Over the past few days I’ve been watching a few dramas unfold online, which reminded me of something I keep learning over and over: human communication is unbelievably messy. Most conflicts don’t come from facts, but from assumptions—biases, emotions, and fragments of information that we fill in with our own stories.
That got me thinking about the one (hopefully only) real drama I’ve ever been personally involved in. I was the one who triggered it, and it remains one of the most embarrassing and traumatic moments of my life.
It happened during my community service program in college. Our group was placed in a remote area accessible only by boat: thirty minutes to the port, then another fifteen minutes to the village. There were two student groups assigned to two different areas, and our relationship was peaceful and friendly. We hung out at each other’s posts, visited often, and sometimes even combined our events.
One day, a supervisor from the university—a marine science lecturer—was scheduled to visit our post. He had already stopped by the other group’s location earlier in the month. Knowing he would come, the villagers in our area went all out: climbing tall coconut trees, grilling fresh fish, preparing a whole feast to welcome him.
The complication started when the other group asked if the supervisor could visit their place first to give a talk on aquaculture. We agreed. I was sent alone to accompany him, who arrived with his whole family, while my teammates stayed behind preparing the event or headed to town to work on a CSR proposal.
The problem was… at that time, I was painfully quiet. I wasn’t close to anyone in the other group, and I felt awkward around strangers.
Their event dragged on much longer than expected, and I grew increasingly anxious. The other group kept offering food and hospitality, and I didn’t have the courage to interrupt or remind anyone that a whole village was waiting. Toward the end, they took some group photos, and I stayed out of the frame—partly because I was irritated, partly because I thought the “proper” photo session would be the one with the villagers later (which never happened). I honestly don’t remember clearly.
Eventually, the supervisor decided to head home early. It was getting late, the boat might not be available, and his child was getting restless. I froze. I knew the people at our post had been waiting for hours, but I said nothing. He apologized briefly and left.
Walking back, I carried a mix of frustration, guilt, and embarrassment. And when I arrived, instead of giving a measured explanation, I delivered a messy, emotional, half-truth version:
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That the event on the other side dragged on for hours.
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That the supervisor was “held back” with food and hospitality.
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And when someone noticed I wasn’t in their photos, I said I wasn’t included—implying they left me out.
None of those were lies, but none of them were the full story either. All of them were colored by my inability to speak up earlier.
Those three statements were enough to ignite anger—not only from my group, but also from the villagers who felt unappreciated after preparing so much. So when the other group visited us later that day, they were immediately confronted. Before long, our post turned into a small courtroom:
“Why did your event run late?”
“Why did you keep the supervisor so long?”
“Why didn’t you come straight here?”
Their answers were simple:
They didn’t know about the preparations in our village.
It ran late because the villagers attending their workshop arrived late—something outside their control.
They didn’t know the supervisor was in a hurry.
And offering food was just basic courtesy.
Then came the final question:
“Why wasn’t Reza in the photo?”
This one hit hard because it suggested malicious intent on their side. They explained that I chose not to join. I confirmed it. And that became the final blow—proof, in their eyes, that my earlier story was emotional, incomplete, and misleading. They asked why I didn’t speak up sooner, why I stayed silent if something felt wrong, and why I complained only after the fact.
What had started as a simple vent turned into a full-blown conflict.
I apologized, but my group still felt wronged, and the other group felt unfairly accused. They refused to apologize fully because from their perspective, I was the one who misrepresented the situation and let misunderstandings grow.
The tension didn’t disappear completely until the very end of the program. Some friendships quietly faded. The story spread to other groups and relatives and morphed into exaggerated tales where I eventually became the villain. Eventually it died down on its own—especially once a bigger KKN drama emerged elsewhere, making ours look trivial in comparison.
But the trauma stuck. Even now, I still get chills thinking about it.
Since then, I’ve become more careful about expressing complaints—thinking not just about what I say, but when and where I say it, and how it might be interpreted. It changed the way I view online drama too, especially how fast assumptions spread when only fragments of the truth are available. I’ve become more willing to speak up to prevent misunderstandings rather than letting them explode later.
In the end, that moment became a strange but important turning point in my life. Maybe the whole thing seems shallow from the outside, but it shaped me. And I pray that the lesson I learned back then keeps me from making a mistake today—one that could go viral, ruin the work I’ve built, and hurt the people closest to me.
