Last weekend, Elizabeth Crisp, a D.C.-based reporter for Newsweek, went to brunch at Floriana with a friend in one of her first outings since the city began its phased reopening.

Before the coronavirus shut the District down in March, she often spent weekend mornings with a big group of friends. “I mean, I used to go to brunch with people and we’d have 20 people at our table,” she says.

But last Sunday, she sat down on the patio with just one. She says she’s opting for smaller groups in part for safety, but in part because not all of her friends are ready to go out and about.

Crisp is among a number of Washingtonians who are finding themselves and their friends in one of two camps as D.C. reopens: those ready to venture out and those choosing to stay home. As the city moves forward in its reopening timeline, those divisions could sharpen. Mayor Muriel Bowser said during a press conference on Wednesday that D.C. could move into phase two of its reopening as soon as June 22, citing 13 days of declining “community spread,” a key metric officials are using to determine a timeline for easing restrictions.

Crisp, who is 36, says she’s being careful. She always brings hand sanitizer with her and wears a mask, and totally understands why people might not want to go out. Still, she says she notices the change when catching up with the friends she can see in-person.

“Me and that one person are talking about other people and then are like, ‘I haven’t seen this person in a while. What are they up to?'” Crisp says. “It does kind of feel like we’re not intentionally ostracizing people, but it creates a little bit of disconnect there when you used to have really close friends.”

Katie, a 36-year-old lobbyist who lives in Brookland and asked to be identified only by her first name for privacy reasons, has found herself on the other side of that split.

Katie is diabetic, putting her at higher risk for complications from COVID-19, and has two young children, so she has decided to stay put for the time being.

“I feel like people are like, ‘Oh, well things are better,’ and I’m like, ‘I don’t trust that the numbers are down,'” she says. “I feel like we’re just in the calm before the storm. I feel like we’re about to see cases rise, so I’m even more hypervigilant than I was maybe a couple weeks ago.”

She says some of her friends have started hanging out again, going over to each other’s houses, and patronizing some of the patios that are open. Others have been participating in the large-scale protests that have taken place across the District in recent weeks following the killing of George Floyd, but she’s not comfortable doing any of that yet.

“I’m like, ‘We’re gonna hunker down for the next month until I see what the numbers are gonna look like,'” she says.

Katie says it freaks her out a bit when she hears about people starting to get together, particularly when they’re not taking serious precautions.

She’s even experienced differences in approach among family members. During a recent trip to Hilton Head, South Carolina to visit her husband’s family, she says a contractor came to her in-laws’ house to do some work, and shook her father-in-law’s hand.

“[The contractor] was like, ‘Oh, is this the daughter?'” she says. “I was like, ‘The daughter-in-law,’ nice to see you,’ and ran away. I’m sure he was like, ‘Wow, she’s weird.'”

Katie says she does fear missing out on time with friends, but is prepared to continue isolating for the time being. However, she did recently sign her 3-year-old son up for a summer camp that is mostly outdoors and following necessary safety protocols, as a way for him to socialize.

Timur Tugberk, meanwhile, says he’s noticed a generational divide among his friends. The 36-year-old, who runs his own creative consulting and branding company, says his friends in their 20s appear to behaving more casually.

“My friend group is vast and diverse, and the common denominator here, like, the variable is consistent, the younger you are, the less you care,” he says. “That’s what I’m noticing.”

Tugberk, who lives in Old Town in Alexandria, has gone out to have dinner or drinks twice since the region began reopening, but he prefers to hang out with friends he knows have been taking social distancing seriously.

He and his partner have a “quarantine pod,” a group of fewer than 10 close friends they began hanging out with a few weeks into the shutdown, whether taking socially distant walks or visiting with one another from across balconies.

They have since relaxed a bit, recently taking a weekend trip to West Virginia with another couple, where they stayed in a remote cabin in the woods. He says he feels he’s become even closer with his friends who are being more careful because of their “shared perspective and opinion” on the safety precautions.

Other locals, however, say their friends are mostly on the same page about loosening up restrictions. Elise, who works in communications at a technology company and asked to be identified by only her first name for privacy reasons,  got together with a group of six friends at Lauriol Plaza last weekend.

“I really think everybody is at the point that they feel really comfortable getting together, at least in my circle, and just saying, ‘Okay, you take reasonable precaution, but you live your life,'” she says. “At some level here, that’s the choice we have.”

Elise, who is 28, says she was motivated to go out in part by a desire to help support local restaurants. But while her friends did not have qualms about getting together, some have said they’d rather not post about it online.

“I’ve been with some friends who are like, ‘Ooh, let’s not put this on Instagram, don’t tag me, I don’t want people to see where I’m out just yet. It’s not a good look,'” she says. “So, I do think that some people are worried about social judgement from others, [people] who are maybe early adopters and they’re getting out to the bars and restaurants first.”

Marisa G. Franco, a D.C.-based psychologist and author of an upcoming book on friendship, says this period could highlight some unhealthy dynamics between friends that were already there, and raise tough questions.

“Are you friends that respect each other’s boundaries?” she asks. “Are you friends that want the best for each other even if that’s different from what you want?”

Franco adds of the reopening, “It’s a place where people might disagree, and once disagreement or conflict comes up, it can reveal a lot about us and our relationships.”

She says connecting virtually, through Zoom or other mediums, can be really valuable in maintaining relationships when one friend opts to stay home, but also advises friends to communicate and find ways to interact that work for both parties.

Tugberk, for his part, notes another option if disagreements do arise. “Fortunately we have the excuse of [social] distancing, so you don’t need to necessarily have a heated conversation about it.”