Knapp's Relational Model in Action

 Welcome back everyone! Today I am going to be talking about Knapp's Relational Model and how it applies to one of my friendships.

Knapp's relational model provides a closer look at the structures of relationships and the stages they go through overtime as people learn and grow together. Here is a fun crash course video I found about human communication and Knapp's model!

Let's get interpersonal! Ha! For this blog post I am going to talk about a great friendship I have currently. My friend Piper and I met when we were quite young, in a dance class at a local studio. We continued to be in dance classes together for many years but didn't begin to become good friends until later in middle school and high school. Through those years, Piper and I went through the stages of coming together from initiating to bonding. Reflecting on recent years however, our friendship has gone through multiple stages of growing apart that have ultimately, gotten us to where we are now. 

Differentiating: Although Piper and I are really close friends we are pretty different people. After we both stopped dancing at our studio, we saw each other less and less. It wasn't always easy to make plans because of busy schedules and it definitely didn't help that I am more introverted than she is. However, as Knapp's relational model describes, we were able to understand these differences and be accommodating of each other's needs and overall strengthen our friendship. 

Circumscribing:  Thinking about our first year of college and being far apart from each other and on different school schedules there was a lot of disconnect that appeared in our friendship. We were both making new friends and trying to get the hang of college life which made it hard to find time to call, and even harder to see each other in person. This distance made it difficult to keep up with each other and sustain the close relationship we had in high school.

Relational Maintenance (thanks to online communication): As of this year I would say that my friendship with Piper is in a stage of maintenance. We make a lot more time to talk to each other and have reestablished the close friendship we had earlier on. Piper and I were able to restore our closeness through frequent spontaneous phone calls and funny texts or videos we send to each other on social media. It might not be ideal, but because of the endless number of ways we can communicate online, we are able to maintain relationships and friendships when we can't be with someone in person. Whether through social media, FaceTime, messaging, and so much more, we can stay in touch with the people that matter most to us.