I moved to Los Angeles roughly two weeks ago. I figured now would be a great time to start blogging again. You know, discuss my career and personal successes and failures. It’s too soon to have any stories career wise, so I’ll just stick with the personal for now.
I first started blogging back on MySpace. I mean to save all those blogs, but when they redesigned the website after everyone moved on the Facebook, I lost it all. It’s probably for the best, but blogging helped me through some of my hard times in Arizona. Maybe it will have the same effect here.
I’ll just dive right into things. LA has been different than I expected. I tend to have high expectations, which lead to disappointment. Right now, this is one of those cases. I had this idea in my mind that I would get here and immediately start networking and making friends, but that’s not really happening.
It’s strange, because I have a handful of friends in Los Angeles, some of them I talked to a lot prior to moving. Some of them were very determined to see that I moved to Los Angeles, and now that I’m here… we haven’t talked or seen as much of each other as I thought.
Also, the handful of people I know don’t live near me. Well, they do, but in LA time, they are about 20 minutes away (which is roughly five miles) and Ubering around can add up. I’m also disappointed in my living situation. I love the place and I didn’t have to sacrifice any of the things I wanted, aside from location, but part of, what I thought would be the perk of, having a roommate was an instant way to network. My roommate is an older gay gentleman. I didn’t expect him to want to go out to the bars, but I did think he would at least go out or something, but so far, I’ve only witnessed him leave the house to go to the store and no one has come over.
I’m also looking for work, so my days are filled with nothing to do but send out resumes and search online for jobs… and Netflix. A classmate of mine moved out here last January and found a job in the industry within a month. She told me she would only take a job in the industry. Part of me wants to keep that same mentality… but the other part of me doesn’t want to go broke in this town. That part of me wants to get a call center job as a starting point and then transition into the industry if and when I can. The other part of me thinks if I get a call center job, why didn’t I just stay in Phoenix then?
So, my days, and nights, are filled with little to no human interaction. I don’t really talk to my roommate a lot. He seems like a nice enough person, but he has told me a lot of stories in the few times I’d spend extended periods of time with him and many of them didn’t add up. So, I’ve felt incredibly lonely. It’s odd, because I felt that way the last few weeks of my time in Arizona too. I thought my days and nights would be full of people trying to spend time with me before I moved away, but they weren’t.
And I know I have to be accountable for my own actions here. If I really wanted to make friends, I suppose I could just go out alone, but that scares me. Or, I could try contact people I know, but not very well, or people I wasn’t so close with that live here, but I’m afraid to do that too. LA is definitely a place where you have to come out of your comfort zone, so I either have to start or just learn to deal with the loneliness.
This all sounds bitter and sad because, well, I’m bitter and sad right now, but LA has had its positives as well. I love the weather here and walking around or going for a drive makes me feel good. In Arizona, if I wanted food, I’d drive or have it delivered, but there has been some pretty good food within walking distance, and parking is a bitch here, so I just walk over and pick it up. My sadness has affected my appetite though. I haven’t eaten a lot here. I’ve already dropped almost 10lbs, which probably isn’t very healthy to do in a little over two weeks…
Despite being sad and lonely, I’m ever the optimist. I’m certain things will turn around. I still feel this is where I’m meant to be right now. I just have to give it time and if the effort I’m giving isn’t enough, I’ll just have to give more. It does make me wonder about my Phoenix life though. I mean, if my roommate hadn’t taken me to this party to gay-network, I wonder if I’d know any of the people I know now (almost all of the people I know I met through at that party or through someone at that party). I need some event like that here.
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