Elliott 1

Ethan Elliott
Interpersonal Com
Final Paper 12/14/12

Young Love
When Kamen Klasinski and Mckenzie Durigan began their relationship in high school
they made a strong commitment right away. No matter the circumstances in their relationship
they find themselves falling for each other deeper and deeper. I saw this every day in high
school. They depicted many different types of love on a regular basis. From ludis love, flirting
with one another in a harmless, playful way, to what would end up as mania love, short
tempers starting the wheels on a rollercoaster. But once they got to the peak of the ride and
began to plummet, it was weird that they could recover so fast and act like the loving girlfriend
and boyfriend that everyone saw them as.
I began to notice, between Kamen and Kenzie, that their relationship consisted of a lot
of mania. Is this a common occurrence between two high school sweethearts that have never
experienced other people in a relationship as deep as this one? I have centered research on
Kamen and Kenzies relationship based on the romantic relationship that they display.
Importance is placed on the types of love that occur in any circumstance throughout their
experiences and how they maintain such strong feelings, no matter what problems arise.
Kamen and Kenzie are both sophomores in college and find themselves continuing a
relationship that started their freshman year of high school. Because Kamen and Kenzie spend
their college lives a part from each other they have to make great efforts in maintaining their
relationship. This is another part of the romantic relationship that I have looked into because I

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feel that maintenance of a relationship when two partners are consistently away from each
other is very important.
To help build on the maintenance of Kamen and Kenzies relationship I will look into the
ways of communication by which a male or female can help the relationship and the ways it can
hurt the relationship. For example, if there are certain ways that a man prefers to
communicate and certain types of communication that a man does not like. These are crucial
because having the wrong approach while disclosing information can make for a bad
experience. Something else that could possibly be brought up is the difference in intimacy
between men and women. Is Kamen more intimate than Kenzie? Or is it the other way around?
And why does intimacy have a great effect on the relationship?
I also want to see if the types of love within Kamen and Kenzies relationship may have
an effect on why they experience so many ups and downs. As I have briefly stated, there is a lot
of types of mania love. Because they are so intense with caring for each other, Kamen and
Kenzies lives are consumed by one another. The fact that they are so infatuated with one
another causes Kamen and Kenzie to relieve unneeded pressure on the relationship. In high
school it was not practical for Kamen and Kenzie to be so obsessed with one another, because
of this the liking stage became love at such a young age. Now that Kamen and Kenzie are old to
enough to understand what they want out of their relationship the different types of love can
come into play.
As Kamen and Kenzie go through their ordinary day, they find themselves fighting or
arguing over the minor things of the relationship, I notice though they get over these issues
quickly. They are, at times, too intimate with the relationship and their passionate love has a

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negative effect on their feelings. So any reminder of the issue triggers an emotional arousal
sending them into misunderstandings. These misunderstandings lead to heated arguments or
short stints of unnecessary silence. The no talking between Kamen and Kenzie shows how
upset they are with each other. The longer they go without talking implies that they are more
upset with each other than if they talked immediately about the problem at hand. Once a
situation cools over, it seems that Kenzie and Kamen never had the problem in the first place,
both go on with the day, hand in hand.
There are certain circumstances where the effect on Kamen and Kenzie is different for
one of them. A lot of the time it seems that Kenzie has longer frustrations with the incidents.
She tends to avoid Kamen for a longer period than he does. Kenzie does this so that she has a
longer time to think about what she wants to say to Kamen. Thinking about what she wants to
say will help the relationship maintenance. Kenzie, if shes not ready to talk about the problem,
is not going to risk anymore arguing by speaking about the problem she is still upset about.
Coming to an agreement on an issue is best through communication (Baxter, Pittman). So
when Kenzie is ready to talk, that will be her best option to resolve the conflict with Kamen.
While conflicts are being resolved in a relationship, the importance for partners to have
great communication while in a relationship is made very clear. Conflict resolution in Kamen
and Kenzies circumstances are the only way that voices can be heard so that both can have a
better understanding of the problem no matter who is at fault. Expressing how one partner
feels about the problem without pin pointing the blame on their significant other helps identify
boundaries. As I have had to do in the past, when problems arise sometimes the help of a third
party helped Kamen and Kenzie talk about their issue more openly.

