Free Essay

Relationship

In:

Submitted By ceddrick100
Words 1550
Pages 7
Ceddrick Harris
Oct. 3, 2014
SPCH 1300/10a.m. (MWF)
University of Central Arkansas

Adriian Gardner

‘’How Every Good Man Fails’’

How Every Good Man Fails?

It all started this summer I was on a quest to find the other half of me, my soul mate some may say. On my quest I did find a person who I thought would be my soul mate but wasn’t. By using Mark Knapp’s stages of getting in and out of a relationship, I’m going to tell you about this summer time heartbreak. But first I must explain that there are ten stages of Mark Knapp’s relationship stages in getting in and out of a relationship. Mark Knapp’s getting into a relationship stages are initiating, experimenting, intensifying, integrating, and bonding (Author Mark, K., pg. 208, Figure7-1). And Mark Knapp’s stages of getting out a relationship are differencing, circumscribing, stagnating, avoiding, and termination (pg. 208, Figure 7-1).
First off the girl I fell for was not a girl I would typically fall for because she wasn’t my type. And when we went into the Initiating stage of our relationship as described by Mark Knapp as the stage of starting a relationship (pg. 208, Figure 7-1), I just saw our first encounter as a friendly conversation. I only spoke to her because of the setting of the situation she was in, which was a funny setting dealing with a crazy guy harassing her. The setting took place while I was walking from the park. A friend who was with me and happened to be related to her, he invited her to the park also so she walked with us also. Anyway, as we walk from the park, a crazy guy pops out of nowhere and starts saying inappropriate things to her, which led me to stop and offer help to get rid of the guy. I acclaimed to the man that I was her boyfriend. She was mad about the whole encounter, so I decided to start a conversation with her to smooth things over. When I chose to talk to her, even though it was meaningless conversation it started the initiating stage of the relationship.
The experiment stage is “small talk” that occurs when two people start an acquaintanceship (pg. 208). This stage of the relationship occurred with us due to a Facebook game called TBH, which means to be honest. In my TBH I jokingly admitted that the guy who harassed her was kind of funny. She admitted that he was also, and we started to talk jokingly about the encounter. After our conversation, we continued to talk every night or every other night. Our conversation started to get deeper. We started to have contestation about celebrities, our family, and asking about each other every day. Our relationship started to intensify which is the third step of Mark Knapp’s idea of getting into a relationship (pg.209). The Intensifying stage is when two parties start to “express their feelings directly” (pg.209). We were defiantly friends by the end of this stage. I began to fall for her wanting more than being friends; I knew exactly what type of guys she liked, and they weren’t as good as I was, they were every teenage girl’s dream of a “Bad Boy”.
As time passed, our relationship grew stronger. The school year was over and I was an official graduate of my high school planning the start of my future. Our relationship had intensify even more. We continued our relationship even though we now lived in two different locations far from each other. We started to hang out with each other even though we had to deal with the distance problem. At that point we entered the integrating stage of our relationship. The Integrating stage is when the parties start to take on an identity as a social unit (pg. 209). I continued to fall for her time after time, and at this point she left her longtime boyfriend, perfect timing right. I told her all the right things that a woman needs to her from a good man as myself. We began to publicly display our relationship but still as friends. We loved each other, but my love was stronger than hers, way too strong, which I regret because it ruined our relationship. I told my family how I felt for her and they insisted that I tell her before it was too late. But I was afraid of the one fear that every good man is afraid of which is the good man curse. The good man curse is when girls choose their emotionally unhealthy boyfriend over a good man. Our bond was there but not the romance because I failed to tell her how I felt, and when I did finally tell her, it was too late. My curse was put into action. She went back to her boyfriend. So with that I felt our bond was not real. Mark’s bond stage is when the parties make symbolic public gestures to show the world their relationship exists (pg.209). Our bond began to die because her love for her boyfriend began to be her overall priority making her forget about her friends. I tried to stay her friend but she, even though she didn’t was causing me to fall in a state of depression. I needed to get out of the relationship because my depression was getting worse by continuing to have a relationship with her because I couldn’t come to an answer of why she choose her ex. This cause the differentiating stage because I didn’t agree with her decision. The differentiating stage is when someone or both shifts to put me downs rather than “hold me tight” (pg.210).
My love for her was still there, but I mentally masked any feeling for her. Basically, I shut her out. I continued to encourage her but not the same as before. The circumscribing stage was hard for me, but I had to do it. In circumscribing stage communication between the parties decreases in quantity and quality (pg.210). I continued with my circumscribing stage. And eventually I only made small talk with her. The conversations was no longer deep but simple as if we were two strangers. If circumscribing continues, the relationship begins to stagnate (pg. 210). We hit the stagnating stage, I started to avoid her messages and pleas for help when she was down, which was the hardest thing to do, pretending she didn’t exist. I felt like a mother hearing her babying crying but couldn’t do anything about it. This caused true pain. I entered the avoiding stage, the stage when stagnation is too unpleasant, and parties in a relationship began to create distance between each other (pg.210). With time on my hands I figured out what caused our relationship to have a downfall. The terminating stage of the relationship is the summary of what went wrong in the relationship to cause it to go wrong before the desire to dissociate (pg.210).
Now I will reveal my story conclusion and my title conclusion. But first I will like to thank Mark Knapp for a beautiful summary of getting in and out of a relationship. As good man we fail at love because we forget to stand up for ourselves and set out our boundaries as a good man. What I mean by that is we must establish clearly what we want in our relationships rather it being either a friendship or romance with a woman. Let her know what you want from the relationship. By using the model by Knapp I evaluated my relationship failure as a good man which will help me in the future and other good man out there, hopefully. Also a good man tends to give up on relationships that don’t end in romance due to no patience to wait for the woman to choose right. This is a major needed fix; give her time to adjust to your plans for her to be in a romantic relationship with you. I was inspired by a book to come up with this conclusion and idea. The book explained why some woman choose attraction over goodness of a man. Given time in the book it can be pulled out that woman will eventually choose attraction over goodness. A quote from the text that applies to woman is “We accept the love we think we deserve” (The Perks of Being a Wallflower, Author Stephen, C.). Understanding this quote, I understood some women choose to be with attractive men because the women believe they deserve the best looking guy, but in actuality they eventually come to terms with the fact that the good guys are the one they deserve. This essay showed all ten steps of Mark Knapp’s relationship model which shows his model is creditable. I conclude that relationships only fail because we are not fully informed of what goes into a relationship but that can be fixed with Mark Knapp’s model.

