How do you reconnect when you move to a new town?

[Kritter47]

15 minutes. Isn't everyone?

 

[cougargirl]

If you work night hours, here's another idea - substitute teaching. Extra cash, for one thing.

 

[spup1122]

Pretty good idea cougargirl. It also allows you to meet new young teachers who may be in the same situation as you or may be more connected.

 

[Buck]

Maybe you could join a local Dungeons and Dragons club, or sign up for a Strat-O-Matic hockey tournament?
Paint ball?
Volunteers as a tutor for the local literacy program?
Art classes?
Gym?
Karate classes?
Also, I'm not trying to be flippant, but how severe is your condition? How did you work around it to establish friendships in college?

 

[wickedwritah]

Pretty good idea cougargirl. It also allows you to meet new young teachers

Mmmm, hot young teachers. [/drooling]

Carry on.

 

[sportswriter not a junky]

Heh. Night owls. I like that.

I talk to my parents every day, usually multiple times per day. My dad and I are on the same cell phone plan, so that keeps the costs down. My friends from college and I are on completely different work schedules, so it's very hard to get on the phone for extended periods of time.

I cover a mix of preps and college, and I'm worried about becoming friends with the college kids because of that. I'm still working out the boundaries of the reporter-source relationships and don't want to do something stupid that puts someone in a no-win situation.

I'm still figuring this town out too. I've always been a city girl, and this is a town that only thinks it's a city because the next sizable town is 80 miles away. Where I went to college there were suburbs three times the size of where I live now. It definitely has it's upsides in terms of traffic, but even though it's in the same state, the whole way people relate to each other is different.

Cadet - as far as groups, I've looked into that. The only group here is dedicated to parents of kids with it. There's not a whole lot of research on adults or young adults with it because it's only become an official subcategory of ASDs in the past 10 or so years, with almost all the diagnoses in children.

You're a sportswriter and don't have a company cell phone? That's a first.

On a different note, I'm surprised no one mentioned meeting friends through work. I don't mean colleagues. I mean through sources. I've moved across the country, and all my friends are indirectly through people I've written on. You write features on so many people, and a good percentage of their parents and family will want to keep in touch with you if you show any inkling of having a soul. Then, they'll introduce you to their older kids and nieces and nephews. I've also gotten a number of date opportunities this way, though I declined because I feel weird about moms trying to set me up with their daughters. But I've met all my guy friends this way and then you meet their friends and then you become part of the circle of friends. For me, it happened as soon as I made a conscious effort. I've spent Thanksgiving, Christmas eve, Christmas, New Years and many non-holiday weekends with different families I've met this way, and they all adore me like their own kid. And given our chosen profession, there'll never be a shortage of stories to tell, even if you're shy, because there'll never, ever, ever be a shortage of questions from your curious new friends and family members. I've also become friends with many of the younger coaches I deal with, and the older ones have introduced me to their 20s-something sons and daughters too.

Yet another note, given our societal structure, I'm really surprised to hear a girl having trouble finding friends. Seems social life should be so much easier for girls, given how they don't have to be the aggressor in an interaction.

 

[ballscribe]

Kritter, c'mon. You're a reporter, right? You should be able to use those skills to find out just about anything you want about your town.
At the very least, you must have archives where you work. And anything that might be of interest to you that's been discussed will be there. Get to work.

This is not a small town you're in. And I'm a city girl, too. You'll probably find that people will be much more welcoming of someone who's a little socially awkward but with fine qualities than you would in a big city.

You also mentioned you're only 30 minutes from home. Quick as you can, buy an old ****box of a car and get there as much as you can, to fill in the blanks until you can get some things established. Or isn't there a bus?
But don't do it too much. My first job was 1 1/2 hours away from home, and I spent so much time driving home on my days off that I really didn't give my new town a chance. It always felt like I was visiting, and I regret not getting more out of the three years I was there.


I've been where you are. And I'm definitely not great on meeting new people, although I'm much better than I was, forced to be outgoing and call people out of the blue and meet new people just by the very nature of the job we do. I once moved 1,200 miles away, to a different country, leaving my fiancé two weeks after he proposed. The people I worked with weren't a particularly sociable group. It was a magazine and all the writers lived off-site. I was working with a group of copy editors and I was a writer by inclination and temperament, a little too colourful for them and rather enthusiastic. They would e-mail me from their pod five feet away rather than actually have a conversation (including when I left to wish me luck via e-mail, if you can believe that). Didn't really fit in.