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Kamen and Kenzie are very open with each other and neither of them is afraid to tell
each other if they have a problem with something. With all the time Kamen and Kenzie spend
together they always take time to talk about life and the little things. When Kamen is positive
with his approach Kenzie is more open and it makes for better discussion and disclosure about
what is on Kenzies mind. Kamen and Kenzie do their best effort to never keep anything hidden
in their relationship. Hiding information between one another leads to trust issues and without
trust Kamen and Kenzie cannot talk with the openness that is needed.
Also with trust comes disclosing information. Adler, Rosenfeld, and Towne report that
self-disclosure is a good measure of the depth of a relationship (as cited in Wood and Inman,
1993, p.288). I already know that Kamen and Kenzie are comfortable enough with each other
to the extent that both partners can tell each other anything. This proves the sincerity of their
relationship. According to Wood and Inman men prefer to participate in activities to get to
know someone better, while women find it easier to talk about their feelings while in a close
relationship. This would explain why men naturally disclose less than woman (Wood, Inman)
Kenzie is a very passionate person about what she loves and as her relationship with
Kamen has grown she has become very intimate. This is not surprising because women
become more intimate than men in close relationships (Wood, Inman). Kenzie is able to
disclose more about her relationship with her friends because of this. Whether the relationship
is going well or not, if Kenzie can talk to her friends about how her relationship is going, it helps
relieve stress (Wood, Inman). If her relationship is going well with Kamen than shell be happy
to talk about how amazing of a guy he is. When Kenzie tells something like this to her friends it
can have a revolution of communication that goes back around to Kamen. In saying that, if

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Kamen hears this positivity, that is going to make him try harder to maintain the good feelings
between him and Kenzie. Obviously stating, the better the relationship is going the longer it is
going to last.
Kamen and Kenzie mostly display the love types of ludis and mania, which is a main
cause for the inconsistency of the emotional arousals. Mania and ludus lovers tend to produce
problematic relationships because the ludus lover is likely to play games in relationships and
the mania lover tends to be obsessive, dependent, and jealous (Goodboy, Myers, 2010, p.75).
In Kamen and Kenzies case, neither one of them portrays just ludis or mania but instead both
use the different types at different times. Whenever Kamen or Kenzie becomes upset at a
situation it sometimes seems that one of them will have to get back at the other. When getting
back at each other, according to Goodboy, Kamen and Kenzie are becoming more distant from
one another (Goodboy, Horan). Because men desire less intimacy in relationships Kamen is the
ludis lover at this time, meaning he does not want to become too close in the relationship
(Goodboy, Horan). A ludis lover can assume that negative relational maintenance actions are a
game (Goodboy, Myers). If love is portrayed as a game then the partner has to respond to
what is being done. This leads to the mania lover in the relationship to investigate or seek out
information (Goodboy, Myers).
To seek out information one of the things that happen in a relationship is spying. Spying
could happen in a different number of ways. In todays world of technology it is easy to see
what someone is doing. Going on Facebook is a convenient way to see what a partner is doing.
Kenzie uses Facebook to her advantage to see if Kamen has been interacting with other girls or
there are posts indirectly directed at her. When partners are behaving appropriately and are

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being spied on, this unique maintenance behavior may actually serve as a validation effort to
reassure that appropriate partner behavior is transpiring (Goodboy & Myers, 2010 p.75) For
Kenzie Facebook is not the only negative way of relationship maintenance she portrays when
she is insecure.
Cell phones and texting are a big way of communication in this generation and when
Kenzie is still upset with a problem one of the ways she tries to prove a point is by ignoring calls
and texts. Here she is being the mania lover because by ignoring and avoiding any
communication from Kamen and his pursuit to make things right; she is giving herself assurance
that Kamen still cares about their future relationship (Goodboy, Horan). This is not the same
avoidance as if her and Kamen are going through a break up. Kenzie, who is playing her role as
mania lover, is avoiding Kamen as an endurance test to show his lasting commitment.
(Goodboy, Horan)
With social networks, comes the problem of jealousy. When Kamen or Kenzie is upset
with one another, they can find ways to make the other jealous on Facebook. Something as
simple as a post from someone that either Kamen or Kenzie identifies as a threat to budge in on
the relationship. Studies of Facebook have found that jealousy is one of the most frequent
problems reported by users (McCornack p. 350). As the mania love Kenzie can provoke the
jealousy by posting a flirtatious comment on a picture of someone that she may have had a
past with or someone that she knows Kamen does not like will in return make him very
defensive.
The most common reason for a partner to evoke jealousy is simply to draw the
attention of the significant other (Goodboy, Horan). As one can see, Kenzie is working as the

