Dear Lee #6: How to Make Friends When You WFH in a New City
Finding people who fit into your lifestyle instead of trying to fit into theirs
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Dear Lee,
I recently moved to a new city after living in the same place for 13 years. I took a leap of faith and left behind a whole family of friends. The culture in this new city is different from where I came from and I'm having trouble fitting in and finding friends.
What are your suggestions for meeting people in a new place and branching out, especially in a WFH environment where I'm not in an office? It's hard to make friends in your 30s!
Sincerely,
Looking for Friends
Dear Looking for Friends,
Firstly, congratulations. Moving to a new city where you don’t know many people is a BIG DEAL. You’re putting yourself in a new scenario and exploring beyond your comfort zone. Not everybody gets to do it—nor do they take the leap of faith to do it!
Okay, now that the congratulations are out of the way, let’s face the main reason why so many people don’t move to a new city: it’s hard, especially if you’re in your 30s, a phase of life that encompasses the biggest range of life events, circumstances, and lifestyles. Some people are married, and others are freshly divorced. Some people just had kids, others don’t want kids but feel isolated in their choice. Some people are deeply unhappy in their jobs and want to switch careers, others just got promoted. Some people are buying houses, others are piecing their lives back together after an unexpected screw in their life plans.
I have moved cross-country twice: from NYC to LA at age 25, then, six years later, from LA back to NYC at 31.
Each move is unique. It's unrealistic, albeit normal, to expect them all to follow the same pattern. However, if you've moved more than once, you might find yourself anticipating similarities, which could lead to potential disappointment down the line.
I was surprised by the difficulty of moving back to New York. Not only was the city *just* beginning to recover from the pandemic (it was the spring of 2021), but a long time had passed since I had last lived in New York. It—and I—had changed.
I assumed moving back to NYC in my 30s would feel like returning home, I mean, I’d lived there before, so why wouldn’t it? However, the reality was different. My preconceived notions about the move and how I expected to feel left me unsettled when it turned out to be more challenging than I had imagined.
Don’t get me wrong, moving back to New York was magical; each “first”—My first snow back in New York! My first cherry blossom season back in New York! My first tennis match back in New York!—felt phenomenal. But I was still finding my bearings in a city that I was a lot less familiar with than I’d realized.
When asked how long I’d lived here, I had my response down-pat.
“I just moved back to New York,” and before they could open their mouths to respond, “But I lived here before, so yeah.”
As if to say: Don’t pity me. Don’t try to give me subway directions. I’m not a lost soul from far, far away.
But I was doing myself a type of injustice by not fully embracing the “I just moved to New York” identity. In trying to protect myself, to avoid feeling and seeming weak in the face of others, I struggled to grasp that, despite living here previously, it was, undoubtedly, a new experience for me.
To answer your question, Looking for Friends, I will share what I did the first year-plus after moving back to New York, post-pandemic while working from home (WFH) and what I continue to do to get out and meet people.