case, ‘Accommodation’ and ‘Compromise’ conflict styles were not working very well. It just brought me a lot of sacrificing things that made me feel stress out. First time, I thought if I did what other person wants to do will make situation better, but actually it was just creating another problems as well. ‘Avoidance’ conflict style eventually worked for us. When I leave that house to avoid uncomfortable situation with them, we felt little awkwardness. As time past by, our relationship was getting better and better like before since I moved out from their house. I gained my good friends back and now I have my own bathroom that no needs to clean up every time or ask someone to use it. If I will meet a similar situation some day, I would like to try use ‘Collaboration’ conflict style. I could see how ‘Collaboration’ conflict style working well from the game in class.