Moving To A New City!

 After University I moved to London, then to LA, then to New Zealand for a bit. Each time I’ve started completely from scratch. Without question, just moving again has been the hardest. I don’t know if it’s the culture shock of country life again or the fact that I’m “getting to old for this”, but fuck if this isn’t the hardest thing I’ve ever done.

If it’s one thing I know about moving to a new city though, is that it SUCKSBIGTIME until you find your people. Your community. I was depressed in Auckland for a whole year because I was relying too much on my partner. I didn’t make new friends or get involved in activities. On the flip side, my time in London was the best two years of my life because I had a pre-set group of friends and I was madly in love with my roommates.

Here, I live alone. I came here with no friends in the area, but in the past month I think I’ve made a decent dent. While I’m by no means part of any community yet (except my rad job), here’s how I’ve attempted to get my shit together in a new place in a short amount of time:

Friends of Friends

 Do you have a friend in the new place? or a friend who might know someone? E-introduce! I love meeting friends of friends because it automatically gives us common ground and, since they obviously like a friend, they’re always spectacular themselves. I also lucked out and have my oldest, best friend from childhood live an hour a way. While we may not have hung out for almost a decade, it’s funny how old friends so easily fall back into familiar patterns.

Twitter

The problem with living abroad was that I would read blogs, fall in love with these people from afar, and never get to go to their meet ups/conferences/events. But now I can finally reach out to blog crushes and buy them a coffee. But it's also been a great way to meet new people too! Just engage in a conversation on a topic, before you know it you're besties!

Office

I’m lucky in that everyone in my office is young and fantastic and fascinating. Since day one my coworkers have invited me to their homes for dinner, taken me to lunch and given me advice about settling in my new city.

Say Yes

When you’re settled in a city you know well, it’s easy to say no to a spontaneous opportunity because you want to get home to your cat. Or do your washing. Or get to bed on time. But when you’re new to a place, saying no means you’ve denied yourself a chance to make friends. So I’ve made it my mission since arriving here to say yes to every invitation that comes my way. Want to play iPhone games at friend of a friend friend’s apartment? Why not? Take a yoga class in a cathedral after work? Don’t mind if I do. Attend walking tour of the city then say yes to the tour guide when he invites you to a pirate-themed bar? Of course.

I’m still getting my sea-legs and even though I’ve been out every single night for the past 14, I still haven’t found my people. And for that, I’m going to cut myself some slack and stay in tonight and watch The Office until my eyes bleed.

Thanks to Natalia for this post!

Do you have any tips for moving?

Reasons Not To Live With Your Best Friends

Source

Living with your best gal pals always seems like a freakin’ fantastic idea.

I remember signing my first lease and daydreaming about my girlfriends and I setting up our place, cooking great meals, drinking way too much wine and having pillow fights for our own damn good. Looking back on these daydreams, I seemed to have forgotten that we all had different schedules, different goals and pillow fights were not on the cards. 

In the end, even though the IDEA of living with great friends may seem like the right choice, think long and hard about the friendships that are worth keeping.

 

Your friends may come with emotional baggage

 The ability to be not only a friend, but a good friend, is important to sustain a meaningful friendship. If you or your roommates have some sort of problem that requires support from close friends, living with someone who needs that support can hinder relationships. Offering constant advice and being someone’s emotional crutch can be exhausting, especially when your first priority is taking care of yourself. Offering advice and support from a distance can be more helpful and encourage the person to problem solve on their own. This means that you can be a good friend and at the same time, be a useful source of advice without feeling overwhelmed.

Someone likes alcohol a little too much

We all party hard at Uni (well most) Sure that’s fun on the weekends or once and awhile, but there always seems to be a booze-hound in the house. Ok, these gatherings can be pretty fun, but how often do you really want to deal with the dirty aftermath of these events? The stench of booze-laden breath in class the next morning is only socially acceptable so many times. Make sure your gal pals have similar attitudes around drinking/partying or make sure you have strong enough willpower to do what you need to. This mindset comes with the complimentary title of house party-pooper.

They don’t have the same vengeful attitude as you do when it comes to a dirty kitchen (or any house common area)

So many of my past roommate conflicts have come from dirty common areas. Take, for example, the kitchen and dirty dishes. Who used what mug or who left their shit on the stove doesn’t really matter if, in the end, the dishes get cleaned. Just do your dishes when you’re finished using them (instead of leaving them to crust over and harbor bacteria in the sink). Doesn’t this seem like simple, common sense knowledge? I think so, too.

*Note: If you know, for a fact, that somebody is not cleaning their dishware (and you are looking to stir the pot hehe!) make a trail of dirty dishes from the sink to their bedroom. I cannot speak from experience but I hear this tactic is quite effective.