Reference
Adler, R., Rodman, G., & Pre, A. (2013). Understanding Interpersonal Communication. In Understanding Human communication (12th ed., pp. 208-210). New York: Oxford University Press.
Chbosky, S. (1999). The perks of being a wallflower. New York: Pocket Books.

Similar Documents

Premium Essay

Boygirl Relationship

...To start off with, relationships. Oh boy, what could we say about this topic. Relationships are what most teenagers worry about. Does this boy like me, does this girl like me. How can I impress him/her? Students go around during school worrying more about if they look "hot" or if the boy/girl they are crushing on is noticing them. This effects student's school work. Students focus more on what's going on in their personal life with their relationship and cannot focus on their school work. If the guy or girl that they are crushing on or in a relationship with is in any of the same classes, it could cause distractions and lower your grades. You push off your school work, and worry about them. It's hard to have a relationship with someone sometimes especially when you see them at school all the time and something happens. Say you get into a fight or something, then you are extremely upset all day and start to cry. All day, all you think about is if you guys are going to be okay, and what is going to happen. I've done it. I know it's extremely hard to focus but you just have to try. Relationships are a big part of an average teenagers life, and they are usually pretty hard to keep strong. Another thing i've done, is just pushed off my homework and hung out with whoever I was dating and then started to get low grades. My mom was extremely upset and told me that if me having a boyfriend was going to effect my grades then there was going to be a lot of consequences. If you just mainly...

