how to move to a new city as an adult

by moving as an adult, i mean moving when you are moving for a job rather than to go to school.  or i guess you could be going to school but not living on campus.  i'm talking about when you are moving somewhere on your own, as an independent person, and have no set structure in place to set up a social and personal life for yourself the way a full time school setting would be able to give you.

here is the view from my new house

when i first moved to cincinnati, i had a hard time for years with developing a good solid friend group.  part of my problem was that just when i would develop a good friendship with someone, they would move away.  i also blamed cincinnati's insularity i'm sure more than i should have.  here and here and i'm sure all over that blog and this blog if you look back far enough are my thoughts from back then if you want more on that.

moving to lansing, and probably just generally being 8 years older now, has drastically changed my opinion of what it means to be a new adult person in a new city, and what your expectations should be in that position, and what your responsibilities are to yourself and your new city.

rule number 1: everybody is insular (everywhere)

yes, cincinnati was insular.  by insular i mean they liked who they already knew, and people would say things like "i don't need any new friends" or "i have been friends with the same people since high school."  but i realize now that everybody everywhere is like that.  even in new york, do you know what my friends there do, who are not from there?  they hang out at the same bars with the same people that they have been hanging out at and with since 2002.  i am not saying that is a good thing or a bad thing.  it is just what they and everybody do.

the difference between bigger cities and places like cincinnati where most people either never leave or leave and then come back to is that in bigger cities you have a lot more people who understand what it's like for you as a new person to the city, and may make more of an effort to reach out to you.  but at the end of the day the people who have been there longer than you are going to have established social connections that it's going to take you a while to become a part of.

rule number 2: it's nobody's job to be your friend

i was pretty disgruntled for a while when i first moved to cincinnati because i really liked my work friends and we would all hang out and do lunch and happy hours and stuff but then once the weekend rolled around, nobody invited me out.  a holiday with no family around?  nobody thought to invite me to join them.  i was like "aren't these people my friends?" and i would wallow in my misery and read and write lots of self pitying blog posts about how making friends as an adult was so hard.

what i realize now is that it is on me to make friends with people and not the other way around.  if you want more friends you have to be a friend.  invite people over and make them hang out with you as much as you need to.  and if you do that over and over and they never reciprocate, eventually you have to call it a wash and look elsewhere because the fact is that if they really liked you, they would start including you.  you have to do the work though.  that's just the way it is.

rule number 3: you have to join or start a shit ton of groups, even if it is dumb stuff that in your normal life you would totally never do

i think the only new group i joined for years in cincinnati was my book club which i found on craigslist, and which in the end turned out to be the source of some really wonderful friendships (and some bat shit crazies who were good gossip fodder).  but it was not enough.  i just realized that i didn't join my running group until over 3 years of living in cincinnati, and what the hell was i waiting on?  i think i was probably waiting on having someone to do it with.

here is a delicious meal i cooked for myself with the
salt of my lonely friendless tears

well fuck that.  when you are new in a place you need to put yourself out there in every way imaginable.  so far after 2 months in lansing i have joined all of the following: a running group, a young professionals networking group (yes this sounds cheesy but fuck it, i need to meet people), a local inn of courts, a meetup group for foodies which seems to fill up every event before i can get around to RSVPing, a meditation group that i keep forgetting to go to, a new book club that i started, and i have started up this blog again.  i started reaching out to people in several of these groups before i even got to town and was able to have coffee with a few people right when i first got here.

you are not going to find great awesome new friends in a lot of the groups you join but what i have learned is that it's a numbers game.  the more things you do, the more you increase the odds that you will meet someone cool somewhere.  so get your ass to that dungeons and dragons meetup.

rule number 3.5: the internet is your friend

there is meetup.com and shit for a reason and that reason is because it is hard to meet people as an adult. anybody who is going to judge you for looking for friends online is someone who you are better off being rejected by anyway.

rule number 4: throw all shame/self-doubt/inhibitions out the window and make people be friends with you

you don't want to approach people to be your friend because you think it will make you look lame or pathetic or friendless?  well guess what, you are lame and pathetic and friendless so get over it.  the only way to fix it is to force yourself to approach people.

are you at the bar and there is someone cool there of your gender who you want to talk to, but you are afraid they will think you are hitting on them?  who gives a fuck?  if they get weirded out then you will have dodged the bullet of befriending a homophobe.

do you want to start some type of club or group but think posting on craigslist is scary?  get with it, your email address will be hidden and it's a lot safer statistically than walking out your front door after 10 pm.  actually i have no idea because i just made that statistic up but seriously, some of my best friends are from craigslist and i have been an avid craigslister since 2003 and i haven't been raped or murdered yet.

did you meet someone who seemed cool who would have lived upstairs from you while you were looking for apartments, and do you remember the address of the apartment they lived in, and do you want to hang out with them?  send them a letter!  they'll definitely write back and want to be friends and not think you are a crazy stalker.  to be honest this is not true, i tried this and the girl never wrote back.  but it's no skin off my nose.  who cares if someone i will never see again thinks i'm weird?  and who knows, maybe her grandma died or something and maybe one day she will write me back.

rule number 5: don't move somewhere where you literally know no one

at 33, i'm old enough where i think it's just crazy to do that.  i know enough people in enough places that i can pick from.  at least i have a couple of good friends and a few acquaintances here in lansing so i wasn't wallowing in utter solitary misery at first.  i really can't imagine starting up totally from scratch.  but if you have to then take these other tips and suck it up.

rule number 6: meditate

here is an inspiring photo of the sun rising
 on your exciting new social life

i'm for real.  meditation will make you realize that a) being alone is not so bad and b) you have a lot of other fucked up shit to deal with in your head so that maybe this transition/solitary time is going to be good for you.

rule number 7: take drugs if necessary

are you like super depressed and unable to leave home because you are so lonely and/or anxious?  get your ass on some prozac or xanax or lorazepam or whatever the hell you need and keep it moving.  i mean it, get over your shit however you need to.  nobody is going to want to make friends with debbie downer and then you are going to be all in this vicious cycle of like "i can't make friends because i'm depressed and i'm depressed because i can't make friends."  i guarantee you that you like at least one of your friends solely because they are properly medicated and you don't even know it.

rule number 8: force yourself to go out at least once a week

so ok if you are REALLY wallowing in your misery and depression, and you are not all zen about being new to a place like granny here is, you need to make your ass go out and do shit.  going to a movie by yourself is actually really fun, in fact i prefer it because you can sit wherever you want and nobody will try to talk to you in the middle of it or eat your popcorn.  going out to eat by yourself is also super fun because you can stare at people and facebook the whole time and again, nobody will try to get you to share shit.  i am not really into the whole going to bars alone thing because i always feel like that is an invitation to get raped and disemboweled in an alley somewhere, or at a minimum get stalked by some weirdo.  i do like going to coffee shops and reading and listening to people's weird ass coffee shop conversations though.

you need to do these things and get yourself out otherwise you are going to become some weird ass recluse, and also you need to have something to talk about for when you do actually end up meeting people.  nobody wants to hear about how you sit around and watch the harry potter movies on repeat every weekend.  trust me.  i know.