1) The document summarizes four encounters between the author and another student for an interpersonal communications class assignment. They discussed hobbies like writing, art, and sports in a progression from initiation to experimentation to termination of their relationship. 2) In their final meeting, the author brought art to enhance discussion, but conversation stalled with redundant information. They disclosed personal details but failed to continue the discussion, signaling a termination of their assigned relationship. 3) The author analyzes the encounters in terms of listening skills, self-disclosure levels, and the social penetration model of relationship development. They conclude the relationship remained short-term and low obligation due to inability to continue deepening disclosure.

1. CMST&210—2664: Interpersonal Communications (12:20-2:20)
Brian D. Lewis
Dyadic Encounter paper
First Encounter:
We first met on Monday, October 13th, immediately outside of the classroom, at approximately
11:15 am. The area was fairly crowded, so we couldn’t find a table to sit at, meaning that we
ended up sitting down literally inches from the door, where we proceeded to talk for a solid hour.
(All our meetings went for much longer than the required half-hour.) We both sat down at
approximately the same time, sitting cross-legged after taking a little bit of time to get our stuff
sorted away. The distance we were sitting at was less than a foot away, which might have been
intimate if not for the fact that we were sitting almost exactly shoulder-to-shoulder, which as
mentioned reduces the intimacy like it would in an elevator.
Her opening each meeting—including the first—was a cliché, in this case a simple, “Hi, how are
you?” to get our conversation started. This being our first meeting (I knew we’d warm up to each
other because I knew she was an artist and by fate we got paired together, but we were still in the
initiation phase of the relationship, having just made first true contact, thus the awkwardness), I
answered with my own cliché of “Good”. However, in an attempt to spark conversation, I then
elaborated, giving a bit of self-disclosure about my kickboxing class that I had just come from,
and why I was feeling the way I was. This was mainly disclosing facts, though I remember that I
disclosed one or two feelings as well when responding.

2. Though this was the start of our conversation, I don’t remember many of the details behind what
happened right then. I know that she responded with her own feelings, disclosing a little bit of
information about herself, but I cannot remember it.
Somewhere along the way, the topic shifted to jobs, mainly my own. (I recall her disclosing
working in fast food, but I am not absolutely sure this is accurate nor do I remember in which
conversation it took place; our first is my best guess; she revealed feelings of it sucking, and me
having had friends go through the experience and practically write daily blogs in detail ranting
about how much they hate it, I empathized with her: though I haven’t had that experience myself,
it was rather easy to put myself into her position and know it was true.)
Throughout our entire encounter, she was the one doing most of the questioning, as she would
ask a question, I would respond, but each time, I awkwardly felt like all I was doing was
rambling: I was disclosing plenty, yet in my mind (a bit of self-talk), feared I was going to be
perceived as stage-hogging. Though at one or two points, I managed to return on things and ask
them of her (particularly when she already disclosed info), most of the time, it would be that her-
question, me-answer, her-maybe-disclosing, and then the topic would die.
As an example, she was the one who asked why I decided to be a lifeguard. I told her the story
behind it, that being about my sister going up there for college and doing it, and me going along
for the ride. This did lead us a bit into sports, because my swimming was part of the topic, but
we didn’t stay there long. One detail I did remember is that she disclosed her own sister
lifeguarded, yet that’s the only piece of information I retained.

3. It was about there that the conversation had a major stall. We were, by now, beginning to be in
the experimentation stage, and what we were doing wasn’t working. Fortunately, she opened up
the gate that we would capitalize on in all our further meetings: the similarities that could draw
us together as companions. She asked what other hobbies I did, and it’s here that we got into
writing and art. For the first encounter, it was mainly on my writing, and mainly about me
talking on my current story, with her asking various questions about the characters and, using
“So let me get this straight,” trying to piece together the puzzles of information I was giving. I
told her, “I swear it makes sense if you’d actually read it”, but since she was just picking up
random pieces of information, it took concentration on her part to figure out how the story made
sense as a narrative.
We did get briefly into dancing as a hobby of mine as well, introducing sisterly confusion that
would come out in our second encounter, since the sister who I went lifeguarding with is
different than the sister I go dancing with and I did not disclose their names for clarity. We also
briefly touched on the art, mainly focusing on the inspirations: anime/manga in this case. She
asked which ones I was most inspired by, and I told her that as far as my writing goes, for my
current novel it was Gurren Lagann and Gundam 00 put together.
I was the one who ultimately ended our contact, saying, “Aaaaand, class is about to begin.”
Though a factual statement, this also carried with it a slight nonverbal subtext, in that I was
subtly telling her that our conversation wasn’t going anywhere further and had stalled too much.