Words: 329 - Pages: 2

Free Essay

Teenage Relationship

...INTRODUCTION “Without education, man is as though in a closed room and with education he finds himself in a room with all its windows open towards the outside world.” (Kassim Wais) Education serves as the means to bring about the desired changed in society, to develop a generation of virtuous individuals and thus contribute to the development of good human beings. It also serves as the means to develop oneself physically mentally and socially. Education to the youth manifests itself in terms of the need to cultivate the youth of society into mature individuals. It is important for them because youth is their growing stage it is also the time to develop the principle of life, make career decisions and begin to pursuit of one’s goal. It is important that the education to aims at youth developing social awareness in these adult-to-be (Manali Oak). Education is vital to the healthy growth and development of one’s personality. In making the ‘beings’ ‘human’ to produce ‘human being’ lies the importance of education to youths. But the transition of teenager’s attention from studying from the feeling of love has grown up. Right from the schools, teenagers find themselves getting attracted to the opposite sex in schools, neighborhood or even because of media which influences their feeling in many cases. Teenage affection has more chances of resulting just because of infatuation. It is highly probable that because of the hormonal changes in this phase of life, we are excited and keen...

Words: 760 - Pages: 4

Free Essay

Relationships

...sane. They could be the things to keep a person alive. Having a good and healthy relationship is so important, because it can be what keeps a person living. If someone was never loved, that person would feel anger and sadness. Successful suicides are the result of feeling no love. Those people who commit that kind of suicide feel alone and trapped. They feel like the only way to get better is to disappear. They believe they are the reason for every problem they have. Some suicides are committed by those who feel no love, who only feel hurt, pain, and anger. This is why having healthy and good relationships are so important. If one is thinking of committing suicide and puts warning signs and the parents do not see them, it is not the parents’ fault, but it does mean that they may not have been paying as much attention as they should have been. This does not mean that the child is not loved. It simply means they did not feel it. Psychologically, a person can be loved by another more than anything in the world, but that person needs to be able to feel it. Some people feel like they cannot be with someone at a point in their lives because they have some unresolved issues with their selves they need to fix before being able to love. These issues come in the way of their emotion and feel like they cannot be in a relationship before they can actually love their selves. Having healthy relationships with friends, family, and business acquaintances is a way to help a person become...

Words: 779 - Pages: 4

Premium Essay

Relationships

...An interpersonal relationship is a strong, deep, or close association/acquaintance between two or more people that may range in duration from brief to enduring. This association may be based on inference, love, solidarity, regular business interactions, or some other type of social commitment. Interpersonal relationships are formed in the context of social, cultural and other influences. The context can vary from family or kinship relations, friendship, marriage, relations with associates, work, clubs, neighborhoods, and places of worship. They may be regulated by law, custom, or mutual agreement, and are the basis of social groups and society as a whole. Field of study The study of interpersonal relationships involves several branches of the social sciences, including such disciplines as sociology, psychology, anthropology, and social work. Interpersonal skills are extremely vital when trying to develop a relationship with another person. The scientific study of relationships evolved during the 1990s and came to be referred to as 'relationship science', which distinguishes itself from anecdotal evidence or pseudo-experts by basing conclusions on data and objective analysis. Interpersonal ties are also a subject in mathematical sociology. Importance of interpersonal relationships Human beings are innately social and are shaped by their experiences with others. There are multiple perspectives to understand this inherent motivation to interact with others. Need to belong ...

Words: 2260 - Pages: 10

Premium Essay

Relationships

...Relationship Strategies Exploring love immediately think of many special characteristic such as understanding, respect, happiness, tolerance, admiration, honesty, among others more. One love relationship in my life is the relationship with my father. When I was a little girl watched as my father worried about giving me to my family and me a better future. He is not a person that can express what he feels. Since child suffered much abuse. I think the reason for its behavior. Always looked how my mother suffered by the lack of respect and his infidelity. Despite all the always worries for giving home and food, but he was absent. I was growing and I could see things with more clarity. They have now managed to establish some strategies that have helped me to establish a better relationship. The first strategy is to Carve out time to talk. Though the lives in Puerto Rico, I maintain communication frequently, where the can tell me what afflicted you and the experiences of their daily routine. I listen and show him that it is important for my. That way I show that no matter what happens. I try to forget the past and that will be able to learn to that experience. My father and me managed to establish a sincere communication and that has helped the relationship.   Another strategy I use is to Express admiration. I always remember my father that is a wrestler. It is the example that I want to continue fighting for what I want and move forward. The established always challenges and...

