On March 1, 2025, I moved to Mexico City.
I had already been in Mexico for a decade, and I felt just burned out in every sense of the word, including the literal one, because Puerto Vallarta, where I lived before, is hot. Very hot. It also lacked the kind of stimulation I need in life. I wanted new adventures. I wanted a “big girl” city. I wanted new challenges, so I took the leap.
The Scale Of It
By the time I moved I had visited Mexico City a handful of times, and I loved it. But there is a huge difference between traveling through a city, sightseeing and being in it like a tourist, and dropping yourself into the middle of it and calling it home. Suddenly I was facing things I hadn’t realized about myself, and also a few things I had totally realized and was ready to face. But the actual work is always different from the idea of the work, and the learning curve was steep. I threw a lot at myself all at once.
What shocked me most was the sheer size of the place. I moved to one of the bougiest, most “easy” neighborhoods in CDMX, and I was still paralyzed by it. I would want to go out for food and I’d freeze, overwhelmed by the options. The idea of simply going out and about by myself would give me that same overwhelmed feeling too.
I have never really minded going out by myself, and I have never once in my life been at a loss for what to eat. Yet there I was, a grown woman in a city of endless (incredible) restaurant options, unable to pick one and just go.
So I gave myself some grace and for the first month, I did a whole lot of Uber Eats. I would stay cocooned at home in my brand new big beautiful city and just… get Uber Eats. But after a month of that, I promised myself no more delivery. The places I had been ordering from became the places I would walk to. I already knew the menu, so all I had to do was get there. I feel like these baby steps gave my wild new life some structure, which is a nice thing when everything else you’re doing feels like a free fall.
These days I’ll summon a stranger’s car on the internet and go anywhere that looks good. I also generally have a much better idea of where I am.
“OMG, Where Even AM I?”
In those first months anxiety hobbled me like never before. I remember sometimes thinking “no but seriously where AM I??” If someone asked me to describe my location, I couldn’t do it. And anyway, anyone I described it to would have had to live here for a while to know what I was talking about, and I had no local friends. I was truly out in the wild somewhere.
That realization hit me hard. If I had an emergency, no one would know.
Where I am and who I am became very loud noises in my world.
The Friend Problem
One of the reasons I left the place I had invested a decade of my life in is that my friend group felt limited. I wanted more friends with different viewpoints, ideas, and experiences. But when I got to Mexico City, I started finding the same type of friends because the only people I knew here were friends of friends from the place I just left. Loaner friends. So I found the exact loneliness I had been trying to shake. I realized I needed to branch out a lot. Like, way out.
I had to ask myself some honest questions. What do I actually want and need from friendships? What does this situation feel like? How does this person make me feel? What is my nervous system doing? And some harder harder ones: how do I be my own friend while I figure it out? Do I even like me?
We are the one constant in our own lives. Every friend, every city, every chapter comes and goes, but we are the ones who are always there. So it’s worth checking in with ourselves regularly, and acting on what we hear. (This is where I think journaling can really help.)
These days I am constantly checking in on myself, and what I need in each moment of the day. Living in one of the largest cities in the world has made my own world somewhat small, and I love that it happened that way. A place this huge, with this much energy moving in every direction all the time, is an invitation to look at yourself in new ways, and to befriend parts of you that you’ve ignored, or didn’t know, or maybe even understand.
In a place where you can do and be anything, being 100% yourself (warts and all) is a great place to start. Around here, no one cares what you’re doing, who you are, or even if you are. Which is oddly freeing, but it also means you’re the one who has to do the caring.
Ideas For Making Friends In A New City
Go where your people already gather online. I joined Reddit and found some good Mexico City groups for foreigners. Those led me to WhatsApp groups, and in those groups I found friends with similar interests. This was probably the single most useful thing I did. I imagine this can be done in any new city: Facebook groups, Meetup, local subreddits, group chats, etc.
Do things that you enjoy doing, not just because you want friends. Getting acquainted goes more smoothly when there’s something you like to do together. A class, a run club, a book group, a volunteer shift, a language exchange, whatever. The activity does the heavy lifting when conversation feels awkward.
Keep showing up. It takes roughly 50 hours together to go from acquaintance to casual friend, about 90 more to become a friend, and over 200 hours for a close friend. Time spent socializing counts more than time spent working together. That is an encouraging bit of news to me, because it means a lack of friends in a new place isn’t a personality flaw. It’s a time thing.
Become a regular. In my first apartment, I lived above a restaurant. I would go downstairs and eat probably 3 times a week on average. I learned everyone’s names, and they learned mine. I struggled through basic conversations in Spanish, and they let me. I still go there every other month or so, and it always feels like coming home. I take friends there, and I feel kind of like Norm on that old show Cheers, when he’d walk through the door and everyone would say “NORM!” in unison.
Be the one to invite. You can’t make people spend time with you, but you can show interest by inviting them. If you click with someone in a group chat, invite them to coffee, or a walk, or lunch. Change the context.
Mix it up. One of the challenges of being a foreigner is that it’s easy to fall in with the foreigner crowd and stay there. Mexico City has so many options that you can actually get stuck in the opposite position with too many crowds. Too many options. But a mix of foreigners and locals, and a little more Spanish than I had before, have helped make CDMX feel more like what I was looking for.
Be picky, kindly. Notice how people make you feel. What does your nervous system do when you’re around them? We are allowed to want friends who feel safe and good, and it’s OK to drift away from folks who don’t. That’s not mean, it’s self-friendship, it’s looking out for number one. When I didn’t have any friends here I tried to like everyone I met. But that’s not realistic for me or for them. We are not everyone’s cup of tea. No biggy.
Same Feelings, Different Zip Code
I emigrated to Mexico in the first place because I was done with the US. I was exhausted by so much of life there, and feeling stuck. And after ten years in Vallarta, the same feelings crept in. A lot of that was me. I had allowed life to run me instead of running my life.
I used to joke before I left that “this place can’t hold me anymore!” I felt like I had hit the ceiling of friends, opportunities, learning, all of it. In Mexico City I had thrown myself in the deep end, which some days I regretted, but honestly these last couple of years I have learned so much about myself that I probably never would have learned otherwise. I’m still learning all the time. Life feels expansive in a way it never has before.
Would I Go Back?
Sometimes I wonder if life would feel less stifling now if I moved back to Puerto Vallarta. I still miss some dear friends there, a lot. But I think I’ve changed too much. The answer from this “new” me would never be yes, because I know myself too well now. Everything that frustrated me about the place is still there, exactly as it was. And yes, it’s still hot af.
But I’m eternally grateful for the stepping stone that Vallarta was… a vital first step to becoming the person I am now, and the person I’ll keep becoming.
If you’re standing in a new city, or a new chapter, feeling very small and slightly sick to your stomach, you’re in good company! Order the Uber Eats. And when you’re ready, walk to the restaurant. Baby steps. You got this.
Peace and love to you, wherever this message finds you.
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