I have a decent amount of money saved up, and I think I might be able to get away with making a break for outside my parents basement and my yeehaw hometown. I figure that I’m not going to get any younger now’s my chance to make some experiences in my 20s and do a hell of a lot of catching up.

For opsec reasons, I won’t say where I hope to move to but it’s going to be a HCOL area. Yeah, seems dumb but worth it if it means being surrounded by like-minded people and people who wouldn’t want me dead. As I’m going about this process I have a bunch of questions to help bring this goal into reality and help me stay successful in starting my life in earnest.

1. What are some things to look out for when looking for an apartment?

2. What are some important things that are rarely mentioned in “first apartment lists” to help with quality of life?

3. How do I find roommates? While I would probably be my happiest in a studio, I think there’s an advantage to roommates in both housing costs and holding me accountable to not being a total slob.

4. How do I build a support system literally from the ground up? Or would I be in a more advantageous place if I looked at places where I had at least a friend or family member near the city? How do I make friends, and n*twork (I hate that term) to help with job prospects?

5. What can I do to better help myself get noticed for the better by employers? The reason I am in this mess in the first place of wasting most of my 20s is both depression and the fact employers ignore me. The job market is saturated and I still want to do this anways. Are there some skills I can learn and if so, how do I prove it?

6. What are some HCOL survival tips? Yeah, I get it, I’m going from zero to one hundred here but I’m hoping to rely more on public transit so cars aren’t an issue, but what else can I do? I will gladly be broke in a place with actual things to do.

7. Are there any pointers I haven’t touched up on that you think might be helpful?

Thank you so much, this is a bit nerve wracking but I think I’ll feel better by hearing very human responses from people of varying age groups.

EDIT: Yeah, the “move out with no job lined up” was dumb and I should have known better. Changed to a better question.

Hey c/self_improvement.

Right now I’m really hitting a bad part of my journey. I’m seriously doubting my reason to keep going. I put in all this work and I almost never see any reward for it. Can’t lose fat no matter how hard I work out. I’m totally unemployable and while I have a summer gig right now, I can’t live through another 9 months of unemployment and I know that’s what’s in my future because no employer wants to touch me with a ten foot pole.

Right now, I’m looking at taking some college courses. But what’s the point if I’m not top of my class? No employer would want to hire me if I’m not perfect in every conceivable way. I have nothing to offer the world that literally everyone else can’t. It’s like I am ontologically inferior to everyone.

EDIT: thank you so much for all these responses.

The toilet has a seat!

I made an off-color comment I fully regret intending to just target chuds, and had some VERY bad implications like something straight out of Idiocracy. Sorry to anyone who read that and apologies to the mods.

Yeah, that’s it. That was dickish of me, and I know misanthropy’s a real problem of mine.

Kind of going on an organization kick rn, and it’s actually pretty interesting on how back in the day, unions also served as community hubs similar to churches.

I want to go to a DSA meeting soon and see how I vibe, because as much as we may all lament the loss of community. I think it’s important for the left to learn how to build one, because the fascists most certainly have.

With UlyssesT out there touching grass, I haven’t seen this thread in a while. What in the past do you NOT miss? It could be very personal or just something everyone experienced but doesn’t anymore.

For me, I am so fucking happy the food scene in burgerland has changed since the 2000s. People seem to enjoy more well-seasoned foods and healthier options seem to outstrip the unhealthy slop I remember in the 2000s. Even my yee-yee ahh Ohio suburb has changed somewhat noticeably to support fresh ingredients. Less WASPslop is always good.

How about y’all?

I spoke about it before but whenever I have things I need to do, I find myself putting them off even when I'm out of the house in no small part because of how constantly busy traffic is. I may live in the middle of nowhere, but it's car dependent so there are near constant traffic jams.

Even at the grocery store I find myself wandering aimlessly because of how constantly packed the place is. The gym? It's full all the time too so it's hard for me to actually do my workout. When I'm actually in traffic I feel myself getting more and more angry and irritated. I despise how poverty forces me to stay a basement dweller in rural Ohio, I despise how slow going from point a to point b is because of how busy traffic is at all times. It makes me sad seeing fire trucks not go anywhere because of how backed up traffic is.

I think it's cutting a lot into my productivity in trying to find a job and get myself off my feet when I have to take care of other things, and I wonder if any neurodiverse people feel the same way.

To me, Silicon Valley is a confusing beast. I'm not sure if this is remaining liberalism but there are some things about it (on the surface level) that I find admirable: it's generally science-positive and is a beacon of intellectualism in the US, even if tech is not your cup of tea I like the idea of some people being in the "problem solving business", and if I must participate in capitalism then working for a company that helps with sustainability in SV doesn't sound too bad. Not ideal, but leagues more tolerable than working on an oil field.

However, this facade crumbles at even the quickest glance and it sometimes almost becomes just as nakedly reactionary as the oil and gas industry. Elon Musk is practically the poster child of Silicon Valley and was a lib that just needed one scratch to give up the ghost and go full fash. Silicon Valley is literally acting like an Ayn Rand villain. Silicon Valley has also practically soured my attitudes towards technology and some of that can be blamed on pretty much all new "innovations" just being inventing a new form of landlordism. Even many of the people in the supposed blue city are complete and utter fash, the whole thing feels like it's permanently an 80s Wall Street movie but with tech.

Is there like any books that can better explain Silicon Valley and what it actually stands for?