Words: 323 - Pages: 2

Free Essay

A Relationship

...finding the relationship that is right for us, we may want to take the opportunity to refine our concept of who we are and our ideas of what we want from life. That way, we are clearer on the kind of person we want to attract into our lives. Part of the journey of finding a mate is learning how to become our own mate. When we can learn to meet our needs without relying on someone else to complete us, we don’t have to form relationships from the space of needing our emptiness to be filled. We can also discover our intrinsic value, separate from what someone else might be reflecting back to us. Getting to know who we are and learning to love ourselves creates a solid foundation of self that we can bring to any relationship. We are fortunate to live in a time when relationships can unfold at a pace that is right for us and take unique forms. Friendship, dating, open relationships, long term relationships, long distance relationships, or committed relationships — we are free to choose the kind of relationships that we want. If you want to be in relationship, but haven’t found the right one for you, remember that the universe works in perfect order and, therefore, right now your life is unfolding exactly as it is meant to be. Maybe all this time has been part of your preparation period for meeting your intended partner. Even the relationships in our lives that haven’t worked out as we had hoped serve us by teaching us to make better choices in our next relationships. Finding...

Words: 356 - Pages: 2

Premium Essay

Relationship

...to live a Christ-directed life. As you continue to breathe spiritually (confess your sin and claim the fullness of the Spirit), you will experience a deepening fellowship with God enabling you to grow in Christian maturity. Relationship first begins with God. 1 peter 2:2,3  Therefore, rid yourselves of all malice and all deceit, hypocrisy, envy, and slander of every kind. 2Like newborn babies, crave pure spiritual milk, so that by it you may grow up in your salvation,  now that you have tasted that the Lord is good. 2 Peter 1: 5-8 For this very reason, make every effort to add to your faith goodness; and to goodness, knowledge; and to knowledge, self-control; and to self-control, perseverance; and to perseverance, godliness; and to godliness, mutual affection; and to mutual affection, LOVE.  For if you possess these qualities in increasing measure, they will keep you from being ineffective and unproductive in your knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. These verses are some of the basic foundation for having a relationship with our Lord Jesus. You may be asking yourselves what does this have to do with building up each other as women. It has a lot to do it; we a cannot minister half full or cannot give what we did not receive. In this relationship with our Lord, we receive, grace, peace, love and all the other fruits. Fruits is something that we share. For instance if you have a garden or fruit trees at harvest time you alone cannot contain all that it produces. ...

Words: 1114 - Pages: 5

Premium Essay

Relationships

...Student Name Date Interpersonal Communication Sample "Relationships" Paper Relationships, especially close and trusting relationships, are very important for the positive, social and psychological growth of the individuals involved in the relationship. In our society, people in close relationships desire physical contact, emotional support, acceptance and love. These traits and feelings are part of human nature, and people strive for these types of interpersonal relationships in order to fulfill the void in people's lives and, above all, to make sense of life through trust, sharing and caring. During my years in college, I have met many interesting people in the classroom, as well as in the dormitories. I made many new friends in The Segundo dormitories at The University of California, Davis. Although I hung out with many people and exchanged information about college life, I only developed a very close and intimate relationship with a girl in my psychobiology class during my first, fall quarter. Mark Knapp suggests that interpersonal relationships develop through several stages. My relationship with my best friend, Betty, has gone through the coming together stages of initiating, experimenting, intensifying and integrating. At this point, we have only experienced the differentiating and circumscribing stages in the coming apart stages of Knapp’s model. During the first class meeting in psychobiology, I sat in class, scanning the rows to see if I was able...

