31 Tips For DSM In 2012

Des Moines turns that whole “Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon” concept on its head. Here, instead of six degrees of separation, its not unlikely to meet someone and within the time it takes your coffee to cool, come up with half a dozen ways you’re directly linked. I get how people compare our city to a small town, and social circles can start to feel like an almost concentric Venn diagram. Sometimes I forget that, in reality, everybody doesn’t actually already know everyone else.

I’m a suburban Chicago native who moved to Des Moines straight from college in Missouri, never having seen the place and not knowing a single soul. Luckily, I came here in the summer of 2007 to work for Juice magazine, which meant I had a built-in reason to meet a bunch of people and try dozens of bars and restaurants on my employer’s dime. I also had a great group of co-workers who encouraged me to tag along with them to events for the first time, so I rarely had to brave an unfamiliar situation on my own.

If I hadn’t started off with a professional reason to introduce myself, I might be the kind of person who went straight home after work every night and plotted a move back to the Windy City. We all know (and resent) the people who say there’s nothing to do in Des Moines, but never get out of their commuter rut. Maybe it’s not because they’re haters, but because they’re just one introduction away from their next creative collaborator, nonprofit board, trivia team, or significant other. (I’ll own up to the fact that a room full of strangers — especially ones who already know each other  — can feel totally intimidating.)