Stages of fighting with your sibling

You've just had a heated argument with your sibling and are annoyed by it. But then you realise you do not know what to do now. If you know what that is like, here are the stages you might go through next.

Who should apologise first?

You try to go over what was said between you and your sibling during the fight to find out who started the argument. You may have filtered out memories of you saying mean things out of spite, but that is not important right now. What is important is getting your sibling to understand that whatever you did was only a reaction and definitely not the cause of the argument. Is this manipulative behaviour? Maybe, but you still have steam blowing out of your ears so that contemplation has to wait.

The truce

A few hours go by and you get bored easily when you're cooped up in your room, sulking on your own. You figure your sibling must be bored too and decide to call a truce for the both of you. You walk up to your sibling and make the ultimate sacrifice by apologising first. You then stare at them straight with a smug face waiting for them to apologise back. Only, they don't.

Took a step forward, now take two steps back

Within minutes you find yourself banning your sibling from borrowing your things ever again and ask them to return everything immediately. Borrowed a scrunchie the other day? Return it. Broke a bobby pin belonging to you? Replace it.

This unnecessary bickering cannot continue for long, however, since you live in the same house and have to see each other every day. You start feeling a tinge of guilt due to the slight chance of having overreacted to trivial issues. A very slight chance.

Make amends without apologies

Upon fully realising your faults, you decide to be nice to your sibling again, but without apologising this time because you've already apologised once earlier with clearly unsatisfactory results. So, a different approach seems more reasonable.

You begin to roam around your sibling for no reason, you might even cook or order their favourite snack and casually drop it off wherever they are around the house. You might even resort to spying on your sibling right after, just to observe their genuine reaction and to check whether they are still mad at you.

Acknowledge the awkwardness

After what feels like a decade, you finally begin to function normally. Lay low and accept that it's awkward, but it's still better than being at war with them. Offer to watch a movie together, or stir up an impromptu discussion about that one relative who made you both uncomfortable at the last dawat. After all, you did miss them these past few hours.

Bushra Zaman likes books, art, and only being contacted by email. Find her at bushrazaman31@yahoo.com