A new Canadian has arrived!

CanaDAN

New member
Hello everyone, this is my first post, so greeting to you all. Seems my story is going to sound very familiar to most of the introductions.

I'm 26 years old, currently living in Toronto, Canada. I've never been to a doctor or anything, so I don't know if I have social disorder technically speaking, but I suspect I do. I'm a very shy and solitary kind of person. I've been this way ever since I was 16-17 years old when I had to change schools and put on a lot of weight over one summer. I lost most of my childhood friends around that time and became sort of an outcast.

I think I am using my weight problem as barricade to any social relationships in life. Time after time of being rejected or mocked because of my size, I started to assume everyone dislikes me and I shouldn't even make an effort anymore until I can get into shape and look good. Well, it’s been 10 years and I'm still not in shape. I've had a few ups and downs with the battle. I was once down to about 200lbs and I saw how people treated me differently. So much more kindly. I had a girlfriend around that time, but sadly it didn't last. Right now I weigh about 245lbs which is an improvement. I was up around 260lbs at Christmas time.

I have no friends in my life. Not even one person I can talk with or call on the phone. My family all live in different cities and I'm not very tight with any of them. So much so I haven't seen my mother or father in 2 years and I've only talked with them on the phone a handful of times because I am ashamed of how my life is going. I want to have something good to tell them. I'm sure they think I am wasting my youth and becoming a nothing. Perhaps I have wasted a lot of time, but I have worked as an English teacher in several foreign countries and traveled to many places that most people would consider a challenge. Being a solitary and independent person it is very simple to travel.

My goal for this year is to finally lose weight and get myself into shape, find a better job and pay off my credit card debts, save up about $5,000 and move to Europe. I want to live over there permanently. It's not an escape, I just like the way of life a lot more. After living in a few countries that are less well off, I came to realize that Canadian and American culture is very commerical and superficial. There is so much more culture and opportunity to travel in Europe that don't exist in North America. I moved back to Canada last summer after being away for a year. I think it was a mistake to have come back because I have done very little with myself here. It’s been hard to find employment and hard to make ends meet financially. Toronto is a nice city I suppose. Lots of ethnicity, lots of variety and lots of different places to spend money. But if you don't have any money, it can be very boring here.

Ok, well I hope that gives you an idea of who I am!


:D
 

Meow

Well-known member
Hi, I'm new too :)

I can relate to the family issues, not being close and living far away etc. And it's very sad you don't have any friends, i'm sure you will make some new ones here. I do have friends but they all live far away and I wouldn't say we're extremely close anyway.

Maybe you should see a doctor and seek some help so you can try for a better life and get around to meeting some new people and some new friends :) It's good you want to get into shape, but losing weight won't fix all of your problems. I'm sure it will make you feel better about yourself but anyone who treats someone differently because of their size isn't worth being friends with any way!!

I'm conflicted on the whole Europe thing, I live in California but I am British and lived there all my life untill I moved here about 2 and a half years ago. I recently went back to visit for the first time since I moved and found every thing different and just wanted to come home here because this is what I am used to now. What part of Europe do you want to move to out of curiosity?
 
Hiya, welcome to the site :)

Settling in after moving somewhere new is tough for anyone, so for an SA-er it can be a real struggle so I hope everything goes well for you in Europe, and remember in the difficult times that it'll be worth it one day.

Put your feet up and someone will point out the coffee machine :wink: Hope you settle in quickly and make some good friends here, I'm sure you will :D
 

Meow

Well-known member
I definatley agree! it's really difficult to adjust to moving somewhere new, especially people like us.
 
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