If you ask any of my close friends, they'll tell you that I am not a big fan of confrontation. I never have been.
The thought of being face to face with someone, discussing an issue without knowing how it's going to turn out, terrifies me.
Because of this, I went close to five years without having a talk I knew I needed to have with an ex-boyfriend. For years, I had so many questions and assumptions about our relationship, the details of how he felt and the events that lead to our breakup and fallout. Every day since then, I was always thinking about it.
On the way home from a trip with one of my roommates, we were talking about how I wanted to have that conversation. I was nervous about how it would turn out and unsure if he even wanted to have that conversation.
I came home and sat on my thoughts for a few hours. I eventually decided that it needed to happen.
I'd gone without direct answers for far too long, and it had been causing me anxiety and stress I didn't need to have. Later that night, I decided to send him a message. And he replied.
We talked via text for a couple hours. I was a big ball of nerves the entire time, but it turned out in my favor.
I was given all of the answers I needed for so long, and by that night, I felt such a weight lifted off my shoulders.
Confrontation is a terrifying thing to more people than just me, but there are times when you have to buckle up and take whatever road the conversation goes down. There will always be a 50/50 chance of how the situation plays out.
And if you don't play those odds, you'll always be losing because you will always be anxious, nervous and assuming.
My advice to anyone who is afraid of confronting someone is to write it out. Write down your questions, confront them via text or write a letter. Give yourself however much time you need to gather all your thoughts. Then put them together, collectively, in one place.
Having closure on a situation shuts down all of the wild thoughts and scenarios you've created in your head over time.
But closure doesn't come without confrontation. And once you get over the hill of confrontation, it becomes so much easier to gain the closure you need on a situation. It's life-changing.
