Moving To A New Place Phase III: Establish “Your Places”

Now it’s time to tell those fucking locals what time it is: your time to teach fast lessons to slow learners. If you’ve completed Phase I and Phase II, you’ve caught yourself up to speed on what it takes to be a local. You know the local culture, you have your own opinions on what places/events are cool, and (just as importantly) you have your own opinions on what places suck. I’ve found that in a lot of places I’ve moved to the locals will blab on and on about how good a bar/restaurant is, but in reality it’s just been there forever and it’s living off it’s undeserving reputation. It’s interesting that in DC the locals aren’t really locals and they realize these places (Ben’s Chili Bowl, Eastern Market, etc.) are kind of lame.

Now it’s time to establish your favorite bars, favorite restaurants, and yes, your group of friends. By now you know what’s out there and you understand the culture, you have enough information to make these kinds of decisions. I’ve found that most people skip Phase I and Phase II and try to jump right into Phase III, which is a huge mistake. How can you make friends and become a regular at a bar/restaurant if you don’t know what else is out there? Makes no sense to me. The locals eat those fuckers alive.

By now, you also have enough information to know what the single men/girls are out there and you can begin to adjust your expectations up or down based on what’s out there. By now you’ve let go of your past and all of your exes, so this shouldn’t be hard to do. You are playing a different ballgame in a different city and you need to adjust your expectations accordingly. If you are unwilling to adjust them if you find you need to adjust them downwards you should strongly consider moving. Don’t lie to yourself, it’s unhealthy.

If you’re a woman, look for a target and label him: Option 1. Keep in mind that you should always seem available to him, but you can still pursue Options 2-5 on the side. Girls should have ranked lists of guys in order of their desirability and work their way from the top to the bottom. And men should read better bloggers than me for advice on how to move up the ladder being a player in the city, but it’s still important to know what the three groups of women (put in no work, put in some work, put in a lot of work) look like in your new locale.

Moving To A New Place Phase II: Explore

Most of this world is made up of losers, poor pathetic losers. If you’re reading this to improve your odds when you move, you are not a loser because you’re willing to take advice from anyone for self-improvement, including blowhards on the internet like me, and you’ll figure out your own plan after taking in all the information you can. Congratulations.

Phase II is the most exciting phase (see Phase I) because you’re still new enough at your job not to get fired for incompetence/hangovers, but you know enough about the city to break hearts and have a good time. Lots of adventure, lots of hooking up with questionable girls, lots of fun. By now you shouldn’t be talking to your friends from home more than once a week or so, you should have a pretty good idea what’s considered cool for locals, and you should have met a bunch of people without becoming great friends with any of them. In other words, you have a full backpack and a map of the land: it’s time to explore.

Based on the available public transportation, ease of parking, and price of gas, figure out a reasonable radius that encompasses everything you can consider “local”. This is your stomping ground, and you have to know it and protect it well. Travel to every part of the stomping ground that has anything in it you are remotely interested in. In DC, I would say the list is something like this: Clarendon, Alexandria waterfront, Crystal City, Georgetown, Cleveland Park, Farragut Square, Dupont Circle, Chinatown, Adams Morgan, U St, H St, Capitol Hill, SW Waterfront, Eastern Market, and Union Station. You’ll read some things saying some of those places suck or some of them are hip and new, but things are always changing, opinions are variable, and you never know until you go. In any case, you should make your opinion on a place; you shouldn’t read it.

You’ll know you’re being successful in Phase II if you’re talking to somebody who’s been a local for 15 years about a local neighborhood/place/event and they don’t know anything about it. The people who have lived in a place their whole lives just assume they know everything about it. But they don’t and if you’re successful in Phase II: you will. Fuck those arrogant locals. This gives you a huge advantage of knowing more than the locals without being a local. Because you don’t have the time to stay in a place for 10 years without feeling like it’s home. There’s way too much shit out there to stay stationary.

Moving to a New Place: Phase I – Detach and Observe

In honor of a few graduates I know, this is part 1 of posts I have planned on Moving to a New Place. It’s important to keep in mind that the moving I’m talking about can be physical or social, but I’ll focus on physical for clarity. The same concepts are involved.

I’ve ‘moved to a new place’ 4 or 5 times in the last 6 years. Each time, I knew essentially nobody in the new place I was moving and things have always turned out pretty well. This doesn’t make me particularly gifted, other people have done the same thing. But I’ve moved to and through some very diverse cultures and I think my theories for moving are better than anyone else’s.

Phase 1 is the first two months of the move. The most important part of Phase 1 is to let go of all attachments from your previous locales. Those friends/lovers should not be used as an emotional crutch for readjustment. You have important decisions to make and if they care about you they will be there for you after you’ve transitioned and you don’t need that safety net clouding your judgment. Besides, it’s a proven fact as far as I’m concerned that long distance relationships only work for insecure failures. Everyone else ends up breaking up, just do it and get it over with.

The second most important part of Phase 1 is to avoid making good friends with anyone. Outside of very rare cases, people who are willing to be best friends with you a few days after randomly meeting you are desperate and lonely and not quality human beings. Be patient and slowly build your circle of friends because you meet best friends through other friends. The biggest mistake you can make is making friends too quickly because most of the time these people will be below you. Don’t date anyone in Phase 1.

The third most important part of Phase 1 is to explore your surroundings. Go to as many bars/nightspots as time will allow you, starting with those closest to your house. Don’t visit the same place twice until you feel you have exhausted other reasonable options. This will serve the purpose of:

1. Providing a means of meeting a good variety of people
2. Creating conversation fodder for other locals you will meet
3. Finding your niche in your new location

The 3rd point illustrates the most important part of moving to a new place. If you can understand enough of the local culture, you’ll be able to tailor your personality to a point where you will be able to interact meaningfully with your surroundings. I can see the argument that this is insincere, but that’s quite the arrogant stance. This world is bigger than you are. You have to fit in with your surroundings to be able to modify them to suit your needs.

Remember, if you can understand someone’s innermost desires, you can control them. A parallel can be drawn from an individual to a culture.

Get Out Of My Life

Hero Adage #2: Most people aren’t worth talking to more than 5 times in a lifetime. The vast majority of people I meet don’t have more than a handful of worthwhile conversations in them. After I get these conversations out of them I choose to never talk to them again because I know it will just be a rehash of previous conversations and largely a waste of time.

It’s true that everyone has something to offer you. However, a very small number of this ‘everyone’ population can bring any heat consistently. Because of this, people are more or less replaceable. After all, I’ve proven to myself that I can get tidbits of wisdom from almost anyone. It should go without saying that the validity of this statement is directly proportional to the simdemographic (made up word alert) local population density. Because of this, I think it’s best to think of people in one of two ways:

1. Replaceable
2. Invaluable

There is no grey area.

This is the perfect lead-in to what will one day be the best series of posts ever on DC Hero: Moving To A New Place. Phase I of moving to a new place is simple: don’t make friends with just anyone, be very picky even if you feel desperate for friends. You don’t need any more Replaceables in your life. Ever.