Interpersonal Communication- A Mindful Approach to Relationships, 2020a

On the other side, we do depend on our friendships. You could have a friend that you do almost
everything with, and it gets to the point that people see you as a duo and are shocked when both of you
aren’t together. In these highly dependent friendships, individual behavior is probably very infrequent
and more likely to be resented. Now, if you went to the movie alone in a highly dependent friendship,
your friend may be upset or jealous because you didn’t wait to see it with her/him/them. You may
have had the right to engage as an independent person, but a friend in a highly dependent friendship
would see this as a violation. This story would cause even more friction within the friendship if you had
promised your friend to see the movie with her/him/them. You would still be acting independently, but
your friend would have a stronger foundation for being upset.
Ultimately, all friendships have to negotiate independence and dependence. As with the establishment
of any friendship norm, the pair involved in the relationship needs to decide when it’s appropriate to be
independent and when it is appropriate to be dependent. Maybe you need to check-in via text 20 times a
day (pretty dependent) or talk on the phone once a year; in both cases, friendships are different and are
in constant negotiation. It’s also important to note that a friendship that was once highly dependent can
become highly independent and vice versa.
Affection/Instrumentality
The second interactional dialectic examines the intersection of affection as a reason for friendship versus
instrumentality (the agency or means by which a person accomplishes her/his/their goals or objectives).
As Rawlins noted, “This principle formulates the interpenetrated nature of caring for a friend as an
end-in-itself and/or as a means to an end.” 25 We already discussed the importance of affection in a
friendship, but haven’t examined the issue of friendships and instrumentality. In friendships, the issue
of instrumentality helps us understand the following question, “How do we use friendships to benefit
ourselves?” Some people are uncomfortable with this question and find the idea of instrumentality very
anti-friendship. Have you ever had a really bad day and all you needed was a hug from your best friend?
Well, was that hug a sign of affection? Or did you use that friendship to get something you wanted/
needed (instrumentality)? We all do this to varying degrees within friendships. Maybe you don’t have a
washer and dryer in your apartment, so you go to your best friend’s place to do laundry. In that situation,
you are using your friend and that relationship to achieve a need that you have (wearing clean clothes).
The problem of instrumentality arises when one party feels that he/she/they are being used and taken
for granted within the friendship itself or if one friend stops seeing these acts as voluntary and starts seeing
them as obligatory. First, there are times when there is an imbalance in friendships, and one friend feels
that they are being taken advantage of. Maybe the friend with the washer and dryer starts realizing that
the only time their friend really reaches out to see if they’re available to hang out is when the friend needs
to do laundry. Second, sometimes acts that were initially voluntary become seen as obligatory. In our
example, maybe the friend who needs to wash their clothes starts to see what was once a nice, voluntary
gesture as an obligation. If this happens, then the use of the washer and dryer becomes part of the rules
of the friendship, which can change the dynamic of the relationship if the person with the washer and
dryer isn’t happy about being used in this way.
Judgment/Acceptance
In our friendships, we expect that these relationships are going to enhance our self-esteem and make
us feel accepted, cared for, and wanted. On the other hand, interpersonal relationships of all kinds are
marked by judgmental messages. Ronald Liang argued that all interpersonal messages are inherently
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Interpersonal Communication