Transplant question...Attention all transplants that moved without family or friends... (Atlanta: home, schools) - Georgia (GA) - City-Data Forum

mslashondapjohnson · 10-09-2009, 10:14 PM

Hello to all,

To all the transplants (as they call it here) how did or do you cope with being in a city for a year and still have not yet got adjusted to it. I have been in the ATL metro area for a year now next month and I can count on one hand how many friends I have met. I am constantly bored, I'm not really the night life person but I do enjoy getting out when I can. It is me and my boyfriend and our children here and although we got here and found work and whatnot it is still challenging for us. We travel a lot but then too we have heard and saw so much on t.v. about certain parts of the area so we just would rather watch kids hanging out at Walmart or Sonic than to have a ? of our life in jeopardy over some bull ( I hope I don't offend anyone). I could go on and on but I won't so if anyone has any tips or suggestions please holler back..

Thanks until next time!

YBF · 10-11-2009, 10:42 AM

Friends are hard to come by. I have very few friends all of which are in my home state. Associates are another story. Do you not talk to anyone at work or are you apart of any social orgs? Try meetup.com

johnatl · 10-11-2009, 10:47 AM

Start reading Creative Loafing & The Sunday Paper. There are soooo many fun and interesting things to do here, but you need to seek them out. We have wonderful Festivals throughout the year all over the Metro/Region.

Like today - you could go check out Taste of Atlanta in Midtown, for example.

Just do a little research and get out there. You won't be sorry!

mslashondapjohnson · 10-13-2009, 08:35 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by YBF

Friends are hard to come by. I have very few friends all of which are in my home state. Associates are another story. Do you not talk to anyone at work or are you apart of any social orgs? Try meetup.com

THanks I will try that and yes I do but it seems as if everyone says I live too far away as I stay in Gwinnett and they live in Cobb or Dekalb..

YBF · 10-14-2009, 10:38 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by mslashondapjohnson

THanks I will try that and yes I do but it seems as if everyone says I live too far away as I stay in Gwinnett and they live in Cobb or Dekalb..

Gwinnett is kinda too far. For me anyway..... being from NY I wanted to live as close to the city as possible.

floyd242 · 10-14-2009, 11:10 AM

What about other parents are your kids' schools? Most of my parents friends when I was a kid were my friends' parents :P

rcsteiner · 10-14-2009, 12:32 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by mslashondapjohnson

Hello to all,

To all the transplants (as they call it here) how did or do you cope with being in a city for a year and still have not yet got adjusted to it.

My wife and I have been here for five years, and while we've met all sorts of good people, we only have a handful of what I would consider good friends, and none yet that I would consider as close as some of my friends back home (Twin Cities).

Then again, I've known many of my friends up there for 20-30 years, and some even longer. Most of them are from college or previous workplaces ... my current coworkers are scattered around the globe with only a very few locally, making it harder to meet friends through work down here.

We've adjusted to the area, but bored we are not. There are lots of things to do ... it may be that we're simply low-key enough to not care all that much about stuff we can't do by ourselves, and sometimes a simple road trip on a Saturday keeps us happy.

We're recently checked out places in Georgia like Rock City, Pasaquan, Robert Finster's Paradise Gardens, the Georgia Guidestones, a few covered bridges, and the City of Savannah, so that might give you some ideas.

As far as meeting people ... we've joined a few groups with people who have common interests, and those groups have been a good way to meet a fair number of people. She also sometimes sells things at art fairs and such, so we meet other vendors and share experiences, etc.

A lot depends on what you want to do, really. If you find a group nearby which does those things, you're likely to meet folks in that group who might have other common interests.

RainyRainyDay · 10-14-2009, 01:14 PM

It depends on your life stage, too. We've been here 7 years and have made very few friends, really. However we moved here with a then third-grader. We weren't about to leave her with strangers in a very foreign (to us) culture while we headed out to find other adults to socialize with.

Someone on this thread mentioned making friends with the parents of your kids' friends. I think that's often an excellent suggestion. It hasn't happened for us because we're west-coast Canadians (liberal) residing in a very conservative area (East Cobb). We're civil with the other parents, but it's obvious we have very little in common with them. Some southerners we met at church seemed nice, but turned out to have the traditional southern etiquette of being charming to your face while stabbing you in the back.

Like rcsteiner, I have work colleagues all over the globe and the ones with whom I work most closely are all far away.

This post may read as a complaint, but it's not intended that way. We're not resentful that our social life in Atlanta has been a bit ... sparse. We had a very active social life with lots of friends and entertaining as a young couple. Our long-term plan is to move back west in a few years' time, and we anticipate we'll become much more social again, as empty-nesters in a more congenial (to us) social climate.

Meanwhile, like rcsteiner, we've gotten out and enjoyed taking in some of the sights of the region.