Stepping out of the comfort zone and expanding my social circle

Hello everyone, I hope you are all doing well and enjoyed my last post.
Today let’s talk about my experience of making and meeting new friends during placement.

Hurray, I am now in London, but wait this is different than what I imagined

As all of you might remember from the previous post, I moved to London in September 2020. I was really excited to start a new chapter in my life, let alone having the opportunity to spend almost a year to experience life in the capital of UK, London! Apart from the fact that London has better entertainment, culture and food offering, I was also looking forward to experiencing London lifestyle as well as making new friends outside the university circle.

Don’t get me wrong, I am grateful for my friends and alway enjoy hanging out with them. But as much as I love the company of my friends, I also enjoy getting to know new people and making new connections. But this went a little bit different than I expected. First month after moved to London, I was expecting meeting a lot of new people around my age in the workplace. But things didn’t go as I expected. Because of the structure in my company, we would have multiple locations around the world but small number of employees in most of the offices. And when I talk about small scale, I am not saying 20 people but it is actually quite small that is around 4 people. I do enjoy working with my colleagues , but it just wasn’t the size that I would imagine when joining a mid-scale company. So to be honest I was feeling a bit lonely when first moved to London.

Trying every opportunity I had and found some new friends on Facebook group 🙂

I hope it is not only me who don’t use Facebook anymore. Besides, I wasn’t really the type to make connections online. But one day I just decided to go on Facebook and see what is there. When I was scrolling through it, I randomly found this group called “London lonely girl”. At first, I was in the mentality of trying everything and did not hold high hopes in making actual connections inside, as I was always a bit skeptical about meeting people online. But out of my expectation, the girls I met through the group so far were all friendly and open minded. You can find people from all around the world, and join group chat to arrange activities. I really like the vibrant dynamic of the group that people are always up to something or onto arranging things. This experience really open up my mind that I am glad I took steps in reaching out to people and join the new group.

I know it can be intimidating to meet new people alone, but without trying there is no way I will learn and have met all the new friends I have now. So my little advise for those who just moved to a new place or those who are like me who wants to expand social circle. I encourage you to join new group, breaking routine and explore around, who knows you might find some surprise or friends you never expected:0. I hope my experience gave you some courage to take the first step.

Comment down below to let me know where is your go-to place for meeting new people or any recommendation for fun place to hang out in London.

Until the next time, I wish you a wonderful day!