KEY POINTS:
*Sigh*
I've been a bit down lately - not in a mopey and depressed kind of way - just in an I'm-so-bored-I-could-cry kind of way.
At first I thought it was winter. Being cooped up in an office all day, only to go home and be cooped up again because
it's too cold and wet to venture outside. Perhaps I am suffering Vitamin D deficiency from lack of sunshine?
But I've come to realise that's not the case. After all, I've survived many a winter before this and never gone stir-crazy.
I have realised I am suffering from abandonment issues.
Okay, so perhaps that a touch melodramatic, but you get the point.
In the past 18 months, at least eight of my close friends have moved overseas, as well as dozens more peripheral friends.
None of them plan to return home in the foreseeable future.
Another batch is planning to deploy in August, which will see my social circle wilt even further.
In fact, the only friends remaining in the country are those too attached to leave - and no, I don't mean attached to our fair nation.
It seems the only people remaining in New Zealand these days are those too happily shacked up to leave. Which means they may as well not be here because you never see them anyway.
Even Flicker, my perennial wingman, best friend and confidant has abandoned me.
The girl who never had a boyfriend - never wanted a boyfriend - has gone and paired up with a man she met on NZ Dating and now spends her weekends in isolation somewhere out west.
While I miss our drunken escapades and weekly debriefs considerably, what I miss more - and this is true of all my friends currently MIA - is having people to hang out with. To go to brunch, mooch around and generally do nothing with . . .
I'm sure I'm not the only person in this predicament. There must be other 20-somethings suffering from the Great OE Exodus.
Perhaps we should start a support group? Coffee mornings and social mixers.
Of course it would never work, because as we have established in earlier discussions, we Kiwis aren't terribly open to meeting new people.
So, once again, I open the floor to discussion. How to overcome this sorry state of affairs? Is it just me or are there others out there?
I should also add, before I am swamped by a flood of emails asking why I don't go overseas myself, that I have no desire to leave at this point in time.
I have a job I love, I like being close to my family and I'm just not ready to go.
Having grown up overseas, I've already seen a lot of the world. And while there are certain places I would like to further explore, I don't have the burning desire many Kiwis do to 'get the hell out of here'.
Plus there's the minor detail of my brother's wedding in February and the fact my mother will disown me if I'm not here for it . . .