Finding your community can be tough, but if you get out there, you’ll probably find people just like you. Photo: Ben Appleton.
I met someone last week who had just moved to Canberra. Our paths crossed through our social circles, and when I found out she was a recent arrival to our city, I asked her the question I automatically present to everyone in the same situation I come across – ‘How are you finding it?’, delivered with a sympathetic wince.
Why the wince?
Well, everyone I’ve met who has moved to Canberra post-university has confessed that the transition to their new home has been lonely and difficult. Canberra, apparently, is a tough place to find a community if you’re not being placed into an existing one.
Being a Canberra local, I used to prickle with defensiveness when people told me how isolated they felt in my hometown. I’m used to hearing people from bigger cities bash Canberra as boring and lacking vibrancy, but that’s easy to dismiss as sledging from outsiders who haven’t spent enough time here to have a valid opinion.
But coming from someone who has lived here for almost a year and still feels like they haven’t found a community to be part of, the feedback is harder to ignore and does beg the question if Canberra is just one of those places that’s really hard to move to as an adult.
I’ve had friends jokingly tell me about how their first year in Canberra was so lonely that they became exceptional at knitting due to the many hours spent home alone.
I’ve heard from people who came here for work that after initially living alone, they soon transitioned to a sharehouse as a way to meet people (and also probably to escape the extortionate rents for a one-bedroom residence). The general feedback is that most locals have established networks and aren’t super open to new friends. And unless you have someone who is already connected to Canberra, like a partner or family member, or you enter as part of a cohort of new people, such as a graduate program at work, finding people to befriend can be awkward and take a long time.
In some ways, I’m sceptical that this is a ‘Canberra thing’ – surely moving anywhere new is hard as an adult. That said, I know when I’ve lived in other cities or even countries, it hasn’t been hard for me to find things like events, clubs and groups to connect with. Yes, that approach relies on me being confident and outgoing enough to proactively engage with those opportunities, but I’m wondering if those sorts of networks are easy to find here.
In my own social circles, I am only friends with people who have grown up in Canberra, other than a few mates I met at university and who stayed to make their lives here after graduating. So I can admit that I’m not really open to new friendships, in that I don’t do any social activities where I would meet cohorts of strangers.
Is Canberra a uniquely insular community, making it harder to move to and integrate into our city? Or is making friends as an adult always hard, regardless of where you are? What’s it actually like moving here as an adult?
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