Luckily, my sport (tennis) was pretty big there. I got in touch with the head of the local chapter of the USTA before I moved. She was about my age. Being a chick who could play and also looked good in the skirt, I was involved with four leagues before I could even change my address. I also started playing golf more seriously because my schedule was four days on, three days off.

There are always things to do. The hardest part is taking those first steps. You should have the resources available to find things that don't cost much, if anything. The volunteer thing sounds like a great place to start. Good luck and hang in there.

And, as to the notion that it should be easier for girls, it really isn't. Especially if you're alone in a town.
A guy can just go to a bar and hang out, or go anywhere and hang out, and no one thinks anything of it. A girl is just asking for trouble. You never know who's going to follow you home.

That's why male sportswriters have a much better time on the road than we do. :D

 

[Kritter47]

Also, I'm not trying to be flippant, but how severe is your condition? How did you work around it to establish friendships in college?

It's hard to describe. If you want to Google it for all the relevant info, look up Asperger's Syndrome. I'm at the very, very high-functioning end of the scale.

If I find someone with similar interests, especially if they're willing to accept me as kinda quirky, it's pretty easy for me to establish a friendship provided we're forced to interact. Classes were great for this, since you had to ask other people about assignments, tests and all that other fun stuff. Once I get talking, I'm okay. It's that finding groups of people with common interests and initiating a conversation that I really struggle with.

The sensory side makes game coverage hard with all the noises, and especially when people sit right on top of you, but I've learned to do some little things to get me through it. Going to a bar and just sitting there, though, the mere thought makes my skin absolutely crawl.

ballscribe - I'm 4 hours from home. I was 30 minutes from home in college, which I think is making the transition harder for exactly the reason you talk about.

I've been through the archives and the current events section of our paper at a cursory level, but things I find seem to be oriented towards senior citizens or young parents. As I fall into neither of those categories, I got fairly discouraged with that route. Plus our archives really, really suck when they work at all.

Perhaps I'm being too picky and ruling stuff out before I have a chance to check it out.

 

[spup1122]

Young parents may not be too bad, Kritter. Two of my best friends in my last town were a young married couple. They were five or six years older than me with no kids, but still in the young married couple mode. I told them once that I felt like a third wheel sometimes and that I was taking away from their marriage. They squashed that idea like a bug, telling me that if they didn't want me around, they wouldn't call and invite me over. You might find that young parents are the same way. They spend all the time in the world with their kids. They may want some other young adult stimulation.

 

[spup1122]

Yeah yeah, buckdub. That is NOT how it was. We went to church together. We went to the gym together. We watched American Idol together.

 

[Buck]

Also, I'm not trying to be flippant, but how severe is your condition? How did you work around it to establish friendships in college?

It's hard to describe. If you want to Google it for all the relevant info, look up Asperger's Syndrome. I'm at the very, very high-functioning end of the scale.

If I find someone with similar interests, especially if they're willing to accept me as kinda quirky, it's pretty easy for me to establish a friendship provided we're forced to interact. Classes were great for this, since you had to ask other people about assignments, tests and all that other fun stuff. Once I get talking, I'm okay. It's that finding groups of people with common interests and initiating a conversation that I really struggle with.

The sensory side makes game coverage hard with all the noises, and especially when people sit right on top of you, but I've learned to do some little things to get me through it. Going to a bar and just sitting there, though, the mere thought makes my skin absolutely crawl.

I was curious because I don't know much about the condition.
It seems logical that the situations that helped you socialize in college would be conducive to socializing now.
Taking continuing education classes could help, but you might run into people who are either younger or older than you. Although there's nothing wrong with making friends outside of your normal peer group.
Volunteering for charities or events might help.
Art classes — painting, ceramics, etc.
Yoga, the gym, etc.
Hobbies that are conducive to social settings and god for novices — maybe find a chess club or an archery club. The activities are fun, and relaxing, they can be social and usually provide opportunities to learn and pick them up in adulthood.