Oral Comm Relationship Analysis
Best Friends “Forever”
Introduction
At some point in everyone’s life they have a BFF. BFF stands for Best Friends Forever. In some cases the forever is a real thing, people stay friend through out their whole lives. In my case, forever only lasted a few years. Our friendship taught me what it really means to be a true friend and how one little thing can change everything forever. I choose to analyze my friendship with Sarah because it showed me how to be a true friend and how your whole world can change in just a short amount of time. Throughout this paper, I will explain my friendship with Sarah according to Knapp’s 10 stages of relationship development. Next, I will suggest to reasonable recommendations for communication improvement for our friendship. Then, I will reflect on our friendship, telling what I learned about Sarah, what I learned about myself, and how I will use these relationship development stages in further friendships.
Part 1: Case Analysis My friendship with Sarah went along with all of Knapp’s stages, from beginning to end. She was the new girl at school; we became best friends over her first few weeks at Heber, and remained friends until the fall of our senior year. The first stage of Knapp’s relationship development is the initiating stage, when two people “meet and interact for the first time” (Floyd, 2011, p. 188). Sarah and I met on her first day at Heber Springs High School. I was the person who showed her where all of her classes were. We were able to talk about so much within the first few minutes of meeting. We had so much in common. She fit right in with my friend Hannah and I, it was like she had been with us since Kindergarten. We quickly moved into the initiating stage of our friendship and moved right into the experimenting stage. The experimenting stage involves “conversations to learn more about the other person” (Floyd, 2011, p. 188). Sarah and I did everything together. We were inseparable. She told me about all of
Introduction
At some point in everyone’s life they have a BFF. BFF stands for Best Friends Forever. In some cases the forever is a real thing, people stay friend through out their whole lives. In my case, forever only lasted a few years. Our friendship taught me what it really means to be a true friend and how one little thing can change everything forever. I choose to analyze my friendship with Sarah because it showed me how to be a true friend and how your whole world can change in just a short amount of time. Throughout this paper, I will explain my friendship with Sarah according to Knapp’s 10 stages of relationship development. Next, I will suggest to reasonable recommendations for communication improvement for our friendship. Then, I will reflect on our friendship, telling what I learned about Sarah, what I learned about myself, and how I will use these relationship development stages in further friendships.
Part 1: Case Analysis My friendship with Sarah went along with all of Knapp’s stages, from beginning to end. She was the new girl at school; we became best friends over her first few weeks at Heber, and remained friends until the fall of our senior year. The first stage of Knapp’s relationship development is the initiating stage, when two people “meet and interact for the first time” (Floyd, 2011, p. 188). Sarah and I met on her first day at Heber Springs High School. I was the person who showed her where all of her classes were. We were able to talk about so much within the first few minutes of meeting. We had so much in common. She fit right in with my friend Hannah and I, it was like she had been with us since Kindergarten. We quickly moved into the initiating stage of our friendship and moved right into the experimenting stage. The experimenting stage involves “conversations to learn more about the other person” (Floyd, 2011, p. 188). Sarah and I did everything together. We were inseparable. She told me about all of