Chapter 10: Friendships in Our Lives



Chapter 10: Friendships in Our Lives

Question: (Create a question from this chapter’s information. Pose the question to your peers during the discussion of this chapter.)GD ______________________________________________________________________________

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Key Concepts

|friends of the heart |internal tensions |

|friends of the road |relationship rules |

Chapter Outline

I. Friendships are an important relationship in our lives; they are unique because there are no rules, laws, or institutional structures that create and maintain them.

A. We expect to invest time, energy, thoughts, and feelings into our friendships.

B. We expect to develop an emotional closeness that includes self disclosure.

1. Some people, particularly feminine women and androgynous men, express intimacy through dialogue.

2. Some people, particularly masculine men, express intimacy through shared activities.

C. We expect that our friends accept both the positive and negative aspects of our selves; we do not feel we need to hide thoughts or feelings from our friends.

D. We expect to develop a level of trust, both confidence in the fact that friends will do what they say they will do and in the belief that a friend cares about us and our welfare.

E. We expect friends to indicate their support for us by showing, either verbally through dialogue or nonverbally through action, that they care.

F. Although our personal experience, gender, and ethnic background influence how we experience and express friendship, there is much common ground about what people expect and value in friendships.

II. Friendships tend to follow relatively stable rules for how they develop and function.

A. The majority of friendships work through a set of stages.

1. Friendships begin with an ___________________, either planned or accidental.

2. Friendly relations occur when we spend time checking out whether we could develop a more lasting relationship with this person.

3. In the ___________________, we work toward creating a longer-term friendship by starting to disclose our feelings, attitudes, values, thoughts, and interests.

4. _____________________ is when we begin to think of ourselves as friends and to work out our own rules for the relationship.

5. When we are in the stabilized friendship stage, we have determined that this relationship will continue, take future encounters for granted, and work at creating a high level of trust.

6. When one or both people stop investing in the relationship, get pulled in different directions by family or career demands, or violate trust or a rule, the friendship can begin to wane; communication tends to become defensive if it exists at all.

B. __________________________, even though we often are not consciously aware of them, help us figure out what is appropriate and inappropriate in this friendship.

III. Like all relationships, there are various things that make them difficult to develop and maintain.

A. _________________________ are relationship stressors that grow out of the individuals involved in the relationship.

1. _____________________________ (autonomy/connection, openness/privacy, and novelty/familiarity) create tension when the people involved in the friendship have different expectations and/or needs.

2. Social diversity creates tension when our interpretations of different communication styles or perceptions create misunderstandings.

3. Sexual attraction creates tension when two friends have agreed not to add romance to their relationship or if one person wants romance and the other does not.

B. External tensions are relationship stressors that grow out of the situation or context surrounding the relationship.

1. Because our lives are complex and friendships have no rules governing how often, when, and where we interact, they are frequently the easiest relationship to neglect when we have too much to do.

2. Our friendships change as we make changes in our lives (e.g., starting a new educational stage, a new career, a family; caring for others).

3. _________________________ is becoming a larger constraint as we become a more mobile society.

IV. In addition to the general principles discussed in earlier chapters, there are four specific guidelines for enhancing communication in friendships.

A. We need to engage in ________________________ so that we can see the friendship as our friend does as well as understand the thoughts and feelings this person expresses.

B. We need to communicate honestly, even when that is not what the other person wants to hear or it does not paint a positive picture.

C. We need to be open to difference and recognize that every friendship or situation does not come in a neat either-or package.

D. We need to look beyond the small stuff so we can see the whole person.

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