Yet another brain dump about moving issues. I’m finding it quite nice to get these things out, even if I won’t be publishing them for a few months, if at all!
This week’s moving fixation is how the heck we’re going to make friends after we move across the country.
Seriously, how DO people in their late 20s/early 30s make new friends? I’m guessing the answer for the majority of people will be through work. Your work environment is where you are most likely to interact with a number of peers in your age group, who assumedly you would have something in common with, and over time, form bonds that lead to hanging out outside of work.
At least that’s where we’ve found almost all of our current friends since we moved to California almost 7 years ago.
But my husband will be working from home, and hopefully (fingers crossed, because I still don’t know at the time of writing this) I will get to keep my job too. So we’ll both be holed up in our house all day, not out there interacting with other local people. So how can we meet and make friends?
We’ve already decided that we’ll try to get out of the house every day, go out to lunch or dinner, go for a walk around the neighborhood, drive around and check out different areas we might want to buy a house in, whatever. Something to not go stir-crazy, since, at least for me, it’s going to be a bit of a transition to go from BS’ing with the guys at work and chatting with people all the time, to seeing nobody but my cats and husband all day, limited to only talking on the phone or emailing my co-workers.
So we’ve got an anti-cabin fever plan.
But how can we get out to actually meet people? At least we do have my husband’s brother and his wife, who we love spending time with, living nearby. But we can’t just rely on them to always entertain us, right? So I’ve been stressing about this rather small, really-not-that-important-in-the-giant-scheme-of-moving-things thing. And checking out meetup.com groups, which kinda intimidate me, since it sort of sounds like group blind dates for couples. And stressing some more, wondering if we’re going to be destined to be friendless losers. I mean, we’ve already got 3 cats—we’re well on our way to becoming sad, lonely, crazy cat people!
Before my self doubt and worry about our lack of east coast friend-making abilities could spiral out of control any further though, I brought it up to my husband. Who luckily put it all into perspective.
To summarize his very good points:
- In the almost 7 years we’ve live in Cali, out of the 25 or so camping trips we’ve been on, we’ve only gotten people to commit to going camping with us twice, so just how good/reliable are the friends we have now anyway (as a way of saying we shouldn’t miss our current flaky friends too much).
- We will just have to make an effort. We will just have to put ourselves out there, go to meetup.com meet ups, whatever it takes (it was reassuring to hear him say this, although I have my doubts. I’m the social one and he’s much more of an introvert, so we’ll see when the time comes if he’s willing to go out of his comfort zone and talk to new people.).
- I have a really strong online community of friends, who I can turn to anytime, no matter where we live (which I completely forgot about until he pointed it out, but it is totally true. I feel like I know some of my blogging friends better than my real life friends, since I get a several-times-a-week deep insight into what's happening in their lives.). Anyone want to have a virtual happy hour with me? :)
- We will always have each other. (Awwwww! Best husband ever award! But seriously, this is a really good point, we were BFFs even before we started dating, and always rely on each other first and foremost for entertainment and companionship.)
Thank goodness I have someone as sweet as my husband to talk me off the ledge sometimes. For now, I’m going to try to let this worry go, at least until we’ve moved and find ourselves tempted to start hoarding more cats....
Have you ever a made a big move to a new state, where you couldn’t rely on school or work to make new friends? How did you meet new people?
19 comments:
If I lived in NC you and I could be besties before you knew it. But, I don't. (But don't discount the blog world in this!)
We live in a college town where everyone you make friends with leaves you. We finally decided to join local organizations. I joined a young rotary group and he joined an emerging leaders group (of over 200 people aged 20-40 that do a lot of socials) and goes to commission meetings. Joining these organizations was great as our new friends are the types that like to plan things (like camping trips!) and are involved in the community (which is something I value).
GOOD LUCK ON YOUR TRIP!!!
The meetup groups in Raleigh are decent. When I moved here, I joined the 20/30's Girls on the Town Meetup group and that's how I met my now best friends here. It's SO hard to meet people and find people you mesh with but the good news is as you mentioned, you have your blogging world to help you out. If you ever want to get out of the house and grab a drink, shout out to your NC blogging friends!
Good luck on your move!!
As you mentioned, you have a strong community of friends online. Do any of them live in your new area? Honestly this question has plagued my brain as we've discussed moving... I always think 'at least I have my online friends' and I hope some of them live in/near our future home city too!
Definitely go to meet-ups, or take fun classes or join organizations. I can't say I've ever had to go through this (when I moved to SF it was to start law school, where I made 250 insta-friends due to the trauma we were all going through), but my husband didn't know too many people when he moved here. He joined environmental groups like Surfrider and Friends of the Urban Forest, joined a pottery studio and did other things to put himself out there. You guys could take cooking classes, orienteering classes, etc. Also, I know some of the Bees live in NC, so you couls always meet up with them :)
I know that there are blogger meet-ups where I live so you could look for some of those and turn internet friends into real life friends. Everyone I know who has been through this recommends volunteering, hobby-related classes/groups and church, if you're into that. I also know some rec sports leagues will let you sign up as an individual and place you on a team, which is a really fast way to make friends! (I know that www.kickball.com does this.)