4. My overall impression of the encounter was that she certainly appeared to have some interest in
some of the subjects we talked about (particularly writing and art), but at the time, I picked up
the nonverbal cue from her consistent usage of listening skills (pausing to hear the whole
message, stopping to process it, filtering it, and then responding with questions) that it was
possible she was doing it simply to give her material for the dyadic encounter paper.
My overall impression of myself is that I was an extremely poor listener: I was giving my full
attention, and understood what she said well enough, yet I couldn’t remember most of it in spite
of writing down notes immediately after our encounter. I wasn’t weighed down with personal
concerns and was actively keeping noise out of my mind, but I think that I may have suffered a
bit of an information overload.
Second Encounter:
Our second encounter was Monday, October 27th, at the same time. The only difference in
setting was that it was a bit of a quieter, less-busy day, so we were able to get a table. She sat
next to me, giving us an approximately-90 degree angle conversation, where she was close to me
but not intimately close.
We had a similar opening to last time, with me disclosing my long weekend meaning not the best
of feelings (my answer was not “good” to her cliché, with it actually being disclosure), and spent
a fair amount of time talking about that; she had her own experiences, of which I remember
none. (This would be catharsis at work.)

5. We once again talked a fair amount about work, even though the subject rapidly shifted to
talking about class. This was around the time midterms were, thus, our talk largely centered on
things we had to do. Mutually, we were taking turns venting, not expecting anything more than
the agreement (support) we ended up receiving.
One of the unique aspects of this conversation is that we got onto the subject of technology,
because we were dealing with the future a fair amount, and how we both longed to be eternal
students, and how much the world has changed since our childhoods and will change in our later
adulthoods, ever-evolving as it is. This is where she disclosed one of the few pieces of
information about her that I actually remember, that she has a few (two?) nieces that are absolute
wizzes of technology like smartphones, at an extremely young age.
The majority of the conversation, though, was taken up by longing for the eternal college
lifestyle: we revealed to each other feelings of wishing it could go on forever, about the strengths
and shortcomings of the schooling system (a bit of an intellectual intimacy, there), and similar.
We did get some further art talk in, and she disclosed a bit about her style, talking about how she
uses a drawing tablet. (However, I may be writing some details of our third conversation into
here; the third had her give a suggestion to me to invest in Paint Tool SAI, vent about costs and
rarity of art supplies, and had her disclose that she was from Bellingham, as my notes explicitly
say, yet these are details I remember being from the second.)

6. I remember using a fair amount of gestures myself, but don’t recall any from her. I know I
stretched to help pause and think, as a manipulative gesture, and I also used hands to emphasize
language in illustrations, but I can’t recall any specific examples to use for the purposes of this
paper. (My memory is not the greatest, as I had already forgotten which ones I used by the time
class began.) Overall, this is the conversation I’d say where we had fully gone on to the
experimenting stage, now casual and relaxed around one another.
Third Encounter:
Our third encounter was on Monday, November 10th, yet again immediately outside of class: it
was once more crowded, thus, we yet again were stuck right next to the door. (We had
exchanged text messages about maybe meeting elsewhere, and it was brought up in class
conversations, yet was not yet viable.)
Throughout the conversation, we had similar body posture to the first; we changed positioning as
needed for comfort (and often did so simultaneously, though I wouldn’t call these gestures that
carried with them nonverbal meaning other than “I’m uncomfortable from being in this same
pose this long” because they sometimes happened with pauses, and yet sometimes happened
without pauses; there was no pattern to them).
This was the first conversation in which we were fully invested: before, it might have been said
that we were both slightly selectively listening, yet by focusing exclusively on art and writing on
the side, we ate up the hour without pause; we talked the entire time without needing to use
many clichés at all.

