Sometime during the pandemic, my sister asked if, as someone with a lot of friends, I ever feel lonely. My answer was absolutely. There were stretches when everyone just happened to be busy, leaving me with no one to talk to or hang out with. Or just sometimes getting in my head a bit. Moving to England gave me a chance to experience a different kind of loneliness.
The First Year
During my first few months, I hated it here. The night before my sister went back home, we both cried. A lot. I was overwhelmed by all the things I hadn’t expected to be different. The internet had told me the UK was accessible—praised London for it—but I hadn’t realized how different “accessible” could look in practice. I wanted to go home but also didn’t want to feel like I’d wasted my and my family’s money getting here.
So my sister told me to give it until January. If I still wasn’t happy, no one would judge. She and my brother-in-law would come back with all of the suitcases (my room was far too tiny to fit them ), we’d pack it all up, and I’d go home.
I cried a good amount the day she left—and many times after. I had no friends yet. I wasn’t fully comfortable navigating, both on and off campus. I spent a lot of time inside, by myself.
Though I woke up fairly early for classes (a habit that carried into my days off), I often didn’t get out of bed until around eleven or noon. With New York five hours behind, it meant it wouldn’t be long until someone back home was awake and I’d have someone to talk to as I went about my day.
I spoke with my sisters and friends every day. They offered to take virtual walks with me to help me get more comfortable with the area or were available for emergency FaceTime calls when I over- or undershot something on campus. That constant contact was actually why one of my best friends told me she was pregnant before her first trimester was over. She’d complained a few times about not sleeping or feeling well, and one day she finally cut herself off and said:
“Listen, I’m just going to tell you. We talk all the time—you probably would’ve figured it out anyway.”
On the London side of things, I was developing a relationship with my aunt-in-law—my brother-in-law’s aunt. Before my sister and brother-in-law went back home after helping me move, she told my sister to send me her number in case I needed anything. I no longer remember if the first thing I reached out about was setting up a bank account or getting a Halloween costume—perhaps it was just to say thank you for the offer. Either way, we started going on biweekly lunch dates. I got to know her, tried out delicious restaurants, and forced myself to get more comfortable traveling here (navigating a new country as a blind person will be its own post).
At this point, I was also marking my days by when family and friends were going to visit. Spending time with Sandra helped me watch the calendar a little less.
I also had classmates inviting me out or helping where they could. On my very first day of school—since my class had been moved to a different building at the last minute—my professor met me in the morning and walked with me there. Later, when I confusedly left the building, map out and ready to find the supermarket I’d only walked to once or twice before, someone offered to help me get there.
One classmate invited me to lunch, another to her Halloween party. Some invited me to a pub after school events, and others offered to help me keep learning the area. I made a friend in the choir I joined and was slowly coming out of my loneliness shell as my relationships with all these people began to sort themselves out. Some were becoming “school friends” or “event friends,” while others I was actively making plans with.
A few weeks after moving, I updated my location on dating apps. I let it be another push toward gaining confidence traveling—if I was going on dates, I definitely wanted to be comfortable with my surroundings. I had a series of conversations that went nowhere before I started dating Matt. Spending time with him became another brick in the foundation of my social life here. (I’d also like to note the universe’s humor: we went on our first date two weeks before I went back home for New Year’s—and just under a month before that January “reassess my life” deadline.)
After School
In March 2023, I got an email from my residence hall saying my room wouldn’t be available over the summer (the program ended in September). The idea of moving all my things out in May only to move again in September sounded overwhelming, so I started looking for an apartment.
Ultimately, I ended up moving in with one of Matt’s friends—it was my first time living with a roommate. There were a few kinks to work out, but overall it was a good experience.
After some time though, the money I’d carefully budgeted from my student loans started to run out, and my job hunt was proving unsuccessful. I began paying attention to the posts from immigrants and citizens alike about how poor the job market had become. Of particular interest were posts from people in a similar position to me—those applying for or already on a graduate visa—and how many of them were worrying that employers weren’t interested in temporary workers.
The catch-22 of the graduate visa is that while it allows you to work for two years without sponsorship, once those two years are up, you have to either switch to another visa or find an employer willing to sponsor you. So for many employers, hiring a graduate visa holder just delays the inevitable need for sponsorship. So money and housing were quickly becoming issues.
But at that time, I was still hopeful. So I applied for the visa, then a few months later moved in with Matt and his roommates and continued job hunting. I had a brief internship with RNIB, but that was it. I’d been struggling a bit with loneliness before, but this is when it really started to pick up. With less money, I couldn’t go out as much. And those friendships I mentioned earlier? Most didn’t last beyond the activities that initially brought us together.
I started exploring less. Often I’d just go to a local café when I got tired of being inside, but everything cost money. And the loneliness that had been lingering in the wings began peeking its head around the curtain. When I was living with Matt and his roommates, it helped to have people around. Even if we weren’t interacting all the time, there was comfort in knowing others were there. But then we moved out of London and into our own place.
It was—and still is—great having our own space. But it was another adventure: learning a new area and dealing with bus drivers who didn’t announce my stop. I found myself spending too much time alone. Working as an audiobook narrator, while neat, only made that worse—it’s an extremely solitary job.
There’s nothing wrong with spending time by yourself, but when it starts to feel like that’s all you do, it can become all-encompassing. Of course, I have Matt, uni friend (Ducky) the person who invited me to her Halloween party, my aunt (Sandra), and Matt’s friends, who I now consider my own. But I sometimes can’t help comparing it to my core back in New York: the many people I can hang out with on a couch or go on an adventure with, no planning required.
