Fed up

LegacyUser

I feel like I'm so alone. I moved to the UK after finishing my teacher training last year. I love my job, I love the kids but I'm so tired and I'm so lonely. I lived in a big city this year, had six house mates and don't get on with any of them. It's a nice city but I never even got to explore it properly because I was too busy and have no friends. I'm having real difficulty finding work for next year and am now facing the possibility of short term subbing which is the whole reason I didn't want to stay in Ireland, now I just feel like a failure.

All my friends at home have moved on, and after I fell out with my ex sided with him anyway. Nobody put any effort into staying in contact this year. I've lived abroad before and nobody visited 'cause it was too far and too expensive. But this year they haven't bothered either. They often give me excuses like 'sorry I didn't call, I was busy. I met X out last night, they asked about you' So you were too busy to reply to my email but can go for a mid-week night out? I think I've gone out maybe 5 times since October. I've started not bothering with them now, but I feel a bit like I'm biting off my nose to spite my face, who else do I have?

My friends here are flakey and we have nothing in common anyway. Some I met through work, so we just talk about work. Others I met at a club but we have nothing in common but that club. I do a lot of things alone because I don't want to miss out but I'm just finding it so lonely. Most of the time all I want is to go for a drink to relax on a Friday evening but nobody here enjoys my company enough. I wanted to celebrate a big thing that happened in work last week. Text 3 friends around two asked if they wanted to grab a pub dinner (nothing fancy!) or a drink (aiming to be home before 10). All replied with maybes. I text again at 5 for an update. One replied straight away that they were busy. The other 2 didn't reply till after 7. One said he had leftovers the other said she was already in her pajamas.

I feel like this year has been such a disaster but I need to stay (in the UK) for another year at least so I can finance a move elsewhere. I'd like to go home but feel like making new friends would be even harder their. I'm just very fed up.

Tokyo

I'm not trying to make your issue sound trite here, but it does sound like you are focusing too much on your friends back home, many miles away, whose lives are moving on in your absense, and the solution to your problem really is to be proactive and look into groups and organisations nearby that are in your scope of interest, yet unrelated to your work. I've done very similar to you a number of times in my life (most recently moved to a new city halfway round the world a few weeks ago in fact), and as you are finding out, if you depend solely on work colleagues to be the hub of your social life, then you inevitably end up talking about nothing about work, or work grudges get carried into your social life or vice versa.

Getting the ball rolling on creating new friendship circles is the hardest part, but once it is rolling, it is very much self sustaining if you put in the same amount of effort you expect others to do. It sounds like you are in a city, so you should have an abundance of opportunities available to you. Look into dance classes, running clubs (signed up for one a few days ago myself), hiking clubs at the weekend, etc. Many of these clubs have social events in their off hours (dinner or drinks on Saturday night, the key is to spread yourself around a bit rather than focusing on the one spot all the time. And if you are concerned about just having that club in common, don't be afraid to invite people from one club out to other activities - my run yesterday turned into walloping golf balls into a lake yesterday evening, followed by a few beers. Making friends doesn't have to be difficult - but - they aren't just going to come to you. You have to put in the same amount of effort to form those friendships that you expect from them.

Good luck OP....