Friends
of the Heart: Communication between Long-Term Friends
In this blog I plan to use the case study, “Friends
of the Heart: Communication between Long-Term Friends”, to explain closeness
and immediacy in relationships. In interpersonal relationships, there are three
different types of closeness: Physical, emotional, and relational. Therefore,
It’s the level of closeness in the relationship that sets unique relationships
apart. Closeness is a multi-layered, complex concept that has various significances.
Spatial proximity sometimes refers to the term close or closeness; while closeness
can also refer to the type of relationships people have and or the way some
people feel about each other.
Analyzing the different
types of immediacy between Jay and Sophie. These two have been close friends
for 13 years so you can only imagine all of the fun times, hard knocks, life
lessons they have been through together and all the different types of
immediacy they have had with one another. Jay and Sophie are both gay and they
both have partners. Sophie’s father has recently passed and she has to
travel to his house and clear it out. She travels across country with her
best friend, Jay, in a moving van. Their goal: to bring back what they
feel is important to keep from her father’s house. On their trip, they
have a few arguments you see a lot of
different levels in their friendship. You see the closeness and you see the
arguments and silly irritations that every friendship has, but all in all, they realize how good of friends they really are.
In this case, physical closeness, or “the amount of
spatial proximity and physical closeness people have”, is exhibited throughout
the entire story. Jay and Sophie are in very close proximity with each
other, as they are driving 2,000 miles together. When they stop for
a break, they sleep in the same hotel room. This shows us that they have
a high level of physical closeness.
Jay and Sophie have
nonverbal immediacy between them. Jay can tell that Sophie is distressed over
something just by the kinesics that she is giving out to him and she can tell
that he is tired and wants to sleep by his kinesics. The longer we know someone
the more we can read and understand his or her verbal and nonverbal
communication. We also see the touching part of kinesics when Sophie is
stroking his hair and then just stops. Physical touch in a friendship shows the
closeness and comfort in the relationship.
They also have verbal immediacy;
they have their own language and style of talking to each other. They kind of
tease and joke with one another but it is not meant in a mean way but an
affectionate way. One thing we really see between Jay and Sophie is this depth
of disclosure. Since they have been friends for so long they have gone through
a lot together and have told each other a lot of things because they are
comfortable in their friendship. You see this when Sophie talks about her first
real heartbreak or when Jay tells her about his previous boyfriend passing
away. You do not usually talk about these things with strangers.
They further show a
great amount of emotional support in their friendship. Jay and Sophie have been
friends through thick and thin. When Jay lost a boyfriend Sophie was there for
him and when Sophie lost her father Jay was there for her. They both understood
that this was an extended process that takes time and they did not lead the
other out of the grief and loss but followed their friend through this rough
and long process. Jay and Sophie are great at balancing the rewards and costs
and they do not use each other for things. Since they have been friends for so
long they have negotiated their relational expectations and even though these
two get into arguments they effectively manage their tensions.
Emotional closeness is defined as of having a “sense
of shared experiences, trust, enjoyment, concern and caring in a relationship.”
The interdependence people share is relational closeness.
Interdependent people “exchange resources; influence one another’s
thoughts, behaviors, and emotions; and meet each other’s needs.” Both forms of
closeness are exhibited in this case when it talks about Jay and Sophie’s past
together. They met in college and it says that, if they were
heterosexual, it would have been a classic case of love-at-first-sight.
Both shared experiences and gained trust for one another through their losses
in their love lives. These losses gave them the opportunity to be there for
each other in interdependence. Jay would call Sophie every night after
she broke up with her girlfriend to make sure she didn’t go to sleep
alone. Sophie was always there for Jay. At one point, she tried to
talk to him about how he had chosen not to date anymore after his last
boyfriend died but he got very angry and stormed out. After this, she
just accepted him with love and understanding.
Sophie took the trip with Jay since he was
available and also because Sophie’s girlfriend Melissa couldn’t go and they
were not going to let her drive across country by herself to get her Dad’s
things. This shows emotional closeness that Jay and Melissa both have for
Sophie.
As she was at her father’s house, she began to
think of the conversations she had with him before he died and how she wished
she had paid more attention to what he was saying. This shows that Sophie
missed that closeness she had with her father. When Jay and Sophie were leaving
the house she seemed bothered and Jay could tell. She told him not to smoke his
cigarettes in the rental truck. Jay couldn’t believe after all he was doing for
her that she wouldn’t let him just smoke in the truck. This shows paradox of
affection towards Sophie by Jay. They joked around how they called each other
Thelma and Louise the whole trip. This shows relational closeness because they
both share the same thought. They also had a disagreement about playing Lady
Gaga on the trip because Jay didn’t want to listen to her. Even though Jay
didn’t like the song he began to sing along which turned Sophie’s mood around
from almost crying over her father to instant smiling. This shows support
behavior because he sang along even though he didn’t want to but he did so just
to put a smile on his friends face. She now felt light-hearted and excited.
Sophie was complaining about Jay not keeping track of the mileage and how much
gas they had used because she wanted to be reimbursed by her brothers for the
expenses of the trip. Jay reacted by ignoring her and changing the subject and
by avoiding her stares, which shows avoidance within the relationship. Jay also
told Sophie years earlier that his partner had died of AIDS and that he had no
interest of finding love again. This shows self-disclosure on Jay’s part. As
Sophie tried to encourage Jay to date again, he stormed out of his birthday
party. Sophie went to his house to try and make things better but Jay wouldn’t
answer. Soon after, Jay came to visit Sophie and they mended the relationship.
He would call her every night to say goodnight because Sophie had told him that
she missed someone saying goodnight to her like her Dad or ex partner used to
do. Sophie also did not have a good relationship with her older brother Mike
because she felt like he was all about money and didn’t think she was doing
enough with herself. While on the trip Jay realized that he had real insight to
Sophie’s life and asked her personal questions that Sophie responded to with
detail and shared stories that she had not done before. This shows how their
relationship got stronger in closeness and also self-disclosure on Sophie’s
part.
Closeness and
immediacy play a very crucial role in relationships, as we saw with Jay and
Sophie. One doesn’t always have to be experiencing each kind of closeness
(physical, emotional and relational) in order to feel close to someone or to
have a successful relationship. At the end of the story, Sophie and Jay pulled into a
hotel for the night; Sophie told Jay that he had been such a huge help to her
and that she was sorry for acting like a jerk. Sophie apologizes to Jay for being a pain and tells him how much he means
to her by telling him she loves him. He does not like this sappy stuff but he
responds with “I love you, too, Sophie”, which is always great to hear from
such a close friend, which shows the verbal immediacy
they have in their friendship.