There are stretches when I don’t engage much with anyone outside of Matt—or with anyone at all. The time zones don’t help. When I wake up, I often don’t have anyone to talk to until midday or later. By the time the US people are up and getting ready for work—or winding down for the day—I’ve settled into the flow of work,, am hanging out with Matt, or just not in the mood to chat anymore. So then when Matt’s out, that silence doubles.
I try to be mindful that Matt doesn’t feel the weight of my lack of socializing—but I know he sometimes does. It puts a different kind of stress on each of us. For me, it’s a quiet ache I feel self-conscious to name out loud; for him, it’s the worry of whether he should be doing more. He always tells me, “If you ever want me to stay home, just say so,” but I feel intensely uncomfortable doing that. I’m always aware—perhaps hyperaware—of resentment forming, even if it never would.
I think we underestimate how much the small, everyday interactions matter—the coworkers you chat with, the person at the shop, the neighbor who says hi. I do take walks and still go to cafés sometimes, but the lack of meaningful engagement takes its toll. At the end of the day, I’m still sitting in that café not really interacting with anyone and spending money I could be saving for something more engaging—like actually going out with friends.
As a consummate overthinker, spending endless time in my own head isn’t great. I sometimes even find myself dreading being inside. Sometimes, it’s just hard. It’s hard being lonely. It’s hard dealing with the sadness that comes with that. It makes the loneliness feel very… stark.
I’ve seen many expats talk about how differences between similar countries—like the US and UK—can actually feel more jarring because you expect them to be the same. Going somewhere completely different, like Senegal or Japan, forces a shift in perspective. But moving from the US to the UK feels deceptively familiar. You speak the same language, watch the same shows—you feel safe in your expectations. Until suddenly, the differences sneak up on you. Oreos taste the same, but the soup flavors are completely different. (And the hot dogs? Why are they in a jar?!)
When I talk about being homesick for friends, family, and familiar places, I used to feel like I had to add, “But I still love it here. There is still so much to explore.” I’d start explaining all the logistics Matt and I would have to figure out if we ever moved to NY, because I expect the question: “Well, why did you move?”
The answer is simple: because it was my dream—and I made it happen. But there’s no way I could have predicted the turns life would take. It’s one thing to read about homesickness, it’s another to feel it. It’s one thing to be hopeful as you build friendships, it’s another to find yourself wondering, a few years later, why they fizzled out.
It’s okay for me to be homesick sometimes. It’s not all the time. I lived in New York for nearly twenty-six years. It’s especially okay when I’m struggling. I’m also aware of reverse culture shock and that many of my friends have moved or are in different phases of life.
It’s easy to dwell on what’s hard—and how simple things might feel if I were in the same time zone as my people. But I also know that my idea of “home” is a perfect memory of something that doesn’t quite exist anymore. Places have changed. People have moved. And our president is… well, that’s probably a whole other post.
It’s Not All Doom and Gloom
I still go to London to spend time with aunt Sandra and Ducky. When Matt and his family went on a short trip over the summer, Sandra stayed the night so I wouldn’t go days without human contact. Ducky also came over and spent a day. And, while the timings may not always work out, I still have my friends and family in the US who are always there when I want or need them. Sometimes I have standing calls with them while they get ready for work or plan virtual dates.
I still sometimes muster the energy to go on adventures because I do genuinely feel there’s more to explore here. The relationships I’m forming are ones I value—though if COVID and moving taught me anything, it’s that distance isn’t what makes true closeness. Getting more established as a narrator will help increase my income, but, until then, there’s the dual problem that connections are what make this life feel fulfilling—and building those connections often costs money: traveling, eating out, going places before that level of comfort can be formed.
Matt and I are also slowly building bonds in our new community—having local shop owners and National Rail staff recognize and chat with us when they see us. Those smaller, though no less significant, connections are growing. And as noted above, they matter too.
I’m also planning to get back into group hobbies, though that comes with its own cost-balancing act. I’ve also been (unsuccessfully) trying to make connections on Bumble BFF.
And finally, there’s the American Expats UK subreddit, which is a lifesaver—for finding American equivalents of products, commiserating over the loneliness, and appreciating the parts of this life that are good or just different.
An Expat Experience—or Just a Human One
This feeling is far from unique to me. The details vary, but new mothers, other expats, and people who’ve moved to a new city or town within the same country all deal with loneliness. It’s already hard making friends as an adult—add moving to another country with different social norms, and, well, it certainly doesn’t make things easier. The core group I mentioned from New York? They’re friends I’ve had for at least a decade. Many of the people you meet as an adult also have their cores, people they may have known for just as long, and sometimes just aren’t interested in expanding. Hobbies are also a great way to meet people, but it can be frustrating when the friendship doesn’t go beyond that. (I think that’s what happened with the others I’d become situational friends with. Once university or choir were over, they already had their own core groups to get back to.)
And if all of that wasn’t enough, add being visibly disabled to the mix. Sometimes, at those group hobbies or events, people put me in a weird box as soon as I enter the space. It’s as though needing a guide or a quick visual description automatically makes me childlike in their eyes. Their tones get softer or higher when they talk to me—or to the person next to me as though visual acuity correlates to agency. It’s different from the people on the street who are far too comfortable asking intrusive questions about my vision. Either way, it gets exhausting when I’m blind before I’m anything else.
No, it doesn’t always happen—and sometimes I have to catch myself from feeling grateful just because someone talks to me like a human. Of course they should. I’m an interesting person, and it’s their failing if they don’t see that. But as true as that is, it’s not always at the front of my mind.
In short, it sucks. But there’s nothing to do except keep trying. I do still sometimes feel frustrated that, after three years, I don’t have a bigger circle—but I also know it’s a work in progress. And there’s some comfort, oddly enough, in knowing that loneliness is, ironically, a communal experience.