Interpersonal Analysis paper
In a world of over six billion many of us might see ourselves, our relationshps and how we interact with others as one of a kind. To think that others might have the same experiences in their personal relationships might seem uncanny, however is actually very likely. Dialectical theory brings forth a formulaic plot for how we interact with others. Dialectial theory applies to relationships and how humans interact with each other. We all have friendships to which this construct applies to. I will be talking about a long term friendship I have klept since high school.
Dialectical theory views the natural state of relationships as one of change and movement. Everyones friendships involve dialectical theory eventhough we may not realize it. Our long term personal relationships especially are cases in point of dialectical theory. The relationshp I will be examining and extrapolating the essence of Dialectical theory is my friendship with a girl I have known since highschool named Annette. My friendship with Annette began when I was a sophmore in highschool, in an Art class she frequented as one of the upperclass advanced students. I had noticed Annette years before this however had not spoken to her. Annette was easily noticable because of her large size and the fact that she is morbidly Obbesse, which becaming a revolving theme in much of the conflict between us through out the years. There ar many complexeties invoved with friendships, physical appearance and self worth often interferes and auses tension between two people. As I mentioned I first met Annette in an art class, for some time our relationship was purely social in thay I only interactd with her in the confines of the school, as the school year went by we began to talk more and more and eventually exchanged number and spoke on the phone on a semi regular bases. The next year I joined varsity track where Annette was a shot putter. Many of my friends where on the team, I didnt speak as much to Annette on the track and I think we both experienced separation in this instance, we maintained our Autonomy on the track but rather spoke to each other outside of the track. Sometimes I felt that Annettes size was much to domeneering to others perception, at the time I seemed to be preoccupied with her size and not the friendship. Annette graduated high school and I finished two year later, I never saw her or spoke to her during that time. It was not untill my freshman year in college that I again saw Annette. We seemed to have regressed from our friendship in that we barely spoke on campus but shared a class, our relationship now seemed to be impersonal, there where times I would see her in class but we wouldnt always sit next to each other or speak at all. As time passed we grew into the social friends we once where and entered uncharted terretory and became personal friends.
As personal friends much of our time revolved around hanging out wiht each other in social settings then later in more personal settings, as we made this transition we encountered some openess-closedness, the openess aspect had been touched on as I knew her pretty well regarding her traditional tastes, as she did about me. When we bacem closer friends however I got to know her much better and we talked about subjecs which closer friends talk about. Such Closedness subjects included, her wheight problems, depression and child abuse. AT first I thought this was too much information and I felt unsettled, however Annette felt comfertable with sharing these things baout herself which she wouldnt with others so she was taking our friendship seriously. After some time however our time together became monotonous. Annette only wanted to go out and drink. I really wanted to have Autonomy - Connection with Annette, I wanted to spend time wiht her, but also needed time for myself, however she wanted to spend all her drinking time with me, which I was not intrested in doing. Our friendship began to suffer because of this. Annette would question my friendship with her since I no longer was compliant with going out with her and drinking. I maneuvered out friendship into a sort of on again- off again relationship. I felt that if I began spending too much time with her she would fall back into the old niche and our friendship would once again become routine and a Selection of type in which we would spend all our time together and do the same thing. We where once again spending time together and had encorporated Novelty predictability into our friendship. Going out to drink was not what our friendship revolved around, we where now going to the gym, and attending other social events where alcohol was not the central theme, I used the strategy of doing things which benefited both of us, I really liked going ot the gym and Annette neede to go to the gym as well, with me going with her it was easier for her to attend the gym herself. At this point i felt we had a normal and stable friendship and had worked through our Dialectical Tensions.
Friendships are not stable relationships. Conflists and tensions arie all the time, many of htem which we cant evade. At times it might be difficult dealing with such conflicts. Conflicts are not always going to be solved, in relaity they to be worked on since they are not negative but can be used as modems to help friendhsips grow and really help friend become closer. All relationships go through Dialectial tensions and complex ranging from where you want to spend time together to wether you want to spend time together at all. Most friendships go through these tensions and we all use the dialectical theory to ncounter our conflicts even though we may not know it.
