Friends of the Heart: Communication between Long-Term Friends

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.