The nature of interpersonal relationships is dynamic and inherently unstable - or so postulates social penetration theory advocate M. L. Knapp in his description of the "Stages of Coming Together and Coming Apart" (1992, pp. 29-61). Despite the fact that he preludes his descriptive model with a disclaimer - "we should resist the normal temptation to perceive the stages of coming together as 'good' and those of coming apart as 'bad'" (1992, p. 31) - Dr. Knapp finds the entire process of interpersonal relationships to be one of cosmic, predestined failure: "As with any system, we are constantly fighting the law of nature, which says that all things move toward disintegration and death" (1992, p. 54). Nevertheless, this gloomy predictability of his forecast for the human condition aside, the model of "stages" that Knapp proposes is attractive in many ways. The primary attraction is that it provides a reasonably focussed approach to the easily-distracted examination of the communication that takes place within the context of one-to-one interpersonal relationships. Beyond that, in this current writer's efforts at analyzing an interpersonal relationship, the descriptive qualities of the social penetration theory as expostulated in Knapp's model certainly seem to be applicable to the case at hand. That case involves the evolving relationship between a twenty-four-year-old African-American male, a college student, and an African-American female of the same age who is not a college student. Using Knapp's model of interaction stages, this paper will describe the communications characterizing the relationship development of these two persons.
Social penetration theory focusses on relation development - and the model of interaction stages proposed by Knapp seeks to answer the question: "Why do changing relationships follow the pattern they do?" (Knapp & Vangelisti, 1992, p. 29). The central assumption of Knapp's model of interaction ...