How To Build Meaningful Friendships In DC

You probably have childhood memories of your parents trying to guide you away from bad influences. They weren’t just trying to keep you from hanging out with the types of kids who skipped classes or did drugs — they wanted you to have a sturdy support system to help you take on challenges and make good decisions, knowing they wouldn’t always be there to help you make the right call.

So now that you’re launching a career in a new city (or you’ve already been here a while), you might be looking around wondering… how do I build that support system as an adult in a new town? 

Start here.

1. Surround yourself with people who make you want to be better. 

This is deceptively simple advice — but you should probably write it down.

I met my best friend when we were working at a start up on the hill a decade ago. She almost instantly made me want to be better — and not just at work. She helped me pick up healthier habits, dragged me to early-morning spin classes, and got me to adopt a more positive outlook. That friendship and so many others have had an undeniably transformative impact on my life — but if you ask them, they’ll likely say the same thing about me. That’s because we have all pushed each other to be our best and have supported each other every step of the way.

As iron sharpens iron, so one person sharpens another — if you hold your friends accountable, encourage them, and listen to them when they challenge you — you’ll all be better for it.

2. Get out of your echo chamber!

I’m convinced DC is the easiest city in the world to make friends in — especially if you’re in your early career. Every yoga studio and happy hour in town is packed to the gills with others who are new in town and need a friend group, too.

It’s easy to surround yourself with ideological-friendlies (especially these days), but resist that comfort zone and make friends who don’t always agree with you. One of the best things about living in DC is exposure to a vast landscape of viewpoints, perspectives, and cultures — even the ones you might think are cuckoo bananas. Don’t just seek out friends who had the same upbringing as you or who agree with you on every policy. Learning to express yourself when something you say gets lost in translation will give your beliefs a stronger foundation — and help you become a more compassionate communicator.

Warning: Don’t become a punching bag. If your buddies can’t help but mock your beliefs or make regular, sarcastic comments that distort your views, don’t shrug them off — and don’t bicker back. Just remind them that you wouldn’t do the same to them — as easy as it would be for you to do that — because you care more about your friendship than about scoring points. They should realize their behavior is wrong and knock it off — and if they don’t… they’re not your friends.

3. Avoid bad elements.

If the friends you’ve made since coming to the city don’t seem interested in your future (let alone their own), you should rethink those relationships. They might be fun and interesting — easy to laugh with and relax around, but if that’s as deep as it goes, that’s not a relationship that’s serving either of you. 

DC is full of ambitious people, and while you’re busy surrounding yourself with people who run marathons and are aiming for the C-Suite, make sure they’re actually good people. 

Are they open and honest? Do they gossip about others or always seem to be complaining about something? You might think you’re being too critical but that whole iron sharpens iron thing works both ways y’all. If you hang around people with bad traits don’t be surprised when you begin to adopt them.

4. Seek to be worthy of the help and opportunities you’re given.

If you meet someone going through a hard time (trying to find a job — or learning how to afford life on a hill salary), be supportive. If you yourself are the one going through the hard time, be gracious.

When I first came to DC, I was astonished how people helped me for no reason at all — people I hardly knew helped me find a place to stay and connected me to my first job.

It humbled me and motivated me to be worthy of the help they had given me — and I am still grateful to each one of them… and I’m still friends with each and every one of them.

At the same time, they were also helping others in my position (what can I say — post-campaign DC is full of job hunting couch surfers) and I was shocked by how ungrateful and lazy many of them were with the opportunities they were being offered. Maybe it was insecurity, maybe it was arrogance — but none of us even remember their names now. 

I think that says it all.

5. Friends… or colleagues?

While you’re building a professional network in your early career it can be challenging to build friendships — and distinguish them from one another.

The lines frequently blur between social and professional life here. You have to remind your journalist roommate that your after-work venting is off the record and ask yourself does that guy want to get coffee with me as a date… or does he really want to talk about jobs?

It’s not just you: The confusion is real.

You can be friends IRL with your colleagues (that’s how I’ve made a lot of my friends tbh) but you should always keep the lines bright between your work life and your personal life. 

There is nothing wrong with texting a friend for insights about a job that just opened up in their organization, but you should never abuse your contacts for professional purposes. Your friends should never get the impression that you’re just using them to move up in your career. Respond to any advice or help they give you with gratitude and make sure they know you don’t take them for granted.

6. Give it time

When I look back on my decade in DC I cringe at missteps I made early on — but those mistakes helped me grow and helped me grow even closer to my friends as we all had to forgive each other along the way as we learned how to be adults.

Just like building a strong career you aren’t going to start off at the top — give friendships time to develop.

Last year we all watched as Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh was ruthlessly savaged by a desperate smear campaign meant to stop his confirmation. I couldn’t imagine being put through something so devastating — but the words from his opening statement made clear how he was able to make it through that darkness: His friends.

Cherish your friends. Look out for your friends. Lift up your friends. Love your friends.

Dozens of men and women from every stage of his life and from every end of the political spectrum flowed forth to defend his character and support their friend. They stood behind him when the whole world was mindlessly attacking him.

Aspire to live your life here so that when the storm comes, you have friends like that. 

And be a friend like that.