Models of Relationship Development/Deterioration - Why A Friendship Ceased - Essay Example

She was a beautiful girl, very 'bubbly' and always smiling. We seemed to share the same sense of humor, the ability to laugh at ourselves and at the ridiculous things in life. Our shared ambition was to travel the world and learn more about other people and cultures. On Friday evening, she asked if I was going to let up on the books and go out. This was when I invited her to join me and some friends at a music club, then go for a pizza. She was so pleased and fitted in well, laughing and talking with everyone, flirting a lot with the boys.

I was so proud to have brought her along. She was friendly, tactile, a good listener, but did not say a lot to anyone but me. After this, we seemed to have plenty to talk about, she questioned me about my friends, we shared impressions and to my shame, we laughed unkindly about some of them. She was especially interested in the boys and how wealthy peoples' families were. I was flattered that somebody so glamorous and attractive wanted to be my friend and attached no significance to what she was asking or the way in which she behaved.

If I felt uncomfortable at my disloyalty, I was able to put it aside. We saw each other more, just the two of us going to a film, out shopping, talking daily on the phone. Some of my female friends were guarded with her, but this did not impact on my consciousness at the time. After a few months, it seemed as if we had established a good friendship. I saw less of my older friends, except at weekends. In our group, she was popular with the boys. One in particular, a good, old friend of mine, she dated but soon dropped him.

This is the point at which things in our relationship began to change. I knew he was crazy about her, so did she, and I was delighted when they got together. After three dates, it was over and when I asked her why, it was simply that he was not rich enough. I was shocked and surprised at how little I knew of this person's values, and I began to realize how much she knew about me and mine. To relate matters to tensions, it was that 'openness/closedness' was totally unbalanced now in two different ways.

I had been completely open with her, she had not been with me. Resentment started to grow in me about this, but I also felt now that she knew too much about me and that I needed my 'space' back somewhat. It seems unreasonable and unfair to blame a person for something which was my own doing, but that in effect was what was happening here. I thought back to when we had talked and laughed a lot together and it began to become clear to me that most of it had been either superficial or cruel.

The superficiality revolved around her, what she would wear, how she looked, how many boys she could date and how much money she earned. I did not question this, it was all part of her 'difference', but I remembered that when I talked about a book I loved, or a person I admired, there was little in the way of discussion, though plenty of apparently active listening going on. Regarding the cruelty, this centered around the characters and idiosyncrasies of my older friends, and while they might be true, who were we to laugh at them behind their backs But I did, because this was one of our favorite points of communication and it seemed to set our friendship apart as