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mania lover because she is seeking so much attention from Kamen. Just because one of the
partners is provoking the jealousy, does not mean that they are guaranteed to end up breaking
apart. Studies show that purposely evoking jealousy rarely leads to break ups (Baxter, Pittman).
When Kamen and Kenzie are working together in harmony to maintain their relationship
it is because both are very upbeat and positive. There are very good reasons why both are
happy too. For example, when seeing each other in the morning at school a simple good
morning with a smile goes a long way in starting their day off right. This is a small effort by
Kamen and Kenzie to make an interaction enjoyable. The next step that Kamen makes in
continuing his positive start to the day is by telling Kenzie she looks cute, or that he likes what
she has done with her hair. As one can see Kamen does a good job giving Kenzie compliments
so that she feels important and this is another step towards maintaining a positive relationship.
Other reasons that Kamen and Kenzie have maintained their relationship through high
school and into college are because they do a lot of things together. A critical part of
maintaining love is sharing enjoyable activities. Happy, committed couples.make an effort to
involve each other in their personal hobbies and outside interests (McCornack p. 345) Some
activities that Kamen and Kenzie participate in are because they share the same interest in it.
One of the things that they love to do is go to hockey games. Because Kamen plays hockey with
Kenzies younger brother, Kenzie has grown up around hockey. This makes it easy for them to
find something outside of school to do. Usually twice in the winter they will pick a weekend
that is open and they will go down to Chicago to watch a Chicago Blackhawks game or they will
go down to Madison and watch the University of Wisconsin hockey team play. Other than the

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fun that they have, it also allows Kamen and Kenzie to be away from the distractions at home
and spend quality time together by doing something they both love.
During the school week it is obviously hard to always make time for each other. But
there are two things that Kamen and Kenzie did in high school that sticks out in my head to help
maintain their relationship. One of the things that sticks out is whenever Kamen or Kenzie had
a game, they would make strong efforts to go to each others games whether they had to drive
a long distance or not. As I could see both partners loved the support of their significant other
and it was another step to knowing Kamen or Kenzie truly cared about the relationship.
The second thing was that Kamen and Kenzie, who were and still are very studious,
would go to the public library to study together. They would set aside one or two days during
the week to do this to make sure they stayed on top of their studies but to also make sure each
other were keeping a good work ethic in school. This time of practical help, mutual assistance,
and companionship *are+ bench marks of caring (Wood & Inman, 1993, p. 291). Even though
men tend to show closeness in this way, this experience for Kamen and Kenzie it is mutual.
Since Kamen and Kenzie feel so strongly about each other and love what they have in
their relationship, all the little things that couples experience do not break Kamen and Kenzie
apart. Just because it might seem that they are constantly fighting does not mean that they are
not able to work things out time and time again. As their relationship continued into college
and they see each other less, the biggest means for Kamen and Kenzie to maintain their
relationship is communication. Calling and texting are the necessary steps that they take on a
daily basis to continue to show they care about each other.

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Also, since they are away from each other it is not as easy to do the things they are
accustomed to doing with one another. Now that is winter I know Kamen and Kenzie will spend
a weekend together where they go to a Wisconsin Badger hockey game. By doing the things
they love together, both Kamen and Kenzie assure themselves that they are both committed to
the future of the relationship. Kamen and Kenzie cherish the little things about their
relationship as much as any other relationship I know.
Through more research of their relationship, I have a better understanding why things
happen the way they do in Kamen and Kenzies relationship. It has also helped me understand
why no matter what happens between them, they always work through their problems. The
only way to want to work through the problems is to have the commitment and dedication to
each other that Kamen and Kenzie have for one another.

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References
Wood, J. T., & Inman, C. C. (1993). In A Different Mode: Masculine Styles of Communicating
Closeness. Journal Of Applied Communication Research, 21(3), 279.
Goodboy, A. K., & Myers, S. A. (2010). Relational Quality Indicators and Love Styles as Predictors
of Negative Relational Maintenance Behaviors in Romantic Relationships.
Communication Reports, 23(2), 65-78.
Goodboy, A. K., Horan, S. M., & Booth-Butterfield, M. (2012). Intentional Jealousy-Evoking
Behavior in Romantic Relationships as a Function of Received Partner Affection and Love
Styles. Communication Quarterly, 60(3), 370-385.
Baxter, L. A. (2001). Communicatively Remembering Turning Points of Relational Development
in Heterosexual Romantic Relationships. Communication Reports, 14(1), 1.
McCornack, Steven. Reflect & Relate: An Introduction to Interpersonal Communication. 2nd ed.
Boston: Bedford/St. Martin's, 2007. Print.