Stages of a Relationship (Part 1- Coming Together)

This is sort of a summary from a note that I found among my thousand notes during Foundation Years. It is from a writer and researcher on relationship, mark L. Knapp. According to him, there are two parts of stages of a relationship, which are coming together and falling apart.
Check out at which stage you are at now!

Stage One: Initiating
People start their relationship at this stage. They probably assessed each other in various stages- such as clothes, physical attractiveness, and beliefs and attitude. From all these observations each begun to make judgment about the other.

Stage Two: Experimenting
In this stage, people make a conscious effort to seek out common interest and experiences. They experiment by expressing their ideas, attitudes and values and by seeing how the other person reacts.
Example: They talk about their families and their friends.

Stage Three: Intensifying
They enjoy each other’s company and start to self- disclose. They also call each other by nicknames, developed ‘shorthand’ way of speaking, jokes that no other can understand, reveal shared assumptions and expectations. Trust becomes important and they start to make expressions of commitment. At this stage, openness has its risk.

Stage Four: Integrating
The point where their individual personalities are beginning to merge. People expect to see them together. They do most things together. Their friends assume that if they invite one, they should invite the other. Each of them is able to predict and explain the behavior of the other.
The integrating stage is reached only when people develop deep and important relationships. Those who reach this stage are usually best friends, couples or parents and children.

Stage Five: Bonding
The last coming-together stage of a relationship. The participants make some sort of formal commitment that announces their relationship to those around them. For example, engagement or marriage. It is a step that is taken when the participants have some sort of long-term commitment to their relationship.