Starting something new, somewhere new

Goodbye old life, hello new one. Moving is the chance for rebirth, change, rejuvenation, unlimited possibilities.

Sure you’re leaving behind everything you’ve built, but think of what lies ahead.

That is until you get there.

You’re starting a new life, but that’s not quite as simple as it sounds. It’s easy to imagine all the fun possibilities of things that could happen when you move somewhere new and start over – whatever that means. The excitement of moving makes it easy to overlook, or completely ignore, the challenges and problems that come along with moving to somewhere completely new.

Sure, you don’t know anyone, so the world is your metaphorical oyster. But think about it: You don’t fucking know anyone, and the implications of this don’t really hit until you’re in the throes of your new life. It takes some time to adjust to it all, and if you’re not a very patient person, this adjustment phase can be super stressful.

It’s easy to just want to go ahead and jump into anything that will help reduce that anxiety, especially dating. If you can start a nice relationship with someone pretty quickly, it can make it easier to deal with the loneliness that naturally comes with being somewhere on your own.

You’ll have someone -who you don’t feel annoying texting- to ask if they want to hang out because you know they’ll want to. It’s easier to put effort into a romantic relationship and feel like you’re making progress in your new home.

With all that said, I’m not sure that’s the best use of your time, effort, and energy. It might be easier, but I don’t think it’s necessarily the best decision.

As a fair acknowledgement to my upcoming points, when it comes to relationships I’m more of a realist. Sure romantic ideas and sentiments are nice, but my optimism for the (happy) longevity of romantic relationships is often lacking. So take that into account with what I’m about to say.

When you move somewhere new, why not try to make romantic relationships one of the later bonds you form. No, it’s not as fun or exciting, but if you’re living somewhere you plan to stay for a while, I’d recommend forming friendships first. It can be way harder and more stressful to build strong, lasting friendships (“Am I annoying this person when I ask if they wanna hang?”), but in the long run, it’ll hopefully be worth it.

The chances are pretty high that the romantic relationship you have won’t last forever, and if you put all of your early time and effort into it, well, you’re kind of fucked when it ends. The time you could have spent getting to know a lot of people was, instead, spent on someone you won’t really see or likely hang out with again. It’s like starting back at square one, but possibly worse because you no longer have the motivation and energy that comes with moving somewhere new.

Sure you can try developing both types of relationships concurrently, but there’s only so much time in a weekend. It’ll take a very fine balancing act to give both types of relationships the time and energy they need to be successful, but I wish you good luck in the endeavor.

There’s never any one right course of action, so do what you will. The one main point that I suppose I want to convey is that you shouldn’t feel obligated to rush into a relationship when you go somewhere new. You’ll be there for a while, so there’s not need to hurry into anything.