Relational Escalation Essay

I agree with the book about the stages of relational escalation because it explains how we communicate and develop relationships with others. For instance, when I am going to meet somebody, I tend to think about how the other person will react when meeting me. I believe that during this stage first impressions are extremely important. In addition, I do agree that most of the time relationships do not escalate past the initiating stage because very few relationships tend to develop a greater level of intimacy. But, I think that sometimes the first two stages of relational escalation vary. For instance, I have met persons by our similarities in preferences and identity. For example, two people can start a relationship by learning that they share and love the same hobby or activity followed by learning about their name and other personal fact about a person.

I usually do not enter the intensifying stage with others. But, I feel lucky by having a few friends at the intensifying relational escalation stage. Finally, I do agree that there is a level of communication and relational escalation that involves the merging of personalities. For instance, my friend got married a couple of years ago. And, I observed how he eventually started to change some factors about his personality. Those factors started to match his wife’s personality. The more time they spent together the more they were merging their personalities.

I do think that every relationship is different, but some of them might show the same patterns of turning points. By utilizing the Retrospective Interview Technique, we could observe the patterns involved in relationships. It would be very interesting comparing the turning points from relationships from the past and present relationships. I do think that now in days relationships commit faster and that probability of marriage is more accelerated than relationships in the