Interpersonal Communications, Essay Example

Concepts & Theories

There are basically two theories that apply to analyzing a given personal relationship with another person. First of all, the Social Penetration Theory (SPT) asserts that as a relationship develops, “communication between the parties evolve from superficial to deeply personal” (“Social Penetration Theory”) and as a cycle exhibits ebb and flow, meaning that they “do not automatically get better and better as the participants learn more and more about each other” (“Social Penetration Theory”). Rather, the parties or participants must “work through the tensions of the relationship” which are normally created through conflict. Also, this type of relationship can be very open and sharing or far less open. Thus, the SPT posits that “these cycles occur throughout the life of a relationship” as the parties or participants attempt to “balance their needs for privacy and to maintain an open relationship” (“Social Penetration Theory)”. Secondly, by definition, the Self-Disclosure Theory is an “interaction between at least two individuals where one intends to deliberately divulge something personal” to the other (Greene, Derlega, & Mathews 411), such as telling a person “I have great feelings for you” or “I love the way that you look at things.”

These two theories on interpersonal communications can be applied to the following description of a relationship I developed with a co-worker while employed at a local company. This is because the relationship did indeed evolve from being superficial at first and then to something deeply personal; it also went through a cycle via an escalation to a de-escalation; in other words, it reached a point of intimacy and then deteriorated, due mostly to the existence of conflict between myself and the person I was involved with. In addition, this relationship involved a good deal of self-disclosure, whereby I divulged some of my most intimate thoughts and feelings to the other person.

Relational Escalation

The first time I saw Lidia was when she was talking to one of our supervisors about an upcoming project in which I was to participate as a group team member. I recall an immediate attraction to her, not so much a physical attraction, but there was something about her that stood out from all the other women that worked in my department. She appeared to be kind and considerate which led me to ask one of her co-workers about her. This was the pre-interaction period, the first stage of the relational escalation process.

Later during the workday, I summoned up the courage to approach Lidia. I remember how she smiled at me when I asked her if she was seeing anyone at the time. When she replied that was not involved with anyone, I asked her for a date. At first, she was a bit hesitant but then smiled and agreed to go out on a date with me on Friday night. This was the acquaintance awareness stage of the relational escalation process.

So, on Friday night after work, Lidia and I went to a nearby restaurant where we talked for several hours about ourselves. There was no physical contact between us at this point. But as time passed, I began to sense that we had a lot in common. This turned out to be true when we shared our likes and dislikes about our employer and talked about our futures. This was the exploration awareness stage of the process in which myself and Lidia disclosed basic things about ourselves without getting too technical or personal.

On Monday morning at work, my relationship with Lidia intensified when she began to tell me things of a very personal nature. For example, she told me that she was sexually frustrated because her former boyfriend would rather drink beer and watch football games on TV instead of having sex with her. This disclosure at first startled me because I had never met a woman who was so blunt and forthright with her thoughts and desires. She also asked me if I thought she was attractive. I replied that I thought she was very attractive which prompted her to ask me out for another date. This was the intensification awareness stage of our relationship, due to the fact that we became a couple and planned to spend much more time together after work and on the weekends.

About a week later, I met Lidia at her house where our relationship truly intensified by becoming intimate with one another. To say the least, she was the wildest sex partner I had ever had. But after our first sexual encounter, things seemed to cool down considerably. It was as if Lidia was using me for her own sexual purposes, due to the fact that she never asked me how I felt about our encounter. This was the intimacy awareness stage of the SPT process.

Reflections

After giving it considerable thought, I formed this relationship with Lidia because I was quite lonely and needed some type of female companionship. Also, as previously mentioned, I was immediately drawn to her at work because of her charismatic personality.

Relational De-Escalation

After our first and only sexual encounter, my relationship with Lidia began to decline, mostly because of some personal conflicts between us, such as Lidia’s disclosure or admission that she preferred more than one sexual partner during intimacy. For myself, this created a great amount of stress and anxiety, especially related to thinking that I was just not good enough for her. To make matters worse, Lidia would never even discuss this problem with me and simply ignored it. This was the stage where we became increasingly distant with one another. In fact, shortly after, the relationship truly stagnated because I came to realize that it had no substance to it nor any true emotional depth. Things then became worse when Lidia began to ignore me at work and even went out of her way to avoid me. Finally, after about three weeks together, our relationship terminated. However, I did attempt to prevent this by disclosing my feeling toward Lidia, but she became even more cold and distant.

Conclusions

Exactly why my relationship with Lidia terminated is difficult to explain. I  believe the main reason is because of her insistence that we include another person in our sexual encounters which as I mentioned only occurred once at her house. I should also mention that I later found out from a co-worker that Lidia had acted this way with other men whom she considered as nothing but pawns in a game of sexual hide and seek. Therefore, because of this insistence on Lidia’s part, the emotional conflict was too much to bear so I moved on. I must admit that working in the same place with Lidia and seeing her every day was very stressful which unfortunately affected my responsibilities at work.

Lessons Learned

One important lesson that learned from my relationship with Lidia is that self-disclosure can often backfire. Also, I learned that first impressions are not always accurate. Thus, a person’s relational life is truly a cycle of ebb and flow, one that unfortunately cannot always be controlled nor anticipated.

Works Cited

Greene, Kathryn, Derlega, Valerian J., and Alicia Mathews. “Self-Disclosure in Personal Relationships.” The Cambridge Handbook of Personal Relationships. 2004. Web. Accessed 10 November 2014. http://comminfo.rutgers.edu/~kgreene/research/pdf/Self%20Disclsoure%20in%20Personal%20Relationships%20copy.pdf.

“Social Penetration Theory.” 2014. Web. Accessed 10 November 2014. http://oregonstate.edu/instruct/theory/spt.html.