Moving to London at any stage of your life can be a stressful experience, but in a pandemic it is especially hard.
With offices closed and bars and pubs shuttered the social alienation can feel very real, and with London’s exorbitant rent prices – it can seem hard to see what the point of living in the capital is.
That was certainly the conclusion one Reddit user came to, posting a message titled: “Living in London, am I doing it wrong?”
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The user has been dissatisfied with their housing situation
(Image: Getty Images/Flickr RM)
The user, who says they immigrated to the country from Europe, spoke eloquently about the problems they had faced in their short time in the capital.
They said: “I moved here less than a year ago (during the pandemic) hoping that once it will be over I would experience the famous ‘exciting life’ London has to offer.
“But since a few weeks/month I feel a bit disappointed by life here.
“It’s my second job after uni so even thought I have a decent salary I feel like it’s not enough to find a decent place to live that will feel like a proper home rather than a people storage.
“I just feel like I’m compromising a lot, living with strangers, in tiny flats without living rooms. But in exchange, I don’t feel like it’s worth all the money wasted especially now with the WFH revolution.
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“Knowing that I come from a medium-sized city in Southern Europe it’s also quite hard to live with strangers after 5 years comfortably living on my own.
“It feels like I had a better quality of life as a student than here working my ass off. Not because my parents are rich or anything but because of housing prices.
“I’ve met quite a lot of people but struggle or make any good friends that I can see on a regular basis as the city is huge.
“I know my problems are shallow… but I guess I just needed to vent, leaving is not an option at the moment.”
But in true London spirit, hundreds of strangers flocked to the comments of the despondent post to reassure them that things would get better.
Touching on the user’s working from home fears, one user reassured them that things would eventually return to normal.
They explained: “Hospitality and retail will never be WFH, and a percentage of any population will always prefer living in a city. If anything WFH will drive down property prices in London and replace office blocks with flats.
“The city will bounce back eventually but, like others have said, we’re still in a pandemic. On the arse-end, hopefully, but still a pandemic.”
Another urged the user to look on the brighter side, writing: “I had a similar experience. It will get better: your salary should (hopefully) increase, you might end up living with your boyfriend instead of a sharehouse, etc.”
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One user closed by asking the person to reconsider their attitude to the capital, promising that in time, they’d begin to live their best life.
They said: “The city itself can get quite overwhelming because there’s just so much to do, and admittedly I was quite lucky when I first moved down as I had friends who had moved too, but really make time and effort to explore.
“That helped me a lot. It’s a marvellous place, it really is.”
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