EATING OUT

One of the great things about Dallas is that there are so many cool things to do. Being from Louisiana (the fat capital of the US), one of my favorite things to do is EAT, and there are a ton of great places to do that in big D. There are awesome steak houses, great Italian restaurants, amazing down home cooking joints and everything in between. One thing I suggest is take advantage of this. Some of the places are pretty pricy, but it’s worth it. Eat on the cheap a few nights a week if you have to, but treat yourself to at least one good meal a month. Where I’m from, a great steak house is Outback and an awesome Italian place is Olive Garden. Nothing wrong with either of these (Still 2 of my favorite restaurants), but these are cookie cutter places that you can eat at when you go out of town so you know what you are getting. Ask around and find a really good restaurant and splurge once or twice a month. Not only will it help you grow culturally, but it will make your Dallas experience that much more memorable. Keep it real…

FINDING