four major stages in social penetration: The orientation stage: individuals engage in small talk and simple, harmless clichés like, 'Life's like that'. This first stage follows the standards of social desirability and norms of appropriateness. The outer images are presented and peripheral information are exchanged. The most, but least intimate information is given here. The exploratory affective stage: individuals start to reveal the inner self bit by bit, expressing personal attitudes about moderate topics such as government and education. This may not be the whole truth as individuals are not yet comfortable to lay themselves bare. This is the stage of casual friendship, and many relationships do not go past this stage. The affective stage: individuals are getting more comfortable to talk about private and personal matters, and there are some forms of commitment in this stage. Personal idioms, or words and phrases that embody unique meanings between individuals, are used in conversations. Criticism and arguments may arise. A comfortable share of positive and negative reactions occur in this stage. Relationships become more important, meaningful, and enduring to both parties. It is a stage of close friendships and intimate partners. The stable stage: the relationship now reaches a plateau in which some of the deepest personal thoughts, beliefs, and values are shared and each can predict the emotional reactions of the other person. This stage is characterized with complete openness, raw honesty and a high degree of spontaneity. The least, but most intimate information is given here. De-penetration stage (optional): when the relationship starts to break down and costs exceed benefits, there is a withdrawal of disclosure that causes the relationship to end. De-penetration De-penetration is a gradual process of layer-by-layer withdrawal that causes relationship and intimacy levels to regress and fade away. According to Altman and Taylor, when de-penetration occurs, "interpersonal exchange should proceed backwards from more to less intimate areas, should decrease in breadth or volume, and, as a result, the total cumulative wedge of exchange should shrink". A warm friendship between two people will deteriorate if they begin to close off areas of their lives that had earlier been opened. Relationships are likely to break down not in an explosive argument but in a gradual cooling off of enjoyment and care. Tolstedt and Stokes note that in the de-penetration process, self-disclosure breadth reduces and self-disclosure depth increases. This is because when an intimate relationship is dissolving, a