Hassig

I know it comes nat­u­rally for a select few, but I find new envi­ron­ments and meet­ing new peo­ple chal­leng­ing. Don’t get me wrong, I love new things and enjoy meet­ing new peo­ple, but it’s dif­fer­ent when you do it alone. Nor­mally when I go some­where new or am intro­duced to new peo­ple, I was with some close friends. If not with friends then I was at least in some way “in my element”.

Also, on trips you are sur­rounded by the same peo­ple for extended peri­ods of time and you’re all in a sim­i­lar sit­u­a­tion. I like those envi­ron­ments. I do well when I have time. I don’t feel like any­one who knows me will be shocked to hear that I tend to move slowly.

I think that has been one of the more chal­leng­ing things of mov­ing. None of my close con­nec­tions are here, and the friends I do have here are not around that often. I want to be involved. I want to make friends. But unlike tak­ing a trip, we’re not all in the same sit­u­a­tion. Peo­ple here already have friends, lives, sched­ules, rou­tines, and now here I am knock­ing on their metaphor­i­cal door.

None of this is aided by the fact that I don’t ter­ri­bly mind not being around peo­ple. I grew up as an only child and had two work­ing par­ents. The prob­lem is that while I would be fine with­out it, I know that I need it. I need peo­ple, friends, things to get me out of the house even when I don’t quite feel like it, and a place to belong. I need to start to feel at home. I’m not trav­el­ing, tak­ing a trip, or vis­it­ing. I’ve moved.

It’s still a lot to take in and a lot of adjust­ments, but I’ll get there. I sup­pose I just need time.

How do you do with new places or mak­ing new friends?