I’ve had it in the back of my
mind for several years now to write a blog post on surviving relocation. I’m a
bit of an expert. I don’t stay anywhere for much longer than a couple of years,
moving around the country in the name of my career. And it can be hard. Until you actually do it,
you don’t realise what a massive thing it is that you’re doing. It’s not like
going to university, where everyone’s in the same boat, constantly on the
look-out for opportunities to make friends and get a social life going. You’re dropping
yourself into an existing situation; the people around you are living and working
there already; some are settled with partners and families; others are in their
own routine. Yet there are lots of us doing this; not just librarians, but
young and not-so-young people everywhere – we tell ourselves that it’s all
about the next promotion, or we get itchy feet, or an opportunity comes up that’s
too good to miss (or sometimes, in these times of austerity, the only
opportunity we’re going to get right now). And so we load our belongings into a van and
start a new life somewhere else, some of us multiple times.
The first time I did it, moving
to Bristol after library school in Sheffield, it took me about six months to
make friends. I didn’t really know where to start. I tried a socialising
website; you were allowed one free event, then you had to pay an extortionate
fee to keep attending. We all met in a city centre pub; the host ticked our
names off on his sheet, starred the non-attendees for the blacklist, then went
off to claim his free drinks, leaving the rest of us to mingle. Because it was
so expensive to attend again, we all tried to make our new best friends in the
space of a few hours. I exchanged numbers with another young woman, and we
started meeting up. She liked spending the whole of Sunday shopping. I
definitely did not. After a few evenings of stilted conversation over dinner in
a chain restaurant, we silently, mutually conceded that we were not compatible,
and that was that. Eventually I started meeting other local librarians at
events, and began to build myself a small social life there.
When I moved to Bedford, I was
determined to try harder. I felt I hadn’t made the most of Bristol. Despite my
previous experience of a socialising website, I decided to search online for
social groups, and I found one for people in their 20s and 30s, hosted on the site
Meetup.com, which was new to me. It had a very small annual fee (£2) to join
and seemed much less formal. There was a meet-up in a pub about 10 minutes walk
from my flat the first weekend I was living here; I thought it would be worth a
go, and I could always make my excuses if it was awful.
It turned out to be a really
welcoming group. In the past almost two years we’ve run the Race for Life together,
gone wine-tasting and cocktail-making, taken a day trip on the train to Paris,
gone to the theatre and cinema, and done a lot of dancing and drinking (oh god,
so much drinking). I was able to explore the nightlife in the safe company of
others, and made some genuine friends, not ones of convenience. This group has
impacted profoundly and positively on my life in Bedford (a town which, I’m
sorry to admit, I still don’t like) and I can’t imagine what I would have done
with myself without it.
The reason I’m finally writing
this post now is because today that group has ceased to exist. After a few
changes of leadership, the final lead organiser has stepped down, and no one
has pressed the button in the 15-day grace period to rescue it. The URL leads
to a message that the page cannot be found. Just like that, it’s gone. I expected
to feel sad…but actually, it’s OK. Because this is the nature of Meetup. It’s
transient. Groups disappear once they’ve run their time, and every day new
groups appear; people meeting up around an interest or commonality, or simply
to make friends. And this reflects the transient nature of the lifestyles that
so many of us lead; moving on every so often when we need to, with minimal
looking back. Last year our group was in its hey-day, with so many events on
the calendar I couldn’t possibly keep up, and nearly burnt out when I tried to;
now it’s gone, but other local groups flourish. I have contact with the friends
I’ve made through other means, and I can join other groups to make more. The
nature of all of the Meetup groups I’m familiar with is that most members can
and do dip in and out of the activity; making the group fit our schedules
rather than the other way round. All the time, people leave, and new people
join, just as people ebb in and out of the towns and cities, on their way
throughout their life.
It’s often said now that there “is
no such thing as a job for life any more”. I think this is true, and with that
comes all of the other elements of our lives; for those of us moving
frequently, nothing is stable. Meetup.com reflects that and gives us a means of
trying to fit in, to make a life for ourselves, however temporary, wherever we
go.
