So you graduated college and moved to New York City? Awesome, same. (Well, actually, I first spent a horrible year on Long Island, but we don’t really talk about that anymore.)
Let’s talk about the fact that you’re fresh out of college, and you’ve just been released to wreak havoc in the big city. It’s awesome here. You’ll probably have the best couple years of your life, because there’s a ton of stuff to do.
There’s always something going on, something new to try, and a ton of people getting together to do the things you love.
But-- and this tidbit may come off as a bit surprising-- it’s not all rainbows and butterflies. It’s compromise that moves us along, and you'll definitely encounter some struggles along the way.
8 of those struggles are as follows.
1. No dining hall
Maybe you lived off campus your last couple years of college, so you’re used to not having a dining hall.
Even if you did live off campus and you’re used to cooking, stick with us here.
Food here is expensive, unless you go to Trader Joe’s, but the lines there are usually pretty long. Restaurants are almost completely out of the question, because it’s simply not within your budget.
What are you supposed to do? Hunt? No, young grasshopper. No hunting.
It’s 2015, and it's time to learn to cook.
Learning how to cook is an adventure, and can be an extremely satisfying one-- after lots of trial and error.
2. Fewer friends
In college, you probably lived in a house full of your friends.
If you wanted to see them, all you had to do was walk upstairs and knock on a door. Or, if your friends didn’t live with you, all you had to do was walk across the street or just across campus.
Outside of the glorious bubble of college, seeing your friends becomes much harder. You have to take a subway to see them, or a taxi, or if they don't live in NYC (gasp!), you’ll probably never see them again. (That’s obviously not true, but it's easy to feel confined to this city without a car.)
And it’s easy to loathe the piss-smelling dump that is Penn Station, which you unfortunately most definitely use if you leave this city.
So bottom line is this: post-grad life is much, much lonelier.
3. Fewer booty calls
We already talked about how much harder it is to access your friends.
Well, the same goes for your hookups. If you were hooking up with someone in college, you probably had a pretty great shot of finding him or her at one of the bars.
This obviously varies depending on the size of your college, but it’s much harder to stage an accidental run-in in this city. It’s also much more difficult to get yourself in the physical proximity of your hookup.
If you’re in your bed in, let’s say Harlem, and your hook-up calls you from Brooklyn, and it’s four in the morning... well, that’s probably not going to happen.
This can make you extremely nostalgic for the days when you were in your bed in your sorority house and a boy called from the fraternity house just across the street. In that situation, odds are that hookup was a go.
Ugh, the struggle!
4. Nostalgia
Nostalgia can be a tricky little trickster.
Sure, you weigh at least 15 pounds less than you did in college, and you’re probably both physically and emotionally healthier, yet... it's human nature to resist change.
So when springtime hits, you can’t help but nostalgically reminisce about walking to your politics class below that sweeping willow tree.
You can’t help but yearn for the passionate Shakespeare lectures from that hot professor, even though you know for a fact you almost fell asleep while they were happening.
,5. Money
Things are way worse in terms of money these days.
In college, you could get by reffing intramural sports and tutoring in the library.
That was the perfect amount of money for you to buy cheap cases of Natural Light and burritos from California Tortilla (or Qdoba, Chipotle, or your burrito place of choice).
Now, you have to pay for electricity, taxes, groceries, rent, and transportation. You constantly worry about the number in your bank account, and that's a true bummer.
In college, your biggest problem was whether you’d have enough money to turn your Sunday afternoon into an episode of That 70s Show, and now, your biggest problem is whether you’ll be able to afford your rent.
So, yeah... that’s lame.
6. Learning
Just admit you. You love to learn new things.
But the college environment is unique because you’re there to fill the well of your intellect. There are people whose jobs it is to discuss concepts, ideologies, poetry, math and art with you.
Now, you just have to worry about your crappy job-- which is way less interesting than, let's say, the musings of Plato.
7. Popularity
It’s much harder to be popular in the real world than it was to be popular in the enclosed environment of your college.
In college, you had the security of your sorority, sports team, or group of friends. In the real world, you’re just you. That's it.
You’re not going to be popular in the real world unless you’re Blake Lively, which you’re probably not. Unless you are, in which case... hi Blake! Congrats on your new baby!
Moving on now...
8. It's not socially acceptable to drink all the time
Just kidding. You live in NYC.
Of course it's socially acceptable to drink all the time.
If you know these struggles all too well, check out 5 Struggles of Moving Apartments in NYC.