Nine months in this city and I still do not know a soul in it

I moved up for work in January. In the city I came from I had been at this seven years, I knew people, and a conversation with somebody new started from a position of basic credibility. Here I have discovered that all of that stayed behind, and I might as well have arrived from nothing.

Twenty nine, city centre, in a flat with a view of a building site.

What has surprised me is how much this place runs on second hand information. Down south you could be a stranger indefinitely and nobody minded. Here I get the strong sense that people ask about you, that the answer travels faster than you do, and that arriving with no answer at all is worse than arriving with a mixed one.

I am not complaining about it. Having watched what an unchecked stranger can do to somebody, I think this city has the better system. I am simply starting a long way back and would rather say so.

What I want is a structured arrangement with real duties, over years rather than months. I am reliable, I am useful in a house, and I am good at the ordinary parts.

What I am asking for from anybody reading is patience with somebody who cannot be checked yet, and a willingness to let the checking happen slowly. I have nothing to hide, I simply have nobody to confirm it.

What I do not want is to be told to go to things until I know people. I have been to two. I will keep going. It is slow.