Top of the morning OOT

quasi-cliff notes

---My employer offered me a position in Charlotte, NC.
---I currently reside in Chicagoland
---My gf, soon to be finacee is coming with me
---I know exactly 0 people in North Carolina
---I hate NASCAR

Anyone been to or reside in Charlotte that wants to share their experience? How "southern" is NC? How do they live without a baseball team? Hows the food (I've never had Sonic before, I hear they have those)?

Outside of this specific location, how do people cope with moving to a city where you know not a single person? Honestly, I am excited for the "tabula rosa" aspect of this. Anyone that wants to share their stories please chime in...Thanks

The skyline is weak sauce compared to Chi-town:

a similar thread has been done before, really bad with search but someone might be able to find it and post to help you out

i admire people who find stuff like this exciting. this would stress me out

I moved to AZ by myself, no gf, no nothing.

It was easy as can be, except for moving into my apt. which sucked cause I had no help!

I made things very easy on myself tho. I sold my car before I moved. I got my new firm to pay for the moving van (agreed during job negotiation) and drove that out here. I brought no furniture with me so I was able to move everything pretty easily.

When I got here, I bought a car and furniture the very first week. I drove the moving van to car dealerships. LOL I bought furniture and had it delivered so I didn't have to lug a couch up steps by myself.

Where there's a will, there's a way, basically. I always had a dream to live in AZ where I can play year-round golf and I'm a hop, skip and jump from Vegas without being TOO close.

I have been here three years now, quickly made new friends and life is great! I know I'm a more adventurous person than most, but I think the key is just being 110% committed in your mind to making this move. Good luck!

I just moved from Philly to Austin, TX for a job in October. I've never been west of VA in my life, and I had no friends, relatives, or connections of any sort in or around Austin. I know have a few friends and acquaintances, have hooked up with a couple girls, and I recently started seeing a girl exclusively.

Here are the things I did.

- When apartment hunting, I was originally searching for a place just for me. I realized how much easier it would be to meet people if I had roommates who in turn had other friends, so I instead turned to craigslist to find people who are searching for roommates. I now live with 2 girls and a guy who are awesome. I go out with the girls all the time (the guy isn't 21 yet and has his own college friends), and we get along really well.

- When the girls are on a date together and doing their own thing on the weekend, I force myself to go out to the bars and clubs alone to meet new people. I've made several friends this way and hooked up with a lesbian one night.

- Check out craigslist. I've posted on there just to say something like, "hey, I'm new to the area, anyone care to show me some fun places?" Post your pic too, or you'll probably get zero responses. I recommend posting under "strictly platonic: m4w", and you'll get several girls bored at home who will be happy to go out with you...unless you have a crazy bitch g/f who gets mad because you hang out with other girls.

I moved to Seattle and only knew my girlfriend (now wife) at the time. I eventually met people through 2p2 (GuyOnTilt, Dids, KJS, beset, and many others) who became close friends. Furthermore, I joined group activities and coached a LL baseball team.

It worked out very well for me. I was in an unhealthy situation in Cleveland, OH and remedied it by an extreme life change.

Thanks for the responses so far. This is a big life change and its comforting to hear other peoples stories.

I am def embracing the change, and can see many positives coming from this.

Kyle, at least you moved to a city with baseball....

Agree with the group house thing - I moved to VA knowing 0 people and into a house with 3 other people.

It really helped to have regular people to go out with.

Also, hopefully your coworkers are young/cool. This makes a really big difference.

redundancy ftw

Join a running club or a softball league. Casual athletic clubs are more about socializing than training and new members should be warmly welcomed.

Uh....I did? Until the hiring of Zdurienieciecjdk, I'm not sure the Mariners could be called a baseball team.

I suspect that this would have helped me immensely. It was quite difficult for me, since I worked from home at PokerStars over the Interwebs. Still, I managed.

I plan on doing this a couple of times over the next couple of years if I can re-learn poker and make a modest income I would like to do that.

I would suggest looking on meetup.com. When I moved to California I found several social and work related groups that I have met several friends through.

Thanks for "tabula rosa", I get a one day head start on my 2009 goal of learning a new word or phrase each day.

Is this for BofA? The 1999-2002 era bank had a long history of inducing people to move from SF/NY/Chicago to Charlotte and then effing them up the ass.

Nope, thanks for the heads up though.

Everyone should do this at least once, even if it's only for a year or two.

Have done this once successfully 3 years ago and might do it again this summer. Its really not that bad, and its kinda nice to get a totally fresh start. Use it as an excuse to ditch any bad habits you may want to get rid of, its an opportunity to totally reinvent your lifestyle and routine.

Heh, I was thinking BofA too.

My very limited experience of Charlotte tells me that it's a fairly cool place to be. It's not all that southern, given all the northerners who have moved in over the last ~15 years.

My life has consisted of moving from one place to another knowing at most my immediate family (as a child). It's good in some ways, but a close friend (albeit one I've only known since the last move) believes it ****ed me up.

Personally I think it rocks and gives you a chance to focus on whats important or start something new or whatever.

i did something like this this year but ended up just staying inside my apt alot, playin poker. maybe im just a bit antisocial

Go to a bar and meet nukkas

im not sure i have enough self confidence to go to a bar alone. that seems weird to me. do you just approach guys and start talking to them? i wouldnt want to seem like im hitting on them. like going out with a group of my friends i could stop by a table of guys and talk about a sports team or whatever if one of them was wearing a baseball cap or something and then continue on after chatting for a few minutes, but to just stop and stay there for a long time without moving on would be awkward for me.

i live in charlotte

not really southern compared to the states below us, lots of people from other places
baseball most people just pull for the braves or the team wherever they came from
good food = bojangles

if you have anything specific let me know, im about to turn 20 and have been here my whole life

Excuse me sir, but may i give you a bit of advice, if you are moving to the south, i would refrain from making stereotypical, condescending, comments about the people in your community and with whom you will be sharing your life.

Instead follow these suggestions: Learn to love grits, change your name to Big Bubba Bob Eddie, trade in your Cubs cap for a Dale Earnhardt belt buckle, sell your foreign sports car for an old beat up pick up truck with a gun rack in the back window, complete with three hunting dogs barking and hanging out in the truck bed amongst the numerous empty Budweiser beer cans and don't forget the silver imitation bull balz hanging from the rear bumper. Do this and ya'll will be fine!

I will soon be moving out to a brand new city myself.

The city is reasonably close to my *old* city so i guess i will still see my current friends in the weekends once in a while but my weekly live will be totally empty. I recently started working on my social network by just contacting some persons i vaguely know that live in the city, which would help with the initial start i guess. It's always good to have 1-3 initial persons around that drop by sometimes to eat something or want to go for drinks. It felt a bit awkward to contacting the persons again but there is nothing to lose and much to gain, which i think is an attitude i will need.

My plan is to look for at least 2-3 days of outdoor evening activities to fill up my week with some fun and avoid sitting in my place the entire time this way, see if i can build myself some kind of friend group from those of course. I personally think the main challenge is to be active and participate in lot of events/things even if you don't have your friends around to go with. Most people describe me as very social/outgoing and say i will absolutely be fine but I do think i will have to put some effort in by engaging in activities instead of playing poker at home for sick profits.
Of course you also need to luckbox a bit and meet the right people on the right moment, met some random persons last year that threw a lot of parties/event if you are lucky enough to meet 1-3 of these persons then your social life will expand really fast.

Suici