You have the same schedules

Hanging out with good friends is great, but hanging out with good friends in class, during your free time, during your meal times, and right before bed can be tolerable at most. Just like unlimited drunk pizza, your friends can be too much of a good thing. Take the personal time you need if your roommates become overwhelming…or just live with people who have different interests and never wanted to hang out with you in the first place.

Somebody has a pet

Any household with a pet can cause roommate conflict. If the owner is not taking full responsibility of their animal, I can guarantee somebody is not going to be happy. If you’re already having issues with your live-in friends, don’t drag a poor dog or cat into the mix. Animals can sense emotion from the people around them. Who wants a stressed out pooch/kitty/ferret/chinchilla/etc.? Not me.

They have significant others

This is a big one. You may not think that your roommates significant others should affect your feelings towards your roommate. Believe me, they will. Significant others tend to linger around the house and stay just a tiny bit over their welcome. This, of course, is brushed under the rug for a bit because it seems temporary. But, when this significant other starts using the cable/dishes/food/electricity/internet/washer/dryer and isn’t paying a penny, there’s a definite problem. It is obnoxious, it is impolite, and you will end up hating your roommate when she gets defensive after you bring up the obvious problems with her boyfriend hanging around 24/7. Plus, you have to deal with her significant other eating the majority of your snack food and leaving the toilet seat up (not cool).

 

You and your friends ‘split groceries’

Since you all get along so well anyways (I mean you’re such great friends), why not split groceries to make everything a bit easier? This never, ever works. Either someone’s going to get drunk and eat too many pizza slices or there will be some type of feud over who ate the last slice of bread. To outsiders, these examples seem minimal and harmless, but harboring ill will towards a roommate who you think took more than their fair share can be unhealthy and catty. Skip the drama and buy your own grub.

You are the responsible one who pays all the bills

Being in charge of monthly payments can be a bitch. Everyone is poor in Uni anyways and nobody wants the task of haggling money out of each roommate when a payment is looming. It’s harder to press people you like for money versus someone you could care less about. You never want bill paying to become anything more than a mere transaction. I would avoid being in charge of this task (it really sucks).

One final piece of advice: Do NOT use a dry-erase board for communication purposes. There is nothing more obnoxious than passive-aggressiveness. Just voice your opinion whenever there is an issue (especially if it effects more than just you). Don’t write it with an excessive amount of exclamation points or evil emoticons. This can make people feel slighted and crappy. 

 

Have you had better luck with friends?

The 5 Types Of Friend to Avoid Being

As you get older you can pick and choose friends, but when you look at your friendship group there is always 'positions' everyone has roles, but what role do you play? I tend to be cast as the joker, the party animal, and the one you know will be awake at 4am so it's fine to call. But there are some roles you don't want to have, and more so why exactly are you friends with them? I have therefore narrowed it down to five!

The Competitive One

Lets be serious; is there anything worse? They disguise themselves as friends when really in their mind everything is one big contest that they must, MUST win. In school it’s better grades, more friends, the hot boyfriend. These people will grow up to become friends that NEED to have a bigger house than you, get paid more money, etc. etc. etc.  No friendship based on competition is ever a true friendship. Ideally people should revel in their friends successes not be plotting ways to achieve more than them. 

 The One in the Best Relationship 

Maybe it is just because I was in a relatinoship for so so long, I just don’t see the dire need to display things on the regular. If you are in a relationship it goes without saying that now and again he might say something nice to you, or he may even buy you flowers. Why are women always so awestruck by these things that they need to run and tell the world? I just find it odd. When your man builds you a castle with his bare hands that’s when I’d like to see 12 pictures of it.

 The Trouble Maker 

Your close friends should know what makes you happy and what is only going to make you upset and they act accordingly· Trouble makers will say things such as 'did you see the way she looked at you' or 'Pretty sure that passive aggressive facebook status was about you' they do it under the guise of a good friend. Maybe they truly do think they are helping but if what they say most of the time is just stirring the pot (and stirring up your crazy) try not to take it too seriously.

  The ME, ME, ME. 

Conversations in ideal essence should be a mixture of “I” statements and “you” statements. Where is the fun in a conversation if the entirety of it you are listening to someone talk about themselves? It's the one you know where you say 'Oh god I have had a terrible day' and something worse has ALWAYS happened to them. Sometimes you really do just have to listen to people and thats fine, but don't forget that really the fact you spilt coffee on your dress, really isn't up there with someone who just wrote off their car. 

 The Judgemental One

Sometimes we all do silly things, we kiss 10 guys in a night even though we are over 30, we get so drunk we sleep in a dog basket – we all do these crazy behaviours. These things happen and it would be nice is your friends would just silently love you for the moderately insane person you might well be. You didn't judge them for the time they dated the married man, so why should they judge you now? We all question and overanalyze our choices enough as it is without friends guilt tripping us or making us second guess things. 

What kind of friend do you think play in your friendship group?