I think this is awesome. I'm learning from you. My husband and I plan on moving to Tennessee when his parents' retire there (his mom has had cancer 4 times so we want to have our potential kids to know Gma while they can), but we plan on moving about an hour away from them so we have more opportunities for employment (most likely Nashville). We will know no one there. I think this is 2-3 years down the road, but if we have any more family drama (with my side) it may be a lot sooner.
I can relate to this, because it's been the hardest part for me about living in DC. Of course, I've made some friends through work and classes, but now that I work from home, there are days I really don't interact with anyone. It's tough, and is one reason I know I ultimately hope to live closer to family and my close friends.
Not sure how religious you guys are, but I would highly suggest joining a church. The church I go to is tiny, but I met a couple of really good friends there. Some of the large non-denominational churches even have couple's groups, men's groups, women's groups, etc.
I also wanted to second the idea of taking a class or two!
You two are going to be great! Honest. You've got the right idea - you simply have to put yourselves out there a bit. Meetups, joining organizations or maybe even volunteering are all good ways to meet people. There are other young married couples in NC that want to make friends too. Promise and good luck!
I've grown up in the same area all my life, so I don't have too much experience in this. But I would rely heavily on my online community of friends at least as a starting off point! Good luck!
You're so brave to just pick up and move across the country! I did roughly the same move, but in the opposite direction (Georgia -> California). Taking some weekend or evening classes could be a good way to find who have common interests. My only other suggestion would be to just always say "yes" when anyone asks you to join them for anything. Best case scenario, you find a good friend. Worst case scenario, you have a good story to tell other potential friends. Good luck with the move!
Meeting new friends, is definitely a bit trickier as we get older and work from home. Sadly, when I lived in SF, I was a bit of a hermit, though volunteering really helped me get out. Now being in a new country, I decided to just tell everyone I meet that I'm new here! Just arrived! Looking for suggestions on what to do! Though, if you can start meeting people through your network, even if small, do it! You never know who they can lead you to. Are you interested in working part-time, even if extremely part-time, maybe at a craft store? Or are you so over crafts? You'll find friends no doubt, and hopefully you will meet some super cool peeps that don't flake (pet peeve!!!). Good luck lady!
Where we live, there is a store for running and walking apparel that hosts nightly walk/runs. Everyone gathers at the store then goes out for a walk or run. Maybe you can find something like that? A friend who moved cross country made friends by going to church, though they are not religous at all, it was something and safe! All will work out :)
It'll happen! It just does! I've made most of my current friends online, through the blogging and Twitter community, but I also made friends in various ways after I moved to Georgia. Mainly through striking up conversations with strangers! Either way, we're still here. :)
WHYYYY are you not moving to DC?!? I'd take you in as my friend for sure :)
When Josh and I moved here we had a few friends/family members, and while we see them semi-regularly, it's just like you said: we can't expect them to entertain us all the time. So...Josh joined a co-ed kickball team! And we've made some decent friends from it! I'm not into the "kickball" aspect of it, but I AM into the social/drinking aspect of it. Definitely check to see if there is anything like that where you're moving. And seriously find some blog/twitter buddies in NC! It's kind of weird at first, but sooo worth it :) Good luck!!
Two things:
1) VOLUNTEER!!! Find causes important to you and volunteer, that's how I met TONS of people in Indy. AND, it's fun, even if you don't make great friends.
2) Camping? You will have NO PROBLEM finding people to camp in NC!!!! EVERYONE in college with me was camping obsessed. NC is the state for you!!!
Where we live, there is a store for running and walking apparel that hosts nightly walk/runs. Everyone gathers at the store then goes out for a walk or run. Maybe you can find something like that? A friend who moved cross country made friends by going to church, though they are not religous at all, it was something and safe! All will work out :)
You're so brave to just pick up and move across the country! I did roughly the same move, but in the opposite direction (Georgia -> California). Taking some weekend or evening classes could be a good way to find who have common interests. My only other suggestion would be to just always say "yes" when anyone asks you to join them for anything. Best case scenario, you find a good friend. Worst case scenario, you have a good story to tell other potential friends. Good luck with the move!
Not sure how religious you guys are, but I would highly suggest joining a church. The church I go to is tiny, but I met a couple of really good friends there. Some of the large non-denominational churches even have couple's groups, men's groups, women's groups, etc.
I also wanted to second the idea of taking a class or two!
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