ABSTRACT
It has been established that friendships are an important source of intimacy in people’s lives. Less is known, however, about the process by which people come to regard
a friendship as intimate. Return, for a moment, to the quotation with which this chapter opened. How did this woman come to the conclusion that her friendship was an intimate one? What knowledge did she draw on? In seeking answers to such questions, I first turned to interaction-pattern models of relationship expectations.
