16 Struggles Of Moving To A Brand New City

By

1. Grossly miscalculating how long it takes to get anywhere and showing up either an hour early or twenty minutes late to everything.

2. Not having a weather-appropriate wardrobe and being in a constant state of just a little bit too cold or wet.

3. Trying to determine in the apartment in the newspaper is a good price because you’re lucky or if it’s a good price because it’s in the kind of neighborhood you wouldn’t want to walk around in after dark.

4. Chatting up everyone you meet because you’re starved for human interaction (No really, Starbucks Barista, tell me about how your day is REALLY going).

5. Wanting to visit all the touristy sights in your city but feeling weirdly smug about not being a tourist while doing so. 

6. The relentless exhaustion of attending every event you are invited to for two straight months because you have to take whatever leads you can get socially.    

7. Not knowing where to go to save money, so having to pay full price for everything (Where, oh where, is the hole-in-the-wall coffee shop where you only have to fork out $1?). 

8. Being genuinely confused by slang terms that you haven’t encountered back home.

9. Alternately, having the slang terms everyone uses back home get met with looks of disgruntled confusion.

10. Never being 100% confident when planning a get-together: How do you know the bar you’re picking isn’t, like, the least cool place in the city?

11. Getting irrationally excited about features of the city that are novel to you but commonplace to everyone else (We have WATER TAXIS? No way!).

12. Feeling empowered by visitors who ask you for directions in the street, then pointing them in the incorrect direction accidentally.

13. Joining an online dating site as a way of meeting new people, then realizing why nobody lasts very long on an online dating site.

14. Accidentally calling your Mom at 1am because you forgot about the time difference again.

15. Watching life back home move on without you and experiencing a very real type of FOMO

16. Having no friends other than the hot dog vendor down the street for the first two months you are there – but knowing that it’s all going to get better with time. And in the meantime – hey, discounted hot dogs! 

image – Ben K. Adams