Words: 1905 - Pages: 8

Premium Essay

Relationship

...In case 1 , the main character Ken is facing some problems including pressure from family, lack of normal social cycle and heavy pressure from study. In the following paragraphs, I will give more details of the problems and suggest some relevant solutions to solve his problems. First, the undue care from his parents makes Ken under pressure. As Ken is the only child in his family, his parents treat him well such as giving him what he wants and put all focus on him. Although his parents may not express their expectations to Ken , he knows that his parents’ hope on him. All parents including Ken’s parent want their children do well on academic aspect so they hope Ken can get a good result in DSE and enter university. When Ken gets a bad DSE result and fail to enter university, he feels really sorry to his parents because he cannot fulfil the expectation of his parents. He knows that no other little brother and sister can satisfy his parents’ prospects since he does not have any brothers and sisters . He thinks that his failure makes his parents disappointed , which is the reason why he felt too embarrassed to go home. The family pressure drives Ken bears academic pressure later as he does not want to disappoint his parents again. The effective way to solve this problem is to communicate with parents. He needs to tell his parents that their undue care makes a great pressure to him and suggest to give him some spaces. Also, He should express he knows the expectations of his parents...

Words: 914 - Pages: 4

Premium Essay

Relationships

...Sociological research, Topic: relationships As a researcher I Rodney White plan to take a look at how couples in Relationships deal with each other knowing there are problems that need to be resolved. Example: Tom and Mary have been in a relationship for two years. Tom wants to get Married but Mary feels she not ready to be married but still wants to be with tom the rest of her life, Tom feels the same yet he feels if they get married it would bring them even closer than they are now. Researcher: R White 1.Looking in on these two my first question would be why Mary is not willing to get married at this point. is it a fear she has , or maybe she has seen friends get married, and a little while later get divorced, or does she come from divorced parents. Does she have goals set in her life to complete before she commits to being married, or having kids. And most important if Mary wants to be with tom for life then why would she say that given him some sense of security but not following through on the Marriage subject. Researcher: R White 2. for tom my question is he insecure with the relationship and feels if marriage is produced would that give him a false sense of security, is he bringing problems from pass relationships into this relationship creating an illusion that doesn't exist but for him it does for a more secure state of mind, or does he feel he's losing Mary from lack of communication and...

Words: 267 - Pages: 2

Free Essay

Breakdown of Relationships

...There are many reasons relationships can break down, Duck suggested 3 main reasons in 1999. Firstly, lack of skills; this refers to to inability to connect with one another for example if someone lacks social skills they will be unable to communicate their satisfaction or attract with their partner, this leads to an unrewarding outcome and the relationship may breakdown. This theory of thinking your partner isn't interested is supported by extramarital affairs, Boekhout(1999) used university students to say what would lead to an affair; for males it was lack of sexual stimuli and for women it was lack of emotional satisfaction. Both suggesting that their partners aren't interested in them either sexually or emotionally. This study lacks population validly as only university students were used, therefore it can't be generalised to the majority of the population. The reasons for to have an affair may change with age and the marital statues of the couple. This is supported by real world application, couples who struggle with social skills can take part in a Couples Coping Enchantment training, this sensitises couples to the idea of equity and aid them in communicating. Cina et al (2003) compared to groups of couples a controlled group who didn't receive CCET and the test group who did, she found that the test group had a better quality of marriage after receiving the training. This study despite having a large participant number can not be generalised to the entirety as it has cultural...

