Love and Basketball

Watching movies is a great way to learn and study different interpersonal relationships. A lot of them are just like real life situations that happen every day between people. One of my favorite movies is Love and Basketball. I chose to talk about this movie because in my opinion it really focuses on the relationship of the two main characters. There are good moments and bad ones in their relationship with one another. I also believe there are a lot of different things the characters could have done and said that would have made communicating with each other a lot easier.

It’s one of my favorite movies and I have learned a lot about communicating from it. The movie starts out with the main characters, Quincy and Monica. Both of them love to play basketball more then they love doing anything else. Quincy is in awe of how good Monica is at playing for a girl. They become friends with each other and remain friends throughout high school.

Monica was never big on having a boyfriend and that is something Quincy makes fun of her for. She doesn’t care because all she is interested in is playing ball. After some time Monica starts to fall in love with Quincy and he starts to fall for her also.

They end up getting scholarships to the same university and remain together. When Quincy gets news that his father has been cheating on his wife, he slowly falls apart. This causes a huge argument between Monica and him and their relationship falls apart.

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His playing ability also starts to go downhill as hers reaches a peak. After time goes by they remain apart from each other and keep playing ball for professional teams. Quincy gets hurt on the court and suddenly can’t play anymore. While he is out from basketball he gets engaged while Monica keeps playing basketball.

Eventually Monica tells him her feelings for him and how she is still in love with him. At the end of the movie they end up playing a game of one-on-one for his heart. She loses but then he surprises her by saying he wants a rematch. They end up getting married and having a daughter together. The story wasn’t as easy as it sounds though. In the beginning of the story Quincy and Monica’s relationship was very open and good with each other. They would talk about things with each other and the relationship they had was very intimate. When one of them needed to alk about something the other would have no problem listening and hearing what the other had to say. Once Quincy started having problems with his dad is when things really went downhill for him and Monica. Quincy needed Monica to be the person for him to talk about it to, but she was too worried about her curfew. To me this would be an example of reward power. This is based on another person’s ability to satisfy your needs. In this case Monica couldn’t satisfy Quincy’s need for a companion when he needed it so this caused him to be angry at her and pull away.

She didn’t seem to be understanding about his situation when he needed her to be. She was too worried about her curfew for basketball so she wouldn’t get in trouble with the coach. For them this was the biggest turning point in their relationship. Turning points are events or interactions that are associated with positive or negative changes in relationships. Their communication with one another became less and less. Relational de-escalation, the movement that occurs when a relationship decreases in intimacy, also happened. Quincy and Monica went to a party and saw each other there.

Quincy was all over this other girl that was at the same party. Monica saw him talking to her and instantly got angry about it, so she walked up to him and started talking to him about it. She asked him if he wanted to go back to his place and talk about the situation with his dad. Quincy was obviously still angry at her so he responded by asking her if she had curfew. Monica told him she didn’t that night so she could talk, but Quincy just shook his head and told her not to worry about it. He told her he was tired and was just going to go to bed.

This was when Monica realized that he was seriously angry with her. A couple days went by and she thought the situation had blown over and everything would be okay, but it wasn’t. Quincy ended up breaking it off with her one night as they were talking. One mistake in a relationship can cause it to end, and this is what this movie has taught me. In this movie I have learned a lot about interpersonal relationships. If I am understanding and am there when the other person needs me to be, things will go a lot more smoothly. I like to put myself in the other person’s shoes and look at it in a different perspective.

I would want the other person to be there for me when I need them to be and I’d want to be listened to. Open relationships are what makes or breaks you. In this part of the movie it broke their relationship, but all that matters is that they did end up together and happy. They needed to realize what one another needed from the other and grow up and mature a little more in order to make the relationship work. In the end though, they realized they truly loved each other and decided to make it work after they saw their mistakes. This was a great movie to watch and learn from.