HACKER Q&A
📣 SadLeavingNYC

Building a good life after leaving NYC or similar city by yourself?


Moved out due to pandemic and I'm realizing that I'm probably not going to move back, at least not for the next few years, due to high rent in NYC right now, some safety and quality of life concerns, and my new job being permanently remote. All my jobs for entire adult life were tech jobs in NYC. I have no partner or family so I'm not moving "towards" anything or "with" anyone, I'm just gonna be alone by myself typing on the computer in a new area where I don't know anybody, but now I'll have to find some other way to cheer myself up besides telling myself that I'm headed home to my techy, artsy friends any month now. The bright spot is that I love the new job. Anybody else WFH in tech deal with a transition like this? How did you deal with sadness/isolation and find happy, inspiring stuff in your new location? Did you just have to develop new non-city interests and change your whole deal? I am totally open to loving my current life even more than I loved NYC and I'm actually super extroverted and socially confident but I still feel so sad and lost and really afraid of what isolation will do to me over an additional 1-2 years if I don't figure out how to stop feeling so lonely outside of working hours. Thanks for your thoughts.

  👤 yuppie_scum Accepted Answer ✓
You express trepidation but what I hear you describing is freedom. I would take this opportunity to explore the country or even the world for as long as you can or until you find that place that calls to you. Your tech job should provide you the flexibility to do that in a way that most people will never experience.

Do it for all us dads in our 40’s who can’t uproot and go anywhere for a long while.

👤 __d
You've more than likely thought of all these, but ...

Social sports team? Chess club? Book club? Poker night? Karaoke? Political party? Hiking club? Cycling group? Volunteer as a scout leader? Sign up for a class or two at the local maker space? Get a plot at the community garden?

Get started with something formally structured, and you can choose whether to stay or move on once you've met a few people. Repeat a few times, as required.

👤 tonguetrainer
Visit a church service on Sunday. You'll meet some friendly people there. I'll suggest mine: https://churchofjesus christ.com

EDIT: Except for this Sunday, which is General Conference. This once-every-6-month "supermeeting" is online only.

👤 sjg007
Be sure to plan and take trips back to NYC is see friends. That's important. Once a quarter works well.

You will have to make friends where ever you go so volunteer perhaps join a few meetups. Attend events you are interested in and so forth.

👤 zzzzzzzza
my advice is if you get lonely join 3-6 concurrent games of dominions 5 (kind of like civilization except has active competitive/multiplayer scene)

https://illwiki.com/dom5/discord-servers

for me it's not so click heavy it gives you arthritis and also a perfectly comfortable level of socialization (games typically last months and a big part of the game is negotiating with other players)