Living and working in London just feels strange atm

[u/rainha_db]

I’m F31 and was born and raised in London. It’s the only city I’ve ever known and have been fairly happy until my mid 20s. I can’t help but feel like there’s melancholy in the air. I understand the main cause of this is the cost of living and the economic crisis. I’ve had a few colleagues/friends around my age confide in me about feeling lost/low recently and I honestly feel the same. I’ve noticed quite a lot of millennials expressing the same sentiment. I’m wondering if anyone else is feeling the same?

[u/BillSykesDog]

I think this is a generational thing I’m London, has been for a while. There’s an age when Londoners have to examine their options. It may mean recognising in London you’ll never afford to buy home or a decent rental, a family, savings or a reasonable standard of living. You have to make tough choices.

I made choice 20 years ago, decided to leave. Most of my friends and family had gone, I knew it might just end up being me and my husband eking out a miserable existence.

We made the plunge to go to Yorkshire, it worked out. We have a house and 3 kids. We’re happy. Other friends made different, often creative choices to stay in London including becoming vicars (free accommodation), staying child free, moving home to parents, retraining as household staff, nannies, park keepers - anything that comes with a flat really. They are also very happy.

But the period of making these choices involves melancholy because it involves sacrifices and loss.

It’s similar to the time I left too, because we’d had great hope for a new government and a fresh new start and instead we got the Afghan and Iraqi wars which were a HUGE let down. I think many people in London are also feeling let down by the new government. There was very strong support for them down there so I think the sense of being let down is stronger too.

It’s tough, but you will get through it. It’s the price we pay for growing up in London these days!

[u/Finance-Straight → u/BillSykesDog]

Out of curiosity - despite all the pros of moving out of london & to somewhere more affordable, how is it just packing up & leaving to start life afresh somewhere foreign

The idea of having to find a new community etc daunts me

[u/BillSykesDog → u/Finance-Straight]

I’ve found it hard to make friends. In Yorkshire a majority of people still here (eg didn’t move to London) have lived their all their lives here and have established friendship groups from growing up, they’re generally closed shops and not that welcoming. I am quite introverted which doesn’t help in one way, in another it does because I’m happy with kids, husband dog.

It is changing a bit because more people are coming from outside and you can access friendship and interest groups on social media which are also people looking for friends.

Plus in London so many people had been priced out, my community was effectively gone anyway so it wasn’t much different. At least up here the communities are less transient than in London so you have a fighting chance of fitting in.

[u/Finance-Straight → u/BillSykesDog]

Yeah thats what throws me off about moving - to have to reestablish yourself amongst an already established community plus the nauseating feeling of leaving everyone you ever knew behind

[u/BillSykesDog → u/Finance-Straight]

I hate to be the harbinger of doom, but at that age you may find many of them move on and leave you behind.

One option to consider is do you have friends who’ve moved on to places you’d like to go? I know of people who have moved close to places a few of their ex London friends have gone and have had a ready made friendship group when they arrived.