Week 4 Queston 2: Communication as a Game

The pragmatic perspective suggests that communication is a system of interlocking, interdependent "moves", which become patterned over time. These systems of communication is similar to a game of chess where the moves are what matters because they affected future moves; the players and where the game is played is not put into consideration. The players in the games are partners interacting with one another which then leads to patterned moves and these moves become interdependent of each other.

I think that in some relationship it does make sense to apply the pragmatic perspective. The book gave a perfect example that I can truly relate to; roommate problems. I had a roommate that I did not get along with and unfortunately we had to separate. We were two different people with different preferences and personality. At the time, I had always asked myself, "What is wrong with this person? Why can't she understand me or why can't I understand her?" I figured that it was because our personality did not match. I grew up enjoying company and became a very outgoing person while my roommate grew up very shy and standoffish. She preferred to be alone while I preferred to live with someone who was active and outgoing; someone open and trustworthy. I can never relate to her because she didn't go through the same experiences or lifestyle that I did and I could not relate to her as well. Therefore, we parted because it was best for us to live with people that better matched our personality. Now looking at the situation from a pragmatic perspective, I can reanalyze the situation and admit that the unfortunately outcome of our relationship was a result of interdependent moves that each of us made in the beginning of the relationship. I must have acted in a certain way that made her uncomfortable and caused her to have her defense up. When her defense mechanism was up, I could sense the barriers in our relationship. I was offended that she had blocked me out of her life when I did not do anything to deserve that. The pragmatic perspective says that it doesn't matter that I didn't do anything; what matters was what I actually did to cause her walls to go up. Because I was offended by reactive actions, I interacted by having my walls up as well and began to act in a certain that pushed her away further. As a result, both of us got into a pattern of pushing each other away, doing things to offend another, and finally we both quit the game and decided to not live with each other anymore. Now that I saw the problem wasn't actually because we had different personalities, it was because we were both unaware of how our actions affected the rest of our later moves.

Sometimes, communication is different than a game because in many relationships, we do need to be considerate of different personalities. We need to have to ability to adapt and cater to some people in order for them to trust us and cooperate with you. The pragmatic perspective does not take into consideration the uniqueness of different people, the places where we interact ,or what happened outside of the relationship. These three that I just mentioned are very important factors that can influence a relationship greatly. I think that these factors should be focused on in more complex and serious relationships. The pragmatic perspective is more appropriate for relationships that are shallow and short-term. But it should not be applied to relationships that are heart-felt, true, and long-term.