Anyone who knows me well, knows that recently I’ve been obsessed with this concept of what I like to call Bridge Theory. It’s basically a concept I thought up that helps me organize life in terms of friendships, that says that relationships are like bridges.
They are similar in multiple ways:
a) Both bridges and relationships are very difficult to build.
b) The crappier the bridge/ relationship, the more you have to maintain it. If you don’t talk to someone for a while who you don’t know that well, you wont be able to ask for a favor later. If you build a bridge out of rocks and a log in a river, if you walk away it will get washed down the stream.
The ultimate point I came to, is that to get things out of people, you have to actively maintain your relationship, especially if you suck at making relationships in the first place. You can’t just expect people to do things for you if you don’t do things for them consistently.
Someone recently pointed out to me recently that this is a lot like networking. And I would disagree. Networking just basically is about, do shit for people get shit in return later. What this doesn’t take into account is relationships change over time and the fact that if you fuck up a relationship it’s very hard to rebuild (just like a broken bridge, you have to do a lot of clean up of the first bridge to build a new one). Certainly if you have the golden gate bridge, you could leave it for a very long time, and cars could still drive over it. Just like a great friendship. However, a shitty wooden bridge will rot relatively quickly over time, and there‘s gonna be a lot of rotting wood (drama) in the water to clean up. Just like a guy you met at a party, who you’ve hung out a few times who has something you want (could book a show, interview etc.). The mere fact that you know this guy means nothing. It’s very difficult to go up to a guy and say, “Hey we met once, can you do something for me?” And even if you know that to get what you want out of him, you need a good bridge/ relationship, how do you build a friendship out of nowhere? Ever try to call someone up out of nowhere and ask to hang out? It’s socially awkward and usually doesn‘t work.
There’s an interesting story about Lyndon Johnson I heard. He used to live in this dormitory, and he would go to the bathroom with the excuse to brush his teeth about 20 times a day. This was because he would talk to everyone in the hallway along the way. By the time he was elected to the senate he knew more people in Washington than probably most 6 term senators. When he was elected senate majority leader, he had only been in the senate 4 years. That’s like a 15 year old being drafted to the major leagues, which by the way has only happened once. He did this because he constantly was talking to everyone, just making sure he knew them, so that when he needed something, everyone was already close.
You’ve really got to constantly maintain relationships with people to get what you want. You can just take breaks from seeing people, or your bridges will fall apart.
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