Words: 811 - Pages: 4

Free Essay

Building Relationships

...Building relationships is an important facet of any career-seeking adult. Building and maintaining a relationship can lead to valuable advice regarding a career, valuable insight and perhaps even a career opportunity. In order to build a successful relationship, one must first be an approachable person, secondly, one must nurture the relationship, and lastly, one must not quit trying. Often people wonder why they don’t have relationships that are more than “surface level”. A main reason is the approachability of a person. To be approachable one must have appropriate welcoming body language. The easiest of ways to seem approachable is to smile. You may not realize by having a straight face comes off as unwelcoming. How are you to start a conversation if you look mad? Several other ways that come off as unapproachable body language is crossing of the arms, distracting devices such as cellphones (which makes you appear busy), and failure to make eye contact. These small details have a big impact on relationship building. It is important to remember to look happy and welcoming to all those around you. Once a relationship is established, and the initial meeting went well, you must continue to nurture that relationship. One of the most common mistakes when building relationships is leaving a relationship alone, assuming a relationship will survive without regular contact (Billingham, 2013). Writing an email with such questions as simple as “How have you been?” can lead to maybe...

Words: 536 - Pages: 3

Free Essay

Tension in Relationships

...for understanding the ups and downs and sometimes illogical nature of interpersonal relationships. Developed by communication scholars Leslie Baxter, Barbara Montgomery and their colleagues, the dialectical perspective assumes that relationships keep changing. They are not maintained, but rather sustained through changing statuses. There are three sets of tensions that are common in relationships: integration-separation; stability-change; and expression-privacy. The first dialectic identified is integration – separation, more commonly known as autonomy versus connection. This is the tension in a relationship where either partner desires to be independent but also connected. The desire for different levels of autonomy and connection can generate friction in relationships. In the initial phase of the relationship we are like actors in a play trying to please the audience. But we cannot repress who we are for too long. Eventually we have to let our true selves show. An example of this is when a couple is in the beginning stages of the relationship, they are spending all of their time together and all is going fine. As time goes along either partner wants to start doing things independently. He/she wants to hang out with friends and have “alone time”. This can create tension in the relationship because the partner might not want to be left out. It is very common for the relationship to become strained at this point. It is a contrast from spending great amounts of time...

Words: 1163 - Pages: 5

Premium Essay

A Good Relationship

...Katherine G. Munoz Professor DiLiberto 23 October 2011 A Good Relationship A good relationship could be defined in many different ways, by many different people. But, for me a good relationship needs a base from where to start. When entering a relationship, you should already have an idea of how the person sort of is. Little by little you will learn more and more about the person. You always start slow. You do not have to jump into the relationship so quickly. Getting to know each other is a great way to see what you both like and have in common, and how well you get along. If you do not get along then it might not be so much of a good idea to go ahead and date that person. Each and every day there might be something new that you learn about each other. It might not be something you like about each other but, that is what makes you both unique and individuals. Being able to open up with each other is a great way to have a good relationship. Lying is never something good to have in any relationship what so ever. The truth will end up coming out and it isn’t a pleasant thing to be trying to cover for yourself when you could’ve said the truth from the beginning. Having conversations and being able to tell each other what’s wrong, or if you did something, or even if you just need to talk or tell them something you dislike, they would try to understand how you feel and your point of view and go ahead and work things out. This will hopefully make things a little easier on...

Words: 800 - Pages: 4

Free Essay

Healthy Relationships

...China Harris Chapter#8 Professor Name: Lyons Subject Name: SSPE201 22 march 2016 Healthy Relationships Healthy relationships allow two people to feel supported and connect to one another while also feeling equally independent and free. Communication and boundaries are the two major parts of a healthy relationship. Two people in a relationship with each other should be able to feel free enough to voice their opinions. Communication allows partners to treat each other with respect, speak openly to one another with thoughts and opinions, feel heard when expressing feelings, listen to each other and compromise, do not criticize each other, feel supported to do things they like, and celebrates each other’s accomplishments and success. Boundaries are what each partner should express to one another with regard to sex life, finances, family and friends, personal space, and time. A relationship with boundaries in a healthy relationship should: Allow each other to spend time with friends and family, do not abuse technology to check on a partner, trust each other and not require their partner to “check in”, do not pressure the other to do things that they don’t want to do and do not constantly accuse the other of cheating or being unfaithful. Healthy relationships also require consent from each partner no matter what the situation is. Consent is just a onetime thing it is ongoing, just because you have given consent for something before doesn’t mean you will again. Also saying yes...

Words: 720 - Pages: 3