relationships…a personal account (continued)

Well, in my last post, I did mention that I will try to link my own experience with Knapp’s model of relationships so here it is.

Knapp VS Yu Han:

In Knapp’s model of relationships, there are ten stages and I will start from the first stage, Initiating.

In my own account, I will treat both T and myself as someone else.

In the first stage, Initiating, we can see that Han is starting a conversation with T when she offered him a coke. T, recipocrating, takes the coke and asks about the mouse. In this first stage of Knapp’s model, there is some interaction there and there is an exchange of words which are friendly and non-hostile (probably more evident to myself as I can’t rewind what happened to show you all) By accepting the coke, two conclusions can be drawn, either T was really thirsty, or he was just trying to be polite. If it’s the latter, it validates the good intentions of Han offering a coke to him whereas if the former is true and not the latter, it still will indirectly validate the good intentions for it gives her the thinking that “oh, I’m right, he’s thirsty. I did a good thing.” and by validating someone’s actions, it makes the person feel good about him/herself which builds the basis for a good friendship. Think about it this way, everyone likes to make friends with people who makes them feel good about themselves right.

The next stage of Knapp’s model is Experimenting and this coincides with our subjects going out either with a group of friends, or by themselves. In the personal account we see our subjects going out a lot both with a group of friends and by themselves. Though there are times which they went out with a group of friends, they’re primary focus would be each other as right now, they are trying to find out more about each other and having friends makes things less awkward and allows both individuals to indirectly find out about each other through observing each other’s actions and paying attention to what each other says. As in the personal account, this lasted for quite a period of time and as the frequecy of the meet-ups increased, it takes us onto the third stage of Knapp’s model of relationships.

Knapp’s third stage is Intensifying and he suggests that in this stage, there is a lot of self-disclosure and the time spent together will increase significantly. He’s right. As with what happened in my personal account, as the frequency of meeting up increased, the presence of other friends being around together with them decreased and eventually, self-disclosure became a usual thing whether it happened over the phone, or face to face, or in text messages. Again, this serves as a validation for each other as it shows that they both trust each other and feel secure enough to share some of their personal issues and individual perspectives.

Eventually as the story moved on and T expressed his feelings, Knapp’s fourth stage, Integration, comes into the picture. Both of our subjects were integrating each other into their lives as they made time for each other and spent some part of their time and personal issues with each other. People came to know about them as “them” and they recognised themselves as “we”. In short, they were made known to be a couple.

Though this relationship never went into the fifth stage, Bonding, it did proceed to the sixth stage, Differentiating. This is seen whereby both indiviuals were exerting their own ideas of a relationship and their character onto the other. T was seen expressing his insecurities and anger to Han while making it known what she should and shouldn’t do. Han on the other hand, became upset as T was restricting her social life and felt that he was making her oppose her own character. Though they both knew about each other’s character, both could not accept the other part’s ideas of their relationship and how it should go.

Over time, Their relatinship went downhil into Knapp’s seventh stage, Circumscribing. Both of them stayed away from topics which angered the other party. Han didn’t want to talk about school or about her friends as she knew it will bring about an argument though T wanted to know about her day. It may have been a one-sided kind of circumscribing but it still contributed to the further decaying of the relationship which brings me to the eighth stage os Knapp’s, Stagnantion.

As both parties didn’t want it to end after making an effort to stay togther for 2 years, both parties tolerated with each other and most of the time, there wasn’t much interaction and bits of Circumscribing existed where both parties though still in a relationship, limited most of their conversation to extremely safe topics. Days like these continued to pass and though T was able to tolerate this and continued holding onto the relationship, Han began to think about her own situation. This relationship was bringing her no where and it certainly isn’t making her feel good about herself. Her outings with her friends were censored from her conversations, now reduced to almost not at all in two days, and she was feeling tired from not being able to share her days with T.

She found herself often thinking about “them” and often find that being alone was better off for her. She started to take comfort in her friends and found that she no longer thought about T. She begun to avoid seeing him as seeing him would induce recollections of the past few months which would aggitate her badly. She begun to comply to Knapp’s nonth model, Avoidance. She avoided T a lot and tried her best to exclude him from her life.

Finally, while she was at her friend’s BBQ, a few days from their third year together, she ended the relationship upon coming to a final conclusion that she is definitely better off alone or with someone else.

The personal account did not reflect the fifth stage but Knapp’s model had no requirement to follow it in sequence. Most relationships would involve excluding stage five as people don’t marry everyone they date. The fifth stage will only be applicable to couples who have gone through marraige, child birth, or any events that may bind them together officially, where officially referred to their relationship being recognised by everyone, or before god.