4th post for comms101 (mood: lost)

As i progress on a new post every week, I'm beginning to take a longer time each time i need to come up with a post entry. haha im actually quite affected now, due to many reasons. nvm i dun wish to elaborate anymore. enough of my ranting. So here comes the post for this week!

this past week, we studied abt interpersonal communication. interpersonal communications. in short, is simply the communications that take place between persons who have an established relationship, the people are in some way related. to me, interpersonal relationship is important yet profound. it requires certain skills (or maybe character?) to establish a long lasting relationship. ok. so for this entry, i will not be presenting a media source. if i do, i would only be forcing myself to do so. in this entry, i will talk about how i feel about the different stages of interpersonal relationships and what they mean to me.

Basically, the progression and development of a typical relationship come in 10 stages of 2 phases. initiation, experimenting, intensifying, integrating, bonding come under the "coming together" stage while the falling apart stage consists of differentiating, circumscribing, stagnating, avoiding, terminating. because of how optimistic a person i always am ( and also the time constraint), i will skip the falling apart stages and relate my personal experiences to the stages of coming together.

yes true, enough, the initiating stage can be very superficial and shallow to some people. reason being, this stage usually involves screening and filtering. it simply means that before someone enters into this stage, he decides whether he wants to initiate a relationship base on very superficial factors such as the looks, outfit, physique. All of these factors, in my opinion, are merely the packaging of someone, will and can be highly deceiving. personally, i will not penalise this sort of behavior as it is human nature after all that we judge a book by its cover. however i think it is wise to be able to separate your judgment from reality. someone who is good looking can be real nasty and vice versa. For myself, i tend to approach someone only after i get to know his or her behavior or character. in a way, yes, i am not impressed by someone because of his or her looks. afterall, nowadays, good looking people are everywhere on the streets.

yes. coming to the 2nd stage(experimenting stage), it involves the exchange of cultural, social and psychological information exchange within a group or between a pair. this is the stage where small talks are carried out and understanding start to build up. to me, it is the most crucial stage as it forms the impression of yourself in the person. yes, i believe most of you (at least for me) will agree that this stage can be rather awkward, probably due to the fear of making a fool of youself or showing the ugly side of yourself. strangely but truely, when nearing the transition of this stage to the next stage, we generally feel comfortable towards one another. anyone able to tell me the reason why?

the 3rd stage is the intensifying stage involves increasing the committment and awareness. physical contact will also start to come into the picture( not from my experience, the info is from the notes). personally, i feel that this is the stage where mutual feelings start to build, be it a BGR or just plain friendship. during this stage, it brings the concept of "you" and "me" into a category of "us". for me, it is a stage where i get to date someone, or going out with friends, in hope of getting to know the person better.

the 4th stage, is somehow similar to the intensifying stage, the only difference being that the former marks the completion of the latter. at the integrating stage, couples encompass their social networks and form a common social identity. couples will introduce themselves as partners instead of individuals.

eventually, every interpersonal relationship will come to the bonding stage. this is the last stage of the "coming together phase" where couples conduct significant rituals such as engagement, marriage, and then having a child. sadly but truly, this is the stage where obligations and commitments are formalize. generally, couples will feel tied down to a marriage as being together has become more of an obligation and responsibility instead of love. personally, i feel that this does not indicate the failure of a relationship. instead, i see it as a part and parcel of marriage. the success of a marriage is only possible when it is based on love, responsibility and obligations. what say u, people?