Knapp's Relationship Model
Going to an online high school taught me a lot about the importance of maintaining interpersonal connection. I learned how to care for online relationships with close friends or teachers in order to continue to experience human connection. I feel as though this has also helped me through the COVID-19 pandemic in some ways. Because I didn't have a lot of in-person communication with other students through high school and college, I am not missing these interactions. Online communication has not only helped me maintain friendships, without social media I would not have bonded with the person who I am now married to. We met through mutual friends, and I was given a less than ideal first impression of him. At first I thought he did not like me, but I later found out that his reaction was more out of nervousness. After about 6 months of our first meeting one another, we "accidentally" matched on Tinder. At ...