Making a new city out of an old city

August 5, 2009 8:19 AM

I'm about to move back to my hometown for two years, and would like to try living as if it's a new city instead of slipping back into my old life there. Any thoughts?

I've spent the past 14 months living in a town in the west of Ireland, and I'm moving back to Dublin at the start of September to finish off my last two years of architecture school.

My life here has been really, really good - I moved for a job which worked out extremely well, I made great friends and acquaintances, and I've been learning like crazy, spending less and being outdoors more. I'm going to be very sad to leave but have accepted it.

Thing is, I'd love to be going off to a third place, a new city or town. I liked getting to make new friends, and I have relatively little interest in going back to the same social groups and events I left behind, having had the benefit of some distance from which to view them. The world in general seems big and exciting, while that world seems small and inward-looking.

I am trying to approach the move positively, to see if I can make Dublin act as this third, new place. I'd like to get to know new people, to explore some of the other cities within the city, and am debating ways of doing this - either pursuing a different interest socially, or maybe through architecture stuff.

In the interest of brevity (ha!):
- I don't intend to cut off contact with individual friends or family, but I would like new friends
- I'm not about to try transforming myself, just maybe changing the weight of which interests I follow socially and which I enjoy by myself/on headphones/on paper
- I am going to be busy as hell with school, so meeting people through volunteering/work isn't a runner
- Erasmus or study abroad programmes are out, as I fluffed the application deadline while debating whether to return to school
- I can't transfer to another school, and I'm not going to take another year off
- I'll most likely be living alone, am single, and don't have kids
- I've only visited Dublin a few times in the 14 months, and will be returning less than a week before school starts

Any advice? Have you tried anything like this? How would you do it? Is there an inevitability about moving back somewhere and ending up in the same places, with the same people as before?

posted by carbide to Human Relations (8 answers total)

Approach the move like any newcommer would do: buy a newcommers book and try to seek out things that you often took for granted living there. It's a great way to see a new side of somewhere where you've lived. It'll probably be condusive to meeting new people as well.
posted by stratastar at 8:33 AM on August 5, 2009

Make friends with Yelp.
posted by oinopaponton at 9:10 AM on August 5, 2009

Best answer: My family moved back to a city we'd lived in before while I was in college. It probably helped that it was before my 3rd year, we moved to a part of the city I hardly went to the first time, and most of the people I knew before were nowhere to be found.

It can be done, and Dublin is a lot bigger than Sumter, SC.
posted by theichibun at 9:26 AM on August 5, 2009

Best answer: we moved to a part of the city I hardly went to the first time

Yeah, try to move to a neighborhood you haven't lived in and rarely visited before.

Also, make yourself a list of things you've always wanted to do in Dublin but haven't. Do one a week, or whenever you feel like you're slipping back into your old groove.
posted by soelo at 9:29 AM on August 5, 2009

I feel for you, it's weird to go home.
If you are going to school, that is the easiest and most obvious place to make friends. School has always been the best place for me to make friends, almost effortlessly.

It might be nice to seek out people in your program who are not from the city orginally. You can discover new parts of the city together.
posted by Gor-ella at 9:29 AM on August 5, 2009

Give yourself more time, and take routes you wouldn't normally take. Or just set off into districts you never thought to venture into. If you enjoy the outdoors but fell into patterns of a homebody, look for local trail guides and/or hiking groups. 14 months generally isn't enough for the town to change, but with your new view of things, it might feel different.
posted by filthy light thief at 10:13 AM on August 5, 2009

I know you said you'll be busy with school but what about learning a new language, perhaps through self-study? You could then find a casual language partner to practice with once per week and maybe meet a new international crowd? It would also give your brain something else to focus on other than architecture, you'd be bettering yourself but in a non-stressful, non-structured way and meeting new people.
posted by the foreground at 1:01 PM on August 5, 2009

Response by poster: I appreciate the ideas, thank you all!

I also realise this came out as a very convoluted and autobiographical question instead of the more general one I meant to ask, but I guess that was the moving anxiety showing.
posted by carbide at 2:39 PM on August 13, 2009