True Story

Amy Nelson
Sister Embree
Comm150
23 March 2010

To be honest, this story made me cry (good thing I was reading it while I was by myself!). The relationship that this kid and this woman had over the phone was so touching to me. She was his ever-constant friend, his mentor; he always knew she’d be there for him whenever he needed her. She was a lonely woman. She never had any kids, maybe was never married. He filled that need she had for a family, the need she had to be needed. The costs of this relationship were they never got to meet each other face-to-face. They weren’t ever physically around one another. Distance can be a great deterrent in a relationship. Another cost is that the relationship sort of ended when Paul’s family moved away. The rewards were that they both filled a need the other had. The rewards I think lasted a long time after the relationship ended. Isn’t even the memory of just a moment in a relationship a reward? (Social Exchange Theory: Costs-Rewards=Relationship)


It’s my belief that costs and rewards of relationships have far-reaching effects, that they do not end with the ending of the association. Paul, throughout his life, recalled moments of his friendship with ‘Information Please’ that made him feel secure, like Sally always made him feel. He states: “As I grew into my teens, the memories of those childhood conversations never really left me; often in moments of doubt and perplexity I would recall the serene sense of security I had when I knew that I could call Information Please and get the right answer. I appreciated now how very patient, understanding and kind she was to have wasted her time on a little boy.” He didn’t think that the friendship they had meant as much to her as it did to him. The language he uses, saying he was grateful she had ‘wasted her time’ on a kid shows that he figured she was an adult with better things to do than listen to a kid, but she was kind enough to actually listen to him. She definitely didn’t think of their time on the phone as wasted at all. In fact, it was something she looked forward to every day. When they finally got to talk to each other again years later, both expressed how much the other meant to them. I think the rewards in this relationship will last a long time after Sally’s death and will affect his future. The costs of a bad relationship can last for a long time afterward as well, affecting future relationships and decisions.


So what does constitute a reward or a cost? I’m still trying to figure this one out. I think there are the obvious costs and rewards, but I think these are all unique to the individual relationship. A reward of a relationship is someone that fills your needs, which differ from person to person. The costs are whatever bugs you about the person I suppose, whatever annoys or upsets you, which is also different with each individual.


Like Sister Embree mentioned in class, “trust defines a communication relationship”, which is very true in this story. Paul trusted the voice on the other end of the phone, and that trust was reciprocated, thus giving motivation to continue the relationship. I think trust in a relationship is a reward. It creates a secure, reliable, safe-feeling communication climate. We all want and need to trust someone, to have someone listen to us, talk with us, to show us we’re someone worth spending time on. When you find a relationship that fills those needs, the costs don’t really seem like much anyway, because the rewards far outweigh anything that could be bad in the relationship. And a relationship like the one in this story is one that would be very much worth any costs.


I think mentoring relationships are some of the most powerful ones we can ever have in this life. This reminds me of the recent CES fireside where the speaker quoted Elder Neal A. Maxwell: “Each of us, from time to time, is mentored and has chances to mentor. In my experience, truthful and caring one-liners that occur within such nurturing relationships have a long shelf life! You can probably recount three or four examples of how people have said something—probably a sentence or clause—and you remember it still. It moves and touches you still.” I think Paul felt this way about the many conversations he had with Sally, and the things she said will always stay with him. This is another reward of this relationship. In caring relationships like this one, it’s easy to forget the costs.
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