In the editorial cartoon above we see two snails hugging each other with a quote by a famous writer, “Friendship is born at that moment when one person says to another: ‘What! You too? I thought I was the only one.’” The snails hugging and sharing something in common displays the second stage of friendship, Friendly Relations. In this stage of friendship, people begin to interact with one another to see if they share common interest or have things in common. An example would be two strangers who meet in a big city but come from the same town. They would share common interests pertaining to the town they come from.

In the first stage of friendship, people interact because of the role they’re in. For example, two coworkers interacting for the first time would demonstrate the first stage of friendship. The second as mentioned above is about two people that interact with one another to determine if they share anything in common. In the third stage, self-disclosure increases and people begin to communicate outside of the place where the  friendship started. Self-disclosure means sharing information about oneself that can’t be determined by just looking at someone. Two coworkers hanging out after work would be a great example of the third stage of friendship. The fourth stage of friendship can be best described with the word “friend” people may start using the word “friend” to refer to the people involved. Additionally, they may be in continuous contact with each other. The fifth stage of friendship is where people become best friends. They aren’t afraid to be themselves around each other. Finally, the sixth stage is about the ending of a friendship. This can be due to a loss of trust, a person changing, or a great distance between friends.

I have gone through all of the first five stages of friendship with three people. I have two best friends who became my best friends in a short amount of time. Although we don’t see each other often, when we do hang out it feels like we never left each other’s side. Unfortunately, I have also experienced the sixth stage with the third person I mentioned. Distance happens when people change and outgrow others. 

This entry is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International license.