When meeting new people, if you already have a predisposition that the other party doesn’t like you, you will give off the feeling that you aren’t a likeable person. This in return makes it hard for you to connect with the other party. Reciprocating self-disclosures means sharing of personal information in keeping with the other’s disclosures. Finding opportunities to be near others and talking with them as well as making yourself available to spend time with them, is what it means to have proximity and accessibility or availability in a friendship.
As we grow older, our need for intimacy changes, therefore our friendships change. Scholars W. J. Dickens and Daniel Perlman examined friendships at four different stages in life: childhood, adolescence, adulthood, and old age. However, with more current research out, it’s suggested that there’s an additional stage, called “young …show more content…
These friendships are likely to end if conflict develop. The fourth stage, called mutual intimacy stage which occurs at ages 9-15, is a stage where we develop close friendships. At this stage you can also become possessive of these friendships, often resulting in feelings of jealousy. The last stage is the independence stage, which occurs at age 12-adulthood. At this stage, we experience an increased intimacy and sharing, and can now tolerate our friends making friends with others.
The next major stage of friendships in life is adolescent friendships, starting at the onset of puberty (approximately age 12). During this stage, we move away from relations with parents and other adult figures, and gravitate towards relations with our peers. We value spending more time with friends, and our greatest influence at this time comes from our