Editing YiffieMon:Stages of Relationships

== 5 Stages of Relationships ==

=== Strangers(“I know of you”) ===
Strangers are people you begin to share information with
on a superficial level. This might be someone you greet
in the “hallway” at work or school. A stranger might be
someone who “makes” eye contact with you on the bus,
or someone who has been introduced to you for the first
time by another person. You would begin to speak to a
stranger in general terms that reveals very little, if any
personal information. Topics might be the weather, current
events, or what town or city they live in. If you both respond
positively to the “initial” conversation, you might consider
participating in some activities that stranger might do. If
things go well, you would advance to the next circle: casual
acquaintances.

====Things strangers might do=====
Attend activities and events together such as volunteer
work; agree to meet up at the gym or movie; meet at a coffee shop to get to know each other better; meet to engage
in a sport like running, kayaking, or skateboarding. They
might meet at the mall to do some shopping together. It
can be any activity that can takes place in a public setting
that will allow you to get to know the person better. 

=== Acquaintance(“I know you”) ===
Acquaintances are the people we see on a fairly regular basis that we “sort of know,” at least well enough to make idle small talk, but with whom we don’t really have the desire or emotional attachment needed to deepen the connection.

You still do not know each other well enough to share
personal information. If it feels comfortable or “right”, you
might ease into sharing some feelings and thoughts but
only “positive” ones about non-controversial topics. You’re
there to have fun, share a task or coffee together and you
should keep conversation light and friendly. This stage is
all about getting to know one another better, but not divulging a lot of personal information or intimate details. If
things continue to go well, you would advance to the next
circle: friends.

==== Things Acquaintances might do ====
Attend some of the activities you would if they person were
a stranger. At this point it is OK to take some risks to see if
you both have things in common such as likes and dislikes,
all while using caution, as you still do not know the person
very well. You want to make sure they are genuine, and
that you have enough in common to consider making this
Acquaintance a friend.

=== Casual Friend(“I like you”) ===
Casual friends are typically those with whom you spend time within shared activities or with whom you cross paths on a regular basis and whom you have gotten to know enough to feel ready to call a “friend.” You might love all the members of your painting class, have a laugh with them during the meetings, and even hang out with them outside of class, but they are people that you probably wouldn’t hang with if you didn’t share this particular activity.

As you move into this circle, you begin to trust one another
more. You feel secure enough when you are in the other
person’s company to be more spontaneous, laugh, giggle,
tease, and share stories and life experiences with each
other. It’s OK to discuss negative things as long as you
spend more time talking about positive ones and leave on
an upbeat, emotionally supportive role. If all goes well (give
it a couple of months or even a year or more, if needed),
you would advance to the next circle: deep friendship.

==== Things Casual Friends might do ====
Spend some face-to-face time with the person regularly (at
least once every two weeks). Be willing to share personal
information and gain personal information about the other
person. Be willing to support each other’s needs while really getting to know their likes, dislikes, philosophies, and
character traits.

=== Romantic Friends(“I enjoy you”) ===
As Casual Friends, BUT … you both need to be willing and able to
give and receive physical gestures (e.g., hold hands, hug,
or kiss).

=== Romantic Lovers(“I love you”) ===
Lovers have more complex feelings than liking. 

They are willing to share their true selves in a tit-for-tat way but aren't committed to helping when life sucks so bad that they just want to cry, hide, or run away.

Must be high in Friendship of the good.

A if they have a crush and and they are Romantic Friends they become Romantic Lover when they make each other orgasm in the same sex scene(having done it while the relationship wasn't in the Romantic Friends stage) they instantly Jump up to this stage

=== Close Friend(“I understand you”) ===
Close friends pretty much always start as acquaintances who turn into casual friends and whom you have enough mutual admiration and affinity that you share a little more of yourself, they share a little more about themselves, and you continue to enjoy getting to know one another and spending time together.

Close friends are the ones that you call when life sucks so bad that you just want to cry, hide, or run away. Close friends are those you trust with many of your secrets and the friends who put up with you even when you’re in a lousy mood or need to talk at 2 am when your love life splits wide open.

It takes much longer to reach this stage. By this point both
of you have experienced each other closely for so long that
you trust each other deeply. Your relationship has been tested and you
have seen each other through good times and bad times.
You have also seen each other at your worst and survived.

They are aware and familiar with each other's intimate life. Also, they both know and help each other to accomplish their life goals; hence, the emphasis on emotional investment. Both people have seen each other at their best and at their worst, and they have stayed around regardless. This is the stage where friends can begin to understand the each other truly.

You’re best friends and are cautiously testing true intimacies. 

