Lesson 1: Communication Is What Relationships Are Made Of

Welcome students.

When I teach Interpersonal Communication in the classroom, the first lesson always includes a discussion on why Interpersonal Communication is important to study. Many people have the idea that because we have been in relationships for our entire lives, that a class on relationships can't tell us anything that we haven't already figured out through trial and error (or success).

The trouble is that people aren't necessarily focused on understanding how communication has played a role in their various relational successes (or failures). We tend to focus on personality characteristics, events, or circumstances in understanding our relationships rather than what messages we have exchanged with a partner. I find this funny because the fact is that a relationship only exists between any two people because communication happens between them. As soon as the exchange of messages between two people stops, those two people are no longer bound by a relationship. In short: relationships are made of communication.

When we consider the truth of the statement "relationships are made of communication", suddenly it makes sense to pay special attention to understanding whether the communication that happens between two people is of good quality. Consider this analogy: Let's suppose you're trying to make guacamole. You have at your disposal enough avocados to make a batch, but the avocados you have are from the bottom of the barrel and they are smashed and bruised and old. You think, "eh, guacamole is just smashed avocados anyway, so these should be fine". So, you proceed to make your guacamole. When you go to taste it, however, although it is clearly recognizable as guacamole, you find that it tastes . . . well, off. The quality of that guacamole is a direct function of the quality of the avocados you used to make it. Similarly, the quality of the communication that you exchange with another person directly affects the quality of the relationship. To state it simply: your relationship is only as good as the quality of the communication that comprises it.

Over the course of the lessons that I present here, I'm going to try to draw your attention to the messages you exchange with the important people in your life and call you to evaluate whether you're trying to make good guacamole with bad avocados.

Class dismissed.