Interpersonal Essay

In this new school year, I come to the HKBU College of international education for studying. I find my first new friend in here, a girl who called Evelyn. And my topic of this reflective paper is about the relationship between my new friend Evelyn and me. I met Evelyn on 17th September, my first school day in CIE. I remembered that was Evelyn says hi to me first and she sit next to me. This situation really applies the self-fulfilling prophecy I learnt in my IPC lesson. It is because I have asked Evelyn that why she would chose to say hi to me but not the others. She answers that it is because she predicts me is friendly at first. Then she acted as if I was a friendly person. As she acts toward me, I become comfortable and friendly. At the end, she observes my friendliness, and this reinforces her belief that I am in fact friendly. In the result, we really become friend. Also, I think our relationship is dyadic consciousness. It means that we are two persons think of ourselves as pair. Our relationship becomes more involved, individuals sacrifice our own desires for the well-being of the relationship. For example, Evelyn can give up her time to help me do the photocopy and she is willing to share her notes with me. Our relationship really not developed on the benefit or goal. This new relationship between Evelyn and me can also apply the Johari Window Model. In these past few months, I found that my open self which is known to Evelyn become larger and larger. At the very beginning, she only knows what my name is and where I live, or how many family members I have. And now, Evelyn already knows that which my favourite music group is. Also know that I hate chocolate but love mango. Moreover, she knows that I am good at Chinese Dance and I am a rowing club member. Evelyn can also find the blind self of me. It is I am really good at giving comfort to my friends and I will tell many principle of life to friends. Besides of the above, Evelyn and I have really different personalities. She always tell me that my acting really like a mother or elder sister. It is because I will help her solve the problems, remind her which things she need to do. Therefore, I think it can apply the parent self on me and apply the child self on Evelyn. I always give the direct responses to Evelyn and sometimes I will be critical. However, we can have a complementary transaction through our communication. Evelyn will seek help from me, and then I will help her solve it or give some suggestions. Both of us are satisfied. In our every conversation, the nonverbal communication is always applied on it. We will use the emblems such as the sign. And the S-O-F-T-E-N formula is always applied in our communication too. I will come to school with Evelyn every Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday. We set the meeting place at Tai Wai Station. Every time when Evelyn saw me, she gave me a big smile first. Then I will see her run to me from far away. When we start our topic, Evelyn always show her interest to listen and she always look at my eyes. And sometimes she will nod her head. It really makes me feel that she is listening to me and it will not make her feel bored. To me, Evelyn is a really good listener. All the thing she will do is listening but not hearing. We will use the Whatspp or phone call to communicate when we are not staying together. If she has something want to tell me, she will give me a feedforward message first. Most of the time she will send a message to me like â€Å"Kata, I have some interesting thing want to tell you. I will tell you on the train at tomorrow.† Actually the things she wants to tell me are not really important or serious. Maybe she will just tell me that she saw a handsome guy on the street yesterday, she always love to give a feedforward message to me first. During the communication, we can both get the feedback from the others and we will share our opinions. However, the interpersonal communication concept I can mostly applied in our communication is the Gender Communication. It is because our range of talking topic is really large. I remembered that there is a day I go shopping with Evelyn and a friend who is a boy. The topics we talked are jumping and jumping. We discuss at the clothes first, and then when I saw the yogurt, we change the topic to food suddenly. If I have a phone call, I still can listen to Evelyn then catch up the conversation after I finished the call. It really shows that women are multitrack, we can talk about several subjects at the same time. But our boy friend becomes confused from our conversation. Therefore, he will let us keep our talking continue. If he has any question from our conversation, he will ask us. Up to now, I think the relationship between Evelyn and me is developed quite well. Everything is good, at least we still not yet have conflict. And I will find some method to prevent the conflict happen in the future. I will have both empathic, objective and active listening from every conversation with Evelyn. Keep using the S-O-F-T-E-N formula with my friend every day. Also, I will try my best to apply more Adult self but not the Parent self. I will keep my Parent and Child under control. It is because we are symmetrical relationship. I wish we can be more factual, gather information, analytical and reasoning, objective and look for practical solutions. We should have more thinking and behave calm. Therefore, our relationship can be better and keep longer.