Chapter- 9 : Friends, Lovers and Families

In this chapter, we learnt about the interpersonal communication relationships between friends, families and lovers.

Friendship - is the relationship between friends. Me and my friend,  you and your friend; that is more than 1 person and so it is Interpersonal communication. It is based on trust, emotional support and sharing interest of each person.


Types of Friendship
There are 3 types of Friendship.

1. The Friendship of Reciprocity - is based on equality; equally in giving and receiving in the relationship. (e.g. close friends)
2. The Friendship of Receptivity - is imbalance. One person is always giving and another one is always receiving. (e.g.  doctors and patient)
3. The Friendship of Association - is friendly friendship. It has no great loyalty, trust and no giving and receiving.  (e.g. classmate, neightbours, or coworkers.)

Functions of Friendship

• Utility Purposes : in order to get help
• Affirmation : to help to recognize our attitudes
• Ego Support : for supportive and encourgaging
• Stimulation : to give new ideas and expand our views of the world
• Security : for protection and to call attention to our weakness

There are 3 stages to develop our friendship. 

1. Initial contact and acquaintanceship - In this stage, impression are formed and warmly welcoming to new friend is important. 
2. Casual friendship - in this stage,  friends become a bit closer. They go for movie together or participate in events or activities.
3. Close and intimate friendship - Friends become closer than second stage. They know each other very well and can read each non-verbal signals very well.

The values of Friendship is affected by :

• Culture - The friendship became loose because of different cultures. Some are in collective society means they thought it is good to have a lot of friends but some are in individualist society; that is; they don't want to have a lot of friends and they prefer to stay alone or with only 2 or 3 friends.
• Gender - Male, female;  boys and girls. (e.g. giving a greeting hug has any problems between boys but boy and girl usually do not give a greeting hug.) 
• Technology - This one is the worse affected. When the technology is advanced (facebook, twitter are very popular), people tends to make friends online. They have countless numbers of friends in their Facebook or twitter but outside, they don't even have 10 or less than 10. 

Romantic Relationship 

Under this sub-topic, we learnt different types of love. There are 6 types of love. 

1. Eros : is more focus on physical attractiveness and beauty.
2. Ludus :is  mostly for the entertainment. This type of person loves the others just for fun.
3. Storge : has no passion and intensity. This love is peaceful.
4. Pragma : can be said quite bad as this type of love is more focused on financial background, personality and family of the partner.
5. Mania : feels too much about the partner. People under this type love their partner so much and worried so much about their relationship.
6. Agape : is unconditional love. It is compassionate and selfless. 

As friendship, the value of love also affected by 

• Culture - All most all Asians are not very opened in the relationship.
• Gender - Most of males are under Ludus type of love and women are usually under Pragma type.
• Technology - Nowadays,  people become couples through facebook or twitter, even they haven't met face to face.

Families

Every family has their own characteristics and culture. However, most of families follow the following characteristics;

1. Defined roles - what is the role of father, mother and children. 
2. Recognition of responsibilities - help each others, (e.g. financially)
3. Shared history and future - parents share their love story with children and mother and father share the problems and ideas
4. Shared living space - staying together in a place (house) 

After characteristics of Families, we moved to Types of Families. 

• Traditional couples - normal families; shared problems, beliefs and so on.
• Independent couples - like modern families; very independent and mom and dad don't share their own problems. 
• Separate couples - almost broke the family but  still not yet,  they are still as couple for sharing house or for children.

Families can be affected by 

• Principles of communication

1. Equality - respect, love and  trust each others, share all the problems and make decision together
2. Balance split - father finds money and mother does house-works
3. Unbalance split  - mother has to work outside and father doesn't do anything, even house-works
4. Monopoly - most of the authorities are  mostly in father's hand. In some families, it is in mother's hand. 

• Culture - The families from Asia are more closer each other compared to Western country. 
• Technology - nowadays, most of children just asked their parents on phone or send email, rarely visit to parents' house.