CAPS #6 - Sueverkruepp

While reading through the chapter, I found myself relating many of the relationships that have helped shaped me to the principles in the chapter.  True personal growth stems from the ability to meta-cognate about the choice we have made, and friendships are a huge factor in determining why we act in certain ways.  To compare an intercultural relationship, I found that the differences-similarities dialect would be the perfect dialect to compare my friend Katie and myself.   I’ve known my friend Katie for about eight years, and it’s definitely been one journey of a friendship. 

To begin, I’m going to lay down the foundation of our basic characteristics and beliefs.  I am 21 years old, and I am a senior Child, Youth, and Family Studies major at the University of Nebraska – Lincoln.  I grew up in Grand Island, Nebraska, where I graduated from Northwest High School.  I am married, and I would describe myself as being a Christian.  I don’t really identify with any particular party, but if I did, I would consider myself more of an “independent Republican”.  Some things I love to do include listening to music and going to concerts, performing, working with children, hanging out with my husband, friends and family, and crafting.  I would consider myself to be more of an introvert, but I have no problem being outgoing when I’m around people whom I am comfortable with.  My friend Katie is 22 years old, and still lives in Grand Island, where she attended Central Community College.  She also graduated from Northwest (she was one year ahead of me) and she’s currently engaged to her longtime boyfriend, who she has an infant daughter with.  She doesn’t associate herself with any particular religion, but she likes to maintain a tolerant perspective towards all religions.  She also doesn’t like politics, but she does consider herself to lean Democratic.  She also enjoys music (she’s introduced me to some of my favorite bands) and she considers herself to be a big nerd because of some of her hobbies.  Like myself, Katie is very introspective and empathetic, and prefers to maintain introverted, but can be extroverted with her “live life with no regrets” lifestyle. 

Looking back on our relationship, the similarity principle (Martin & Nakayama, p. 398) -which says that people are essentially attracted to people they think are like themselves- was not involved at all in the start of our friendship.  Katie had blue hair when I first met her in speech, and I was your stereotypical freshman on student council.  Our first real conversation happened when we discovered we both hated top 40 music, and we started to talk about what bands we did like.  As our friendship blossomed and we began to disclose more to each other, we were able to challenge each other to come out of our shells (me with my creativity, and Katie with her beliefs about faith especially).  Her friendship has been very important to me, because throughout all of our years together, she’s always been able to challenge me to look at the way that I view my life and the way that I live it.  We’re very different people, but our similarities for how we view relationships and ideas is what keeps our friendship strong. 

Resources: 

Martin, J.N., & Nakayama, K.K. (2012). Intercultural Communication in Contexts (6^th ed.) Boston MA: McGraw Hill