Moving To New York: Expectations Vs. Reality

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Expectation: Going out in new neighborhoods all the time.
Reality: Going to the same bar four nights a week because you’re 100% certain you’ll be able to hang up your jacket.

Expectation: Going to tons of Broadway shows on the cheap.
Reality: Broadway is too expensive, a friend of a friend gives you his Netflix login.

Expectation: Surrounding yourself with new and fabulous people who wear horn-rimmed glasses and go to readings.
Reality: Staying friends with the first people you met when you moved here (or co-workers) because it turns out it doesn’t matter where you live, you hate new people… especially if they’re wearing some type of quirky eye wear.

Expectation: Major career successes.
Reality: Developing long, elaborate fantasies about winning the lottery or becoming a full-time student on the train ride to work.

Expectation: Getting to be really fashionable and test your limits, because in New York you can do whatever you want and no one will judge you.
Reality: Getting out-hipstered by 21-year-olds whose dads pay their rent.

Expectation: Overall fabulousness as depicted by Sex and the City and every New York romcom ever. Standing under the Empire State Building and spinning while looking up and smiling. 
Reality:
 Becoming OK with the way you smell not being 100% fresh because laundry is too expensive and who has time for that anyway? So you douse yourself in a little bit of perfume and comfort yourself by mentally referring to it “my musk.” No twirling space underneath the Empire State Building, but you do get offered to skip the line by those ticket sellers outside. 

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