Moving to this step takes time but also a commitment from
both people to continue working on the relationship.

=== Intimate Friend(“I connect with you”) ===
Intimate friends are the most intensely connected. These are the friends that you let into the inner sanctum of your heart and mind, who you trust with the deepest secrets, and who you know will never let you down or betray your trust.

Some people form this type of friendship with their partner, but that’s not always the case. One woman describes her close friends are her “soul sisters” and her partner knew that when they married, the “soul sisters” were going to be part of their “family” for life.

Intimate Friendship is defined as a very close connection, so an Intimate Friend is an individual who you are familiar with. This stage is attained over time, through shared experiences, and, most important, through vulnerability. It is through vulnerability that a friendship reaches this stage. At this level, one freely shares their deepest secrets such as their biggest insecurities and their biggest fears. It is from this level of intimacy that friends become connected soul to soul, and they commit to the development of each other's character and as people. This is the stage where one is considered a true friend. The saying that embodies the spirit of this level of friendship is by Aristotle in which he states, "a friendship is one soul occupying two bodies." These individuals truly understand each other.

== Aristotle’s Three Friendship Types ==

Thousands of years earlier, Aristotle described three types of friendships—utility, pleasure, and good.

=== of Utility ===
Friendships of utility are the friendships some of us would call “friendships of convenience.” These are the folks with whom we share carpool duty, or whose home we keep an eye on while they’re out of town because we’ll need them to pick up our mail when we go on vacation next month. It might be the woman you sit beside on the train everyday: You’d never find any other reason to enjoy her company otherwise, but she’s familiar, pleasant, and safe.

Friends of convenience or utility are the people we rely on and on whom we can rely on for small tasks and a willingness to help out so long as the expectations of investment aren’t too great. Once the needs are no longer present for the assistance to be of value, these relationships are likely to evaporate quickly.

=== of Pleasure ===
Friendships of pleasure are those friendships that are all about simply enjoying one another’s company and having a good time together. This type of friendship includes the neighbors that you like having drinks with on your deck on summer evenings or the crowd you always get a coffee with after a book club meeting. These are the people you count on to keep your mood light or your mind off your troubles.

They might be the Sunday afternoon football crowd, the monthly Bunco brigade, the moms that you enjoy hanging out with at your kids’ soccer and softball games. They might be the folks who show up at the same parties to which you are invited and who always make you feel welcome. You can spend a lifetime hanging with these types of friends: They bring you happiness, your presence has the same effect on them, and there’s no deeper demands on of either of you. So as long as the friendship continues to be a pleasure, it can endure.

=== of Good ===
Friendships of the good are friendships based on mutual respect, admiration, and appreciation for the qualities each of you brings to the relationship. These may begin as a function of propinquity, shared interests, or shared life stage, but the spark between the two friends is lit and the opportunity for increasing mutual self-disclosure and connection is harvested.

In a friendship of the good, you value who that friend actually is, strengths and weaknesses alike, and there is sufficient trust between the two that the relationship’s quality and depth outshine those of other types of friendship. These relationships endure and are fed by the mutuality of the esteem and appreciation between the true friends – even if the time between meetings stretches into months or years.

= taming the fox =

It was then that the fox appeared.

"Good morning," said the fox.

"Good morning," the little prince responded politely, although when he turned around he saw nothing.

"I am right here," the voice said, "under the apple tree."

"Who are you?" asked the little prince, and added, "You are very pretty to look at."

"I am a fox," the fox said.

"Come and play with me," proposed the little prince. "I am so unhappy."

"I cannot play with you," the fox said. "I am not tamed."

"Ah! Please excuse me," said the little prince.

But, after some thought, he added:

"What does that mean--'tame'?"

"You do not live here," said the fox. "What is it that you are looking for?"

"I am looking for men," said the little prince. "What does that mean--'tame'?"

"Men," said the fox. "They have guns, and they hunt. It is very disturbing. They also raise chickens. These are their only interests. Are you looking for chickens?"

"No," said the little prince. "I am looking for friends. What does that mean--'tame'?"

"It is an act too often neglected," said the fox. It means to establish ties."

"'To establish ties'?"

"Just that," said the fox. "To me, you are still nothing more than a little boy who is just like a hundred thousand other little boys. And I have no need of you. And you, on your part, have no need of me. To you, I am nothing more than a fox like a hundred thousand other foxes. But if you tame me, then we shall need each other. To me, you will be unique in all the world. To you, I shall be unique in all the world . . ."

"I am beginning to understand," said the little prince. "There is a flower . . . I think that she has tamed me . . ."

