Stage 3: Intensifying

Date: 2015-10-07; view: 508.

Stage 2: Experimenting

Stage 1: Initiating

Stage 1 involves the things that happen when we first make contact with each other. At this time, we look for signals that either impel us to initiate a conver­sation or tell us that we have nothing to gain by interacting. If we decide to make contact, we search for an appropriate conversation opener, for example. "Nice to meet you" or "What's happening?"

Once we have initiated contact, we try to find out more about the other per­son; we begin to probe the unknown. This is the stage of experimenting. Often we exchange small talk—for example, we tell the other where we're from and who we know in an effort to get acquainted. Although many of us may hate small talk or "cocktail party chatter," according to Mark Knapp it serves several useful functions.

1. It provides a process for uncovering integrating topics and openings for more penetrating conversations.

2. It can serve as an audition for a future friendship or a way to increase the scope of a current friendship.

3. It provides a safe procedure for indicating who we are and how the other person can come to know us better (reduction of uncertainty).

4. It allows us to maintain a sense of community with our fellow human beings."

When a relationship does progress beyond experimenting, it enters the third stage, intensifying. During this stage people become "good friends"—they begin to share things in common, disclose more, become better at predicting each other's behavior, and may even adopt nicknames for each other or exhibit similar postural or clothing cues. In a sense, they are beginning to be trans­formed from an "I" and an "I" into a "we."