Making friends in a new city

As a people person, I believed in my soul that I would move, unpack & immediately have a new circle of besties within a month or so. Anyone that’s ever moved to a new city knowing nobody ~ let’s all now collectively laugh at the absurdity of that. 🙈

Yes, forming connections takes time & conscious effort but having friends dotted around the world that remind me of amazing memories will always be so worth it. Not to oversimplify it but finding your people is a game of numbers at the end of the day. Some people I met, my brain immediately screamed ‘we are going to go on incredible adventures in the future’, then there are others I can remember that felt more like a root canal. We had different interests, different opinions & very few things to talk about & at the end of the meetup we would politely & without malice ghost each other, knowing that it wasn’t the right fit 👻. If you approach finding your circle with an attitude of maybe I will meet this person & it will develop into a friendship & maybe it wont, it frees up the anxious energy of ‘I have to make this work’. 

So where did I find these people? Mostly through friends of friends or online spaces like these.

🔸Bumble BFF

🔸The meetup app

🔸Class bento 

🔸Destination or interest specific facebook groups 

🔸We are global travellers facebook group here 

🔸The ‘Yes Theory’, their content doesn’t resonate anymore but it’s worldwide so you are bound to find some people open to showing you around or grabbing coffee.   

Disclaimer: Obviously, please be really careful when you are using online spaces to connect with people. Your intuition is no lie.

What if the idea of meeting someone on the internet gives you the heebies?

That’s totally understandable & one of the perks of moving to a new place is the ability to try random shit you have always been too shy to try in your hometown without the fear of running into your childhood bully! In London, I ~ an only dance when drunk dancer ~ went to a salsa night & yes I was still bricking it because of my lack of ability but I met some new people, everyone was friendly and open to having a chat & I got to try something new where the worst case scenario was not knowing the moves.

So if you have just finished unpacking & look around to realise that the new adventure is feeling a little (or a lot) isolating I double dog dare you to lean into the opportunity to try something new or ask the girl next to you in pilates if she wants to come try the new bakery up the road. You might find yourself on a fast track to a new international bestie. 

 Big love 😘

~ Your Friendly Redhead.