"It is possible," said the fox. "On the Earth one sees all sorts of things."

"Oh, but this is not on the Earth!" said the little prince.

The fox seemed perplexed, and very curious.

"On another planet?"

"Yes."

"Are there hunters on that planet?"

"No."

"Ah, that is interesting! Are there chickens?"

"No."

"Nothing is perfect," sighed the fox.

But she came back to his idea.

"My life is very monotonous," the fox said. "I hunt chickens; men hunt me. All the chickens are just alike, and all the men are just alike. And, in consequence, I am a little bored. But if you tame me, it will be as if the sun came to shine on my life. I shall know the sound of a step that will be different from all the others. Other steps send me hurrying back underneath the ground. Yours will call me, like music, out of my burrow. And then look: you see the grain-fields down yonder? I do not eat bread. Wheat is of no use to me. The wheat fields have nothing to say to me. And that is sad. But you have hair that is the color of gold. Think how wonderful that will be when you have tamed me! The grain, which is also golden, will bring me back the thought of you. And I shall love to listen to the wind in the wheat . . ."

The fox gazed at the little prince, for a long time.

"Please--tame me!" she said.

"I want to, very much," the little prince replied. "But I have not much time. I have friends to discover, and a great many things to understand."

"One only understands the things that one tames," said the fox. "Men have no more time to understand anything. They buy things all ready made at the shops. But there is no shop anywhere where one can buy friendship, and so men have no friends any more. If you want a friend, tame me . . ."

"What must I do, to tame you?" asked the little prince.

"You must be very patient," replied the fox. "First you will sit down at a little distance from me--like that--in the grass. I shall look at you out of the corner of my eye, and you will say nothing. Words are the source of misunderstandings. But you will sit a little closer to me, every day . . ."

The next day the little prince came back.

"It would have been better to come back at the same hour," said the fox. "If, for example, you come at four o'clock in the afternoon, then at three o'clock I shall begin to be happy. I shall feel happier and happier as the hour advances. At four o'clock, I shall already be worrying and jumping about. I shall show you how happy I am! But if you come at just any time, I shall never know at what hour my heart is to be ready to greet you . . . One must observe the proper rites . . ."

"What is a rite?" asked the little prince.

"Those also are actions too often neglected," said the fox. "They are what make one day different from other days, one hour from other hours. There is a rite, for example, among my hunters. Every Thursday they dance with the village girls. So Thursday is a wonderful day for me! I can take a walk as far as the vineyards. But if the hunters danced at just any time, every day would be like every other day, and I should never have any vacation at all."

So the little prince tamed the fox. And when the hour of his departure drew near--

"Ah," said the fox, "I shall cry."

"It is your own fault," said the little prince. "I never wished you any sort of harm; but you wanted me to tame you . . ."

"Yes, that is so," said the fox.

"But now you are going to cry!" said the little prince.

"Yes, that is so," said the fox.

"Then it has done you no good at all!"

"It has done me good," said the fox, "because of the color of the wheat fields." And then she added:

"Go and look again at the roses. You will understand now that yours is unique in all the world. Then come back to say goodbye to me, and I will make you a present of a secret."


The little prince went away, to look again at the roses.

"You are not at all like my rose," he said. "As yet you are nothing. No one has tamed you, and you have tamed no one. You are like my fox when I first knew her. She was only a fox like a hundred thousand other foxes. But I have made her my friend, and now she is unique in all the world."

And the roses were very much embarassed.

"You are beautiful, but you are empty," he went on. "One could not die for you. To be sure, an ordinary passerby would think that my rose looked just like you--the rose that belongs to me. But in herself alone she is more important than all the hundreds of you other roses: because it is she that I have watered; because it is she that I have put under the glass globe; because it is she that I have sheltered behind the screen; because it is for her that I have killed the caterpillars (except the two or three that we saved to become butterflies); because it is she that I have listened to, when she grumbled, or boasted, or ever sometimes when she said nothing. Because she is my rose.

And he went back to meet the fox.

"Goodbye," he said.

"Goodbye," said the fox. "And now here is my secret, a very simple secret: It is only with the heart that one can see rightly; what is essential is invisible to the eye."

"What is essential is invisible to the eye," the little prince repeated, so that he would be sure to remember.

"It is the time you have wasted for your rose that makes your rose so important."

"It is the time I have wasted for my rose--" said the little prince, so that he would be sure to remember.

"Men have forgotten this truth," said the fox. "But you must not forget it. You become responsible, forever, for what you have tamed. You are responsible for your rose ..."

"I am responsible for my rose," the little prince repeated, so that he would be sure to remember.