No friends no job in new city

luckygirl101

Hi
I've never done anything like this but I feel I could use an outside perspective.
I moved home to Ireland nearly two years ago now after studying & working abroad for 6 years. I moved to a new city with my boyfriend & got a job fairly easily. The job was awful. Long hours poor pay & no work life balance. I actually managed to stay at this job for one whole year. I say that because I dont know how I lasted that long at this job. The people were nice but the job awful & never made any close friends there unfortunately. After about 6 months in this job I had enough & started looking else where. I went to numerous interviews & nothing came of them until April this year. I got a temporary summer job covering reception & that was ok. I am now working with a recruitment agency but the work is very sporadic & it's getting to me as I have bills & rent to pay. Through out this whole time I have been constantly applying for jobs & going for interviews nothing has come of it. The last two I did I felt went v well but they told me someone with more experience got the role. I feel so lonely because I am only working odd weeks here & there at the moment. I don't have financial independance, my bf has been v good helping me out. I can't make any friends because I am not in any job long enough to make them and as for hobbies it's hard to try find some new ones when u don't have a wage coming in every week. I can't commit to one knowing I have to spend my money on bills & rent. It's really getting to me I am living in cork at the moment & im wondering if I should move to Dublin. I am in a great relationship & I am very happy with my bf. he has settled in very well here. He gets on great with ppl from work & goes on nights out with them & I feel awful for saying this but I am jealous that everything is going great for him here & I am having the worse time. I just cannot catch a break. I have a degree & it honestly seems like I wasted 3 years of my life doing it because it means nothing now. I know I'm building my experience the whole time with the recruitment agency & odd weeks work here & there is better than none. I just feel so down now I feel like I have given a year and half of my time trying to settle in here & nothing is working out for me. I love cork as a city it's great. I am just so sad & lonely here & I wonder how much time u should give to a place to settle in. I have joined girlcrew on fb but I find a lot of it is geared towards single girls. I just feel my life is stalled until I can find a job.
I have two old friends from school that actually live here & I meet them maybe once every 3 months but I'm not v close to them anymore.
I'm just wondering if anyone has experienced anything like I have? I never imagined moving home it would take me so long to settle. I can't believe how hard it has been trying to get work. It's so depressing because all I want to do is work & build my experience & im having no luck. I kept saying to myself give it a year & half & now that time is up & im still here working odd bits.
My main concern is how can I make friends without a steady job & money to join classes etc. it's awful! I am late 20s & feel I'd love to build my career. Any advice on job situation? Making friends? It would be great!

gramar

First of all, you've come to the right place! Actually no, you probably haven't!
But now that you're here.......
Maybe that's the problem you have, not going to the right places.

Anyway....
FB friends, aren't worth a fuck!
Try and meet the people you do know more often.
Go to your work xmas parties...a good opportunity to chat to people as they let their hair down a bit.
Keep going to interviews, you'll find a job you do like sooner or later.
Talk to your bf...no point pretending to be happy when that's not the case.
And last but not least....paragraphs!

This forum might be better for you OP
http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/forumdisplay.php?f=127

PM one of the mods to move it there.

Star Lord

Moved from tCN, Personal Issues charter now applies!

Idle Passerby

It can take a while to settle in somewhere new. Sounds like your doing your best with job hunting do just keep plugging away at that. In the mean time try meetup and girl crew for making friends.

edanto

It's a great start writing it out and organising your thoughts that way. It sounds like you're overwhelmed and a bit down about things. It's time to nip it in the bud and get on top of it, but easier said than done.

First place to turn is your support network; people like your boyfriend, family, close friends. Just open up a bit to them about things not going too well. Travel to meet them, invite them to visit for a night. All of these things are harder when you're feeling a bit down, but you know yourself that they are part of the cure.

Obviously it's a natural worry that opening up to someone like your bf about how hard things are, or even that you feel jealous of his success, is daunting, because it seems like it might push him away. So take it slow, no need to unload everything in the first conversation, but the first step is just to set a marker, to flag that something is wrong.

An alternative is to get some strength from talking to a stranger. Obviously this forum is that type of approach, but it's slower than physically talking to someone. Probably the best thing there is to find a counsellor that lives near you and visit for a few sessions - you might be worried about the cost, but it would be a good investment.

The problems your wrestling with are not uncommon. The trick is finding healthy ways to deal with them. You've probably already tried the basics like lots of healthy food and exercise, but if you haven't those are a few things to try that are low cost. You might even find a yoga course on Youtube that you could do for the rest of the day.

Just take one small step at at time and be proud to ask for any help you might need.

edanto

It's a great start writing it out and organising your thoughts that way. It sounds like you're overwhelmed and a bit down about things. It's time to nip it in the bud and get on top of it, but easier said than done.

First place to turn is your support network; people like your boyfriend, family, close friends. Just open up a bit to them about things not going too well. Travel to meet them, invite them to visit for a night. All of these things are harder when you're feeling a bit down, but you know yourself that they are part of the cure.

Obviously it's a natural worry that opening up to someone like your bf about how hard things are, or even that you feel jealous of his success, is daunting, because it seems like it might push him away. So take it slow, no need to unload everything in the first conversation, but the first step is just to set a marker, to flag that something is wrong.

An alternative is to get some strength from talking to a stranger. Obviously this forum is that type of approach, but it's slower than physically talking to someone. Probably the best thing there is to find a counsellor that lives near you and visit for a few sessions - you might be worried about the cost, but it would be a good investment.

The problems your wrestling with are not uncommon. The trick is finding healthy ways to deal with them. You've probably already tried the basics like lots of healthy food and exercise, but if you haven't those are a few things to try that are low cost. You might even find a yoga course on Youtube that you could do for the rest of the day.

Just take one small step at at time and be proud to ask for any help you might need.

JohnRock

Meetup.com is a great way to meet new people, events are on nearly every day of the week