CAPS #6-Kate Nevanen

An intercultural relationship that I have been in most of my life is a friend of mine who is a lesbian. Our parents have been friends for many years so we grew up together and changed together. Although I moved in middle school and she moved across the country after graduating high school we have maintained a great relationship. Mikayla came out that she was a lesbian when she was a sophomore in high school and I was a freshman. At such a young age and being from such a small town it took me awhile to understand and to adjust to the news. I quickly realized that nothing would have to change in our friendship and from then on, nothing did change.

Through this relationship I see a lot more benefits that  I have gained than challenges. I have gained a greater knowledge and acceptance of the gay community through my friendship. From this I have learned to accept other gays and lesbians that have come into my life and have been able to help them through their journey. It has also made me reflect on myself and my intimate relationships with others. It has helped me change and shape who I want to be with. I have also been able to become a part of the gay and lesbian movement by participating in events such as pride weekend. My friendship with Mikayla has helped me gain so many friends in the gay and lesbian community. The challenges I have had during this relationship came when she first told me she was a lesbian. As a freshman in high school I knew nothing of the matter and this was very foreign for me. After realizing how important her friendship was to me I was able to get over these challenges and learn from her. One other challenge I have had is with my straight friends who do not understand my friendship with Mikayla. Although I do try and teach them so they can better understand, there will always be people who do not accept same-sex relationships.

Baxter’s dialectical model just better explains that there are many components or tensions that can come from a relationship. My relationship with Mikayla is an intercultural one because we have different sexual orientations. Since this is an intercultural relationship there is more potential for tension or disagreement. Personal-contextual dialectic means that both context and personal aspects are a part of a intercultural relationship. I think the consistency in our friendship is because it has lasted so long on such a personal level. We have the same friendship and interactions from context to context. Although we are friends during any context change I think we are both most comfortable when we are with our families, which is where we first met. I think context and the effect of it shows how truly good friends you are with someone.

Continuing with how  Mikayla and I first met I think we relate to the history/past-present/future dialect as well. Historically when we were kids we got along great and had few disagreements. We learned from the past and by being friends for so long that if we did have a conflict we would know how to quickly overcome it. When I realized Mikayla was an intercultural relationship I had, when she came out, it was something we both had to deal with to continue a relationship in the future.

The last dialect I see in our friendship is static-dynamic. Although I said our friendship has always stayed the same there has been changes and challenges that has made our relationship dynamic. When I moved in middle school it changed our relationship by the way we communicated, phone instead of face-to-face. Then when she decided to move to California to go to hair school and I chose Nebraska for college it changed again in what we had in common. Although this relationship is dynamic and ever changing, Mikayla and I have always dealt with change well.

My friendship with Mikayla is something I never say as intercultural but through this class I see in many ways how it is.