Building Relationships: Contact Stage

Video Transcript

"Ok, the first stage of any relationship whether it be romantic or friendship or boss/employee, student/teacher is the contact stage. And what happens in the contact stage is pretty simple- you meet. And this is what I call the senses stage because this is where you see the other person, you smell the other person, you hear the other person, you might touch the other person, through a handshake. But this is where all your senses analyze this person. You are then able to put that information in a file and recognize this person at a later date when you establish what you want to do with this information about this person that you received. So in the contact phase it's basically initial information is exchanged. Hi, what's your name, you know whatever small talk occurs based on the situation. Maybe it's your first day at the job so you are talking a little bit about your work experience or maybe it's a college classroom and you are talking about well I'm really nervous about this class or I'm retaking this class. Or it could be even a romantic thing where you are establishing that feeling for each other, hey I think I like you, hey I think I don't, could go either way. So the contact is the first stage."