Growing up my grandfather always told me “Tell me who your friends are and I will tell you who you are.” I didn’t see much truth in this saying until I met my best friend Andrea Benavides. I will describe our friendship in six stages from the well-known communication scientist William Rawlins.
Let’s begin with stage one role-limited interactions in English this means small talk, learning someone’s name, and not opening yourself up yet. I met Andrea at work my perception of her before I even began working with her was to say the least negative she seemed very unapproachable and hard to talk to. I remember the first time I tried to have some small talk with her I complemented her phone case and she said “thanks” and that was it. Little did I know at this point that I would be working side by side with her for the next six months. With working with her she was suppose to be my mentor going into a new training position she was known as the trainer of all trainers and I was intimidated by her success this working relationship progressed us into stage two of our friendship friendly relations. We starting having more and more small talk learning about each other’s interests, habits, experience, and professional background. To be completely honest we are two very different people not a whole lot in common the one thing we did have in common was our interest in exploring different bars and restaurants.
Since we had this one thing in common we began moving toward friendship and hanging out exploring different places more and more. The next stage we progressed into was Nascent friendship, this is where the first elements of trust appear and you get more personal with each other sharing more intimate facts with one another. I can tell you the exact moment this stage begun with us. It was my very first day of training all by myself and Andrea was observing me I was so nervous my face was beet red, I was way sweatier than usual, my voice was shaky, and I wasn’t prepared with the material I was suppose to train. While botching this training with these new agents I looked over at her and could see the disappointment in her face I knew I had messed up pretty bad. I had then sent our agents to break and she asked me “what did you do to prepare for today?” and I broke down and started bawling my eyes out. In this moment of complete vulnerability our friendship grew she shared some stories of her first trainings to make me feel better and not so alone and then we got a plan together for how I can improve. As months went by we entered stage five of friendship which is stabilized friendship we talked on the phone for hours at a time any chance we could we would be hanging out. Andrea and I became very close almost like sisters. Through our ups and downs in life we have been by each other’s side we have laughed together, cried together, and grown together. Not very often in does someone so genuine and so pure come into your life, I am blessed to call Andrea my best friend.