How To Disagree With Someone and Still be Friends.

 

By: Aolani Lopez and Lilian Teran

 

I think many people have had some specific arguments with their closest friends and sometimes the conflict doesn’t end up somewhere good. Arguing can start for many reasons like maybe you and someone don’t have the same opinion or agreement on a topic, or you guys are fighting over something small like getting a good role in a play and one of you didn’t get it and one of you did. Sometimes people can stop being friends or kind to one another just because of these silly reasons just because they don’t have the same opinion. But of course we cannot blame people for these actions since every person is different and can react certain ways. Well today I’m going to be giving advice for you all on how you can disagree with someone and still be friends and to remain everyone’s positivity. 

 

So here’s my advice if you ever disagree with someone and the conflict doesn’t turn up so well, and an example of advice would be discussing other topics that you guys can agree about other than that topic you guys were previously arguing on. I think this might be a great way to stop the conflict because maybe talking about other things that you and the person can have in common could create some sort of connection. If you think about it, connections are really great and important between two people or many more and it’s what creates the bonds between people which can result in them becoming friends. This is one example of advice so now let’s move on to the rest of the examples that we have come up with.

 

Now I’m thinking, maybe you don’t want to do the first example and you want to try a possibly different way. So now we are here at our second example which is when stating your own opinion to the other person is that you shouldn’t try to force it. Forcing your own belief to another person can devalue them into thinking they might be wrong with their opinion which can peer pressure them into believing yours, it’s basically a form of manipulation. This is a good form of advice because you need to think about the other person’s feelings so you don’t hurt them, and this is why you should consider your motives, and think before you act.

 

I think that’s enough of calling it examples because really we should always think about another person’s feelings and thoughts. Some people should establish that sometimes your friendship is way more important than an irrelevant disagreement, we should always be polite towards our friends on how we approach stuff so we can have the right tone of voice for everything to make it sound like we are stating our opinion without being rude. Another thing that might be helpful is the way you can start off your statement/sentence like using words “I see what you’re saying but..”, “I understand where you’re coming from, but..”, “That’s a valid point, but..”, and finally “I’m sorry but I disagree with you about this.”. These sentences could help your impact be less harmful towards the other person.

 

In Conclusion, all these tips could help you form a way better relationship with that other person you were disagreeing with. Doing these things can help everything end up with a positive outcome. Well this is all I have to say to you guys, make sure to be kind and respectful to everyone!