Getting to Know You

Not sure if this goes anywhere, really--someone let me know if I should move it.

Anyway, there's this chart about the stages of relationships--how people go from meeting, to bonding, to intensifying the relationship, to merging habits/lives--that kind of thing. How people get close. I'm pretty sure I got the order wrong.

The book is kinda outdated, so I thought I'd make my own special chart for online relationships--specifically ones like this, on sites where you don't know the person's real name.

(Yes, I'm doing this for fun.)

~~~~~~~

1. Becoming Visible

This is the very first stage--you see someone's username and/or post and become aware of their existence.

2. Acknowledgment

You acknowledge this person exists. This can be done via a comment that references them, a wall post, a pm--whatever. You talk to them.

3. Getting to Know You

You actually have a conversation with this person.

4. Getting to Like You

You regularly talk to this person. At this point, certain things probably remind you of them.

5. Best Buds

Talking to this person is a habit. You have inside jokes.

6. You actually learn this person's real name, and details about them that they might not share with other people normally. May overlap or come before 4 or 5, and occasionally even 3.

7. You actually meet in person. (This may never happen, for numerous reasons.)

~~~~~~~~~

Now, that's the ways people grow together. What about the ways people grow apart? (I can't remember the specific things the textbook said. )

1. Disenchantment

Maybe something the person does/says upsets you. Maybe one or both of you just gets busy. In any case, you don't talk as much as you used to--or, at least, you don't interact the same way together.

2. Disengagement

You stop talking to this person for a significant period of time.(The amount of time considered significant varies.)

3. Strangerization

(Why yes, I did just make up my own word.) This is when you and your former friend no longer really know each other. Attempts to regain that friendship will sound much like Acknowledgment or Getting to Know You.

~~~~~~~~~~~~

I've written more here than i have in.....anything I've written save an essay. Maybe a journal entry, but those aren't online. I find this........ just a bit discouraging. Oh well.