about me, by liz

i like avani's idea of introducing ourselves so i will do it to. i am liz. some of you may know me from my other blog, getinmahbelly. i moved to cincinnati in 2006 for my job. although i spent a good chunk of my childhood in michigan, moving to cincinnati was a total culture shock for me since i had just spent the past 3 years living in NYC. i remember the first time i went to a drive through (wendy's) when i moved here... i was like "how the hell am i going to read the whole menu and pick what i want in the next 10 seconds?"

when i moved here, i knew very few people. there was tom and linnae who i had known in college, and my good friend kathleen who i had met in guatemala and traveled with. kathleen moved away from cincinnati a few months after i moved here, and tom and linnae had been here for years and already had their own circle. so i was pretty much on my own to meet people.

one of the first new people i met in cincinnati was emily, who was my first roommate here. i could not have asked for a better person to meet. emily is really social and was from cincinnati (so she knew a lot of people) but had lived in a few other cities as well (so she understood the importance of connecting with others in a new city). my first weekend in cincinnati was spent moving into emily's apartment. we bonded quickly since i came down with dengue fever right after that (i had just gotten back from a trip to thailand) and she had to take care of me. she invited me to everything she did, introduced me to her friends, and had regular dinners at our apartment where she invited all kinds of fun people. my first few months in cincinnati were great thanks to emily.

i had to move out after about three months when my sublease was up and emily's former roommate came back to town. after that i went through a string of crazy roommate situations that did not work out and ended up moving into my own apartment. during that time, i was meeting people but not really finding a group. i kept meeting all these people who i would become close friends with but then they would move away (kathleen to st. louis, emily to LA, celia to north carolina, dahrika to boston, etc.). the fact that all my friends kept moving away made it really hard to feel connected here.

fortunately i have always had my book club, which i joined a few months after i moved here. members have changed over time but right now, the book club consists of me, avani, and seven other girls who are either not from cincinnati or who spent a good amount of time away from the city. book club has been my only (more or less) consistent set of friends here.

the thing that has always really bothered me about cincinnati is that i feel like most people just are not that open to really welcoming new people to their social groups. when i moved to new york and was trying to meet new people, everyone i met was constantly inviting me out and introducing me to new people, and i did the same for them. any time you met someone new, you exchanged phone numbers or emails. then you would invite each other to your parties and social events. they would bring their friends and then their friends would start calling or eviting you. the phrase "i feel like i have enough friends," which i have heard a number of times since moving here, was unheard of in new york.

here, it's totally different. there are people that i have been out with ten or fifteen times that still seem totally like superficial acquaintances. when i ask new people for their phone number, i've gotten the "is she crazy?" look on many occasions. groups of people who have known each other for a long time almost always treat me like the "friend of a friend" no matter how many times i have hung out with them. it's all very strange and incomprehensible to me, since i am always interested in meeting new people and expanding my circle. i get bored when i only spend time with the same people all the time.

cincinnati has a lot going for it. there are interesting neighborhoods, really good restaurants, a great arts scene, lots of awesome parks, and low cost of living. but this city is never really going to become what it could be if it can't attract and keep new people in the area. cincinnati needs to get past the insular, we've known each other forever type of social networks that i feel characterize it right now. and instead of bitching about it the way i have been for the past two and a half years, i want to do what i can to change things.