YiffieMon:Stages of Relationships

5 Stages of Relationships

Acquaintance

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.

Casual Friend

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.

Close Friend

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.

Intimate Friend

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.

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.