One of the hardest parts when I needed to quit a job was realizing that too much of my social life was intertwined with my workplace. My external network was weak to non-existent and non-work friends were dispersed across the country. So, I made intentional changes and then quit.
The purpose of a school or office was never explicitly designed to make friends, build networks, and support our social needs as humans.
School is an education system (not a learning one). The office is for getting a job done.
But humans are social creatures first. So, every space we inhabit becomes a mechanism for social connection. We can’t help it, but we also don’t design for it. Which is why the social side of it all feels haphazard, accidental, and chaotic.
A Framework for Building Relationships
The physical proximity of other people enables us to run into other people, over and over, until you know people.
There are three components that anchor most social and professional relationships: proximity (same place and same time), similarity (same boss, same project, same weather or politics to navigate), and familiarity (you saw them yesterday, and the day before that and you’ll see them again next week).
These are circumstantial and stack those together long enough and a level of connection acts as a baseline for a connection.
The fourth component - self-disclosure - added over time acts as relational glue.
Self-disclosure are the small admissions that turn a familiar face into an actual connection: "rough morning," "my kid's sick," "I have no idea what I'm doing either."
That's the glue. Without it, even years of proximity dissolve the moment the container ends, like when you graduate, leave a job, or move.
When you work remotely, you still need those four components to build a network, but you’ve lost the machine that generated them circumstantially for you.
So, you must build a smaller, more deliberate version of it yourself.
What Do You Need?
Do you need proximity? Sometimes you just want bodies in a room for parallel work, low-pressure company, nothing more.
Do you need familiarity? Regulars. People who'd clock it if you missed a week. A place where someone knows your name and asks about "the project" without you re-explaining it.
Do you need similarity? Peers in the actual trenches with you, not just nice people doing unrelated things.
Do you want self-disclosure? This is the deep question: how much are you willing to invest, and in how many people? Not everyone earns this layer, nor do you want everyone this close.
What are you willing to do to get it? Naming the need is step one. Now you might need to shift your schedule, reset your routine, and invest in repeat visits to build an intentional network of aligned people.
This might look like joining an in-person professional group or just showing up each Monday for boardgames and every Tuesday for sand volleyball.
Put yourself in the room with other people repeatedly and with intention. Because the worst place to build a social or professional network of connections is in a room by yourself.
Rachel Thompson is the founder and CEO of Daring Studios, a strategic creative studio helping founders, freelancers, and creatives build solo businesses with more clarity, confidence, and creative freedom. A Certified Professional Facilitator with 15+ years of experience, she works at the intersection of strategy, creative, and facilitation to help people move in the direction they actually want to go. She is based in Cary, NC with her dog, Devin. Find her online at daringstudios.com and on LinkedIn.
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