New to London at forty three and comparing it unfavourably
Posted as after_the_move
- Looking for
- one or two people who would show me how this works here
- Experience
- Fourteen years, all of it up north.
- Around
- north west, London
I moved down in February after my marriage ended, took a job I like, and have discovered that fourteen years of knowing everybody counts for absolutely nothing four hours south.
Up there I could walk into a room and know half of it. Here I do not know a soul, and the thing nobody warned me about is that London is not one scene, it is about nine of them that barely overlap, and every one of them assumes you already know somebody. Forty three, north west side, switch, mostly topping in the last few years. I am not starting again in terms of what I know. I am starting again in terms of who will vouch for me, and I have realised how much I relied on that without noticing.
So this post is half looking for a partner and half looking for people. I would happily meet someone for a drink with no expectation whatsoever beyond conversation about how any of this works here. The honest bit: I am probably not over the divorce, I am aware of that, and I am not going to be good at anything intense for a while. Something slow with a person who is also busy would suit me exactly.
I have found the pace here brisk to the point of rude, which is apparently normal, so if I seem slow to answer that is why.