7. In spite (or perhaps because of) it being the conversation we were most in, I don’t actually recall
most of the details of our conversation. It did have one detail I was careful to memorize, though.
Because we talked so much about art, one of the things she offhandedly mentioned was the
desire to maybe see my art…and I honed in on that, as something to focus on for our fourth.
Final Encounter:
Our final encounter was on Wednesday, November 19th, but as you can tell by the date, it was
not the same time or place. We met at around 2:45 in the café (basically almost immediately
after class), and talked for two hours. The environment was surprisingly much the same, though
since I went there first, I set up at a table and began preparing:
I wanted to leave a good nonverbal impression, setting the area up. I took the time to control my
environment: I placed my stuff so that she could sit on either side of me, or across from me,
while I sat at the back corner. (I also changed my pants to be different ones, to see if she noticed
the change in my image, but if she did, then she did not comment on it.)
I set out my art, organizing it as best as I could in piles, and laid it out to not take up the entire
table but to take up enough to be visible and to act as the subject for the encounter. Ultimately,
when she arrived, she sat down directly to my right, at a 90 degree angle about a foot away.
We discussed mainly art, with a little writing on the side. I was hoping that she might pick up on
certain details, like my artistic signature, but it went unnoticed (or if noticed, not commented on).

8. The conversation we had, however, was a bit stalled, much to my surprise. I was thinking that
bringing the art would help to enhance our discussion. Yet when we were actually talking, I
noted she was repeating some details from our prior conversations, and in turn, I was also giving
redundant information to her.
While we brought up new information, we were stagnating on the one subject we had in
common. (You could say that this was a type of psychological noise interfering with our
conversation.) Often, our conversation would come to a halt as a result, and she would make a
manipulative gesture of shuffling around the papers a bit, as if trying to stall for time and figure
out something else to think about.
For her part, she did disclose some information about herself: she revealed that she does her
artwork on DeviantArt and follows someone there. She in turn asked me where I got inspired as
an artist, and there I made the mistake of not outright saying it but instead assuming she wouldn’t
know and instead describing it, which I’m sure gave the impression that I wasn’t willing to
disclose it when I was; I was simply waiting for a follow-up question on what the site was called
which never came, thus a communication barrier formed.
Ultimately, she had to leave, apologizing for “cutting our meeting short”, likely thanks to having
held another obligation. Yet the length of our contact clearly suggested that in spite of the
awkward pauses and lack of continuity, we clearly had much to say to one another.

9. For me, this moment actually felt like a type of termination to a relationship. We parted ways
with mutual agreement to do so, yet it felt like the end of our time together. Obviously, we’re
still in class together, yet if we view the relationship we have in a more business sense, us
leaving with that parting is like a termination of our contract to converse with one another, after
having stagnated one final time.
It was certainly a great deal of fun, though: I did a ton of gestures, like extending my hand out,
and then making a swift movement with it as an illustrator. At times, I felt like (via pauses and
emphasis and these gestures) I was telling a story, narrating to her.
Wrap-up:
Though I mostly did the sending of info, and as a result, am certainly not the best of
communicators (for listening, at least), I feel that I did a decent job. She was very excellent at
bringing information out of me, and maintaining the conversation.
We definitely reciprocated a lot on the subject I anticipated (art), and a couple I did not, and she
certainly left a good impression on me. Though I find it unlikely anything will come of it, I
found that I definitely had the desire for it to go beyond the business-like relationship we had.
While we experimented a bit and may have gone as far as intensifying, ultimately, via stagnation,
we eventually hit a point I’d call termination, where we are unlikely to make further contact.
Thus, our friendship was ultimately short-term, low-obligation, and with the other two being
somewhere in-between task/maintenance and low/high disclosure.

10. Social Penetration Model:
(We really didn’t talk about much, and though we went decently deep, we did not go nearly as
far as I felt we could have.)