Interpersonal Communication- A Mindful Approach to Relationships, 2020a

• Use criticism and insults as weapons
• Use guilt to get you to cave-in to their desires and whims
• Immediately assume you’re lying (probably because they are)
• Disclose your personal secrets
• Are very gossipy about others, and are probably gossipy about you as well
• Only care about their own desires and needs
• Use your emotions as weapons to attack you psychologically
• Pass judgment on you and your ideas based on their own with little flexibility
• Are stuck up and only really turn to you when they need you
• Can be obsessively needy, but then are very hard to please
• Are inconsistent, so predicting how they will think or behave can be very hard if not impossible
• Put you in competition with their other friends for affection and attention
• Conversations tend to be all about them and their desires and needs
• Make you feel that being your friend is a chore for them
• Make you feel as if you’ve lost control over your own life and choices
• Cross major relationship boundaries and violate relationship norms without apology
• Express their jealousy of your other friendships and relationships
Key Takeaways
• Rawlins proposed that friendships go through seven distinct stages. The first
stage, role delimited interaction, is where we interact with a broad range of people
within specific roles we play in life. The second stage, friendly relations, occurs
when we have continuous positive interactions with someone, but the interactions
still exist within those same roles. The third stage, moves-toward-friendship,
occurs when people decide to interact with one another outside of the roles they
originally embodied when they initially met. The fourth stage, nascent friendship,
occurs when the friends are no longer interacting within their original roles, and
their interactions do not follow the stereotypes associated with those roles. The
fifth stage, stabilized friendship, reflects friendships that have developed norms
and interaction patterns that are functioning optimally for both parties, and the
friendship is working smoothly. The sixth stage, waning friendship, occurs when
a friendship decreases in importance in our lives. The final stage, post-friendship,
occurs after a friendship has been terminated.
• Sarah H. Matthews proposed three basic types of friendships that people have:
independent, discerning, and acquisitive. Independents see friendships based
on specific circumstances in their lives and not necessarily on specific friends.
Discerning friendships are marked by a deep connection with a friend or group
of friends regardless of changing circumstances in their lives. Lastly, acquisitive
individuals develop a strong, core group of friends as they go throughout their
lives while acquiring new ones depending on changes within their lives.
• To understand healthy versus unhealthy friendships, it’s also important to
consider whether an individual finds that relationship enjoyable or unenjoyable.
People who are in a healthy and enjoyable friendship are in an ideal friendship.
Individuals who are in a healthy friendship that is unenjoyable are in a waning
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Interpersonal Communication