If it makes you feel any better, the surveillance state is always watching you.
You know you’re an adult when you realize that if you want to… you can just go buy a chainsaw.
It’s wild. You can straight up start drinking bleach without as much as an “Are you sure?” popup
A friendly tip from someone who did that and stayed abroad for 15 years: be active in meeting new friends and joining in activities. They will help a lot when homesickness hits. The first hit was normally around two months in for me and my fellow students, after the excitement of being in a new place has subsided a bit. It might take the whole thing from “wow, I’m all by myself” to “shit, I’m all by myself”. That will pass pretty soon. You’re capable of far more than you know, you got this.
The second hit is about two years in and carries more of a longing feeling. If you can, put money aside for a ticket to visit home by then. Good luck, and have fun! You’re about to have the time of your life.
My advice is the same, but my timeline very different. The hardest moment was a couple of days in. I didn’t have friends or hobbies or knowledge of the place yet, a lot of time on my hands and I was staring down being away from home “for ever”. Then the ball got rolling on my social life and I found my tempo.
Other advice: make learning the local language an absolute priority if you don’t know it yet. Also because language courses are a great place to meet your first local friends.
One thing I’ll add is that no matter where you move, snooty people with their noses in the air will look down on the idea of the expat community from your country of origin, and while you should ABSOLUTELY not make them your main social connection or use them as a crutch to replace immersing yourself in your new country, there is a reason these communities form - they provide social support and connection while you slowly build up an entire new identity and social community.
I never want to move again I’ve lived at the same address (not same house, long story but basically moved to the bigger house on the property in 2022) for 20 years. My wife wants to move to an island when I retire. (She’s disabled and cannot work), but I’m like oh hell no. I don’t even want to leave my house let alone move to a different state/country.
I would only move after retirement to stretch my money further till I can’t live on my own.
In a class on intercultural exchange we learned that most people who move abroad (semi-)permanently go through a U-shaped curve. Starting high with a Honeymoon phase, followed by a crisis/culture shock after about 2-3 months. And then a recovery and acceptance/adjustment/mastery/adaptation/whateveryouwannacallit phase. Many people also have this process repeating in waves.
Interestingly enough, people who go through the U curve once and come out the other side usually also experience the same curve when eventually moving back to their “original” country.
It’s less like a U and more like a wave whose amplitude gets less and less every time until you stabilize in your new country (the peaks and valleys get smaller and smaller). It does also repeat if you go back to your home country (reverse culture shock), but the frequency is less and the total stabilization time is lower because for the most part, your brain is relearning cultural cues the connections already exist for, with an allowance for cultural drift depending on how long you’ve been away.
Hit em’ with that exp(-x) sin(x)
I remember cooking a meal for the first time in my apartment and not having proper cookware, forgot to buy cutlery and only had a small bowl and thought “wtf am i doing?”
My first meal away from home was a hard boiled egg, some bread and a raw bell pepper. That was the full extent of my cooking knowledge (plus maybe pasta?). The shared kitchen was somewhat furnished, otherwise I wouldn’t have been able to cook the egg
It is unsafe. Until you’ve done a bunch of the unsafe things and they became boring and/or you survived enough of them to learn the risk isn’t worth it.
So go be unsafe! Hopefully you survive!
This makes me think of how I’ve changed over the years. I think I was happier when I was a danger to myself
Good advice here in the comments. Id like to add, set a routine and have a spot in your routine to see or do something new in your new city. Whether its trying a new restaurant or checking out a park or whatever. Just something small at a certain time of day/week that you can look forward to, that helps you feel more at home in the new place. The routine also helps me a lot to not feel aimless.
I feel this. I’ve never truly lived alone until recently. I lived at home through college and moved out with my then girlfriend now wife.
I did travel a lot for work and now I’ve started a master’s degree abroad. It’s weird because I treat it like another work project, but I’m there 3 to 5 months at a time before I get to fly home on a break. I’ve only just started to treat it like living alone.
I wouldn’t call it unsafe, but it’s definitely different
Heh, you felt safe with yout parents? How nice…
Surveillance state fascists: “we can fix that”
I couldn’t do that at 18 TBH. Good on you.
Just get a job. Plenty of narcisistic managers ready if not eager to supervise you
You mean theseistic. Narcissus didn’t want to supervise anyone, he wanted to be left alone.
They changed the definition
Yeah, because of negative stereotypes about people with Narcissistic Personality Disorder. NPD is a disability, and I don’t really agree with using the names of disabilities as insults either. I don’t think there are any unproblematic ways to use the word “narcissistic” to describe controlling people.
That’s why I coined the term “theseistic”. Theseus abandoned the woman who helped him kill the minotaur alone on an island so he could go kidnap 12 year old Helen of Troy and marry her. Theseus deserves the hate, and his name isn’t associated with any disabilities. So it’s a completely unproblematic word that fulfills the same function people use the ableist word for. I think everyone should switch over to the new one.
Okie dokie
Until you f up too much and they throw the book at your. That’s how it works.
At my what? This is important to know.
Unsafe for who?
Their gut microbiota.
