People with my personality type (Myers Briggs ENTP) are meant to be fine with conflict.
I'm not. I hate it.
It makes me feel sick in the stomach. It makes me edgy and emotional. It takes my attention away from coming up with fun ideas and makes me focus on painful things or a boring set of 'what ifs'. I wish we could all just play nicely, each doing our own thing.
I hate conflict, but a few times lately I've deliberately made it. There are things that I could have let go that I elected to not let go. I don't regret any of them. If I had it again, I'd do the same thing. But now I'm sitting and moping.
I guess nobody actually likes conflict. Maybe the difference between me and people who really hate it is that there are things that I hate worse than conflict. I'll avoid conflict unless something more precious than my love of just getting along has been threatened. Maybe the real reason why I hate conflict is actually not about the conflict, but about its trigger. Something very precious to me (perhaps something sinfully precious - like my freedom to do as I please) has been threatened so I'm forced into conflict with others to protect it. I find the conflict itself distasteful and I'd rather not have it, but I find the conflict's trigger painful. Maybe that's what I'm mopey about.
But how crippled must the person who really hates conflict be! If conflict itself is the enemy as well as its trigger... well that is surely reason to mope!
I really hate conflict - to the point that it took a lot to go to my boss to question an unfair decision, and even then, I didn't exactly fight the issue. Interestingly, though, online I tend to be easily drawn into debates, or typing out pushback which I wouldn't necessarily feel comfortable speaking (which is somewhat hypocrictical), but I often misread the tone and it turns to conflict, and then I feel bad, and feel the need to find some resolution.
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