love/ commitment

There are times during friendships where people are have commitment or love, or maybe even both. An example of this would be some friendships that I've experienced. Some relationships with people I know, the people are just mainly acquaintances, we're mutual friends, but we have no commitment to each other whatsoever. I had a friend in the past, we were best friends but in the relationship, I was putting my all into it, but the other person wasn't. We use to hang out a lot, but that's really it. I tried to give it my all, but she didn't. Eventually I just gave up and just stopped talking to her. She tried talking to me about a year ago and tried to make amends, but to me, our friendship is more whatever. She is more of an acquaintance to me than a friend. We all go through stages like this with people. Your true friends will always stick by you no matter what. Even if they don't hang out with us as much as we use to, as long as they make an effort to talk to us once in a while and try to hang out, then you keep the relationship alive. In my older post, I mentioned my friend who became busy with work, school, her boyfriend, but she still makes an effort to hang out with me and try to catch up with me here and there. Not just her, but a lot of my other friends are also like that. We use to hang out but we have our own lives to live and we eventually grow apart but as long as the commitment is there, then the relationship will stay alive. If there isn't love in a relationship, whether it's love as in they mean a lot to you, or you love them (boyfriend/ girlfriend) there's no need to keep a relationship going. You need both love and commitment in order to have a strong healthy relationship. The example in the beginning I gave, I really liked the girl, but she didn't like me back. I eventually just said forget it because I knew that she didn't feel the same and that I was tired of her not even being fully committed to our friendship. If she was making an effort to be my friend then I wouldn't of just stopped talking to her.

online vs one on one relationships

It is very hard to try and grasp what a person is truly like from online vs in person. The way people communicate online is also different from in person. Sometimes when I'm online, I just leave my instant messenger on and not talk as much, but in person I communicate a lot more also. There are also perks of communication online, sometimes it is easier for people to communicate to people and get comfortable with them before they communicate face to face. Some people deceit people for whatever reasons. Some might be on how they look and goes all the way to extremes as pretending to be someone else. An example of this would be how some people take pictures of themselves online in certain angles, and posting them up. Not to sound shallow, but some people try to make themselves look skinnier, hide some features of their bodies, basically find the best angle for them so they look their "best". Another example of this would be people pretending to be someone else in order to talk to people. On Dateline NBC, Chris Hansen and his team pretended to be little boys/ girls to try and catch pedophiles. There are many people who lies online and in face to face also. It is easier to inaccurately perceive yourself online with fake pictures or photoshop. It is also very easy to lie to people in face to face communication also. People lie, but it's harder to lie about their looks or what they look like as much. Even when you think you might know someone, you might not truly know what they are all about. It is hard to say which is more likely to happen whether people deceit to people online more or face to face more. The scary part of online communication is that you might really don't know who they are, unless you met the person through a mutual friend, other than that, you have to be very careful with the people you communicate with online.

Waning Friendship

Waning friendship stood out to me because it has happened to me with one of my best friends. My friend Kristin and I have been best friends since high school. She has always been there for me and still is today. She being a little younger than I am, after I graduated high school, we didn't hang out as much. She has always been busy with work and school and when she finished high school, I saw her maybe every other month. But when she got a boyfriend, we started talking less and less. It's okay though because I understand how hectic her life is trying to manage working so hard to pay for her own expenses, going to school to get a better opportunity in life, and having a boyfriend at the same time. I'm not mad at her or despise her at all for not being there as much as before. We all have to realize that we all have our own lives and that we're growing up. Some people don't understand it like they say in the book and the relationship deteriorates, but if you have a good strong communication with somebody, then you will still be friends with that person no matter what. I still hang out with Kristin every now and then, we still invite each other to events or to go get some lunch to catch up. I actually just had a chance to hang out with her the other night when she asked me for a favor to pick her and her boyfriend up from the airport. I was more than happy to do it, even though she's not there as much and we don't talk like we use to, I know that she's always still there for me like I will always be there for her. Knowing that someone always will be there for you keeps your strong bond with the person and keeps the friendship alive.

friendship

One of my closest friend Harvey and I have been getting even closer lately. Our friendship has always been close, but after about a year and a half ago, we got even closer. We started hanging out more and more. We started out as just having a good time messing around, but then we started communicating more on a deeper level, we started sharing our feelings, etc. We are now very close especially lately that we've been hanging out even more, almost every day and he hangs out with my friends too now. Fortunate enough that we haven't hit some of the bad parts the book talks about like waning relationship. It's nice to look back and see how our friendship grew and is still continue growing. He has always been there for me and I have always been there for him. He is basically like my brother. I'm excited to see where our friendship will take us and how much more fun we will encounter throughout our lives.

forums

This site is very interesting, I didn't know that there was a site like this. It is a good site for people to talk to other people about their problems or to get advice. Sometimes, there are certain people you can talk to in your group of friends about some things, but not everyone can give you advise for every situation. It is nice to get a wider range of advise and have more of an open minded views from others. The book talks more of, general issues, while the forum talks about more personal situations for people to understand more. The book can teach you only so much, but you need people who can relate to a certain situation in order to figure out/ solve the problem or get better advice. We can learn a lot from other people and the trials and tribulations they've experienced before which we can use for our present or future problems. You can just go online and talk to everyone and not feel judged or not as much as you would if you were talking to your friends or family. 

Affirm and Assert Yourself

This topic is what I believe is what everyone should learn. You can't just let people talk to you like you're any less of a person. I've lived my life before just letting things go because of not wanting to get into an argument, but there is a difference between trying to avoid an argument and trying to assert yourself so that people don't walk all over you. Of course we can't always please everyone, you have to let people know your feelings and opinions also. We can't grow as communicators if we don't assert ourselves tell people what we're thinking. Assertion means in the book, is a matter of clearly and non-judgmentally stating what you feel, need, or want. I never realized before that not saying anything and just letting things be was a bad thing. But now after realizing this from people and learning it in class, it has taught me to become a better communicator. If you're communicating with someone and they're talking all over you, you have to assert yourself and let them know what you think. It is just a one way communication and it won't help people grow as a person and communicators.

Defensives

An example of me feeling disconfirmed or defensive was when I was at work. It was my first few days at work so everything was new to me. I was working at Safeway as a deli/ sandwich maker. I felt that I was going at a fairly reasonable speed when a customer came up and started complaining. There was already a long line and I'm still trying to learn how to make the different types of sandwiches. I started to explain my situation with him and he just gave me a scuff, a sigh, and rolled his eyes at me. I felt defensive about everything people were saying, fearful of messing up on my new job, I tried to defend myself from not just customers, but from workers. My boss explained to me that it's okay and to take my time. She also told me to not listen to them and that I'll pick it up very quick. It has eventually helped me out a lot that even with my new jobs, I don't worry about customers being rude about things. It taught me to just smile to them and explain to them. I have done all the defensive listening that are talked about in the book. There has been a situation where I have used each of defensive communication barriers when something happens. We all have and we can't avoid it. It is if we realize and try to avoid doing it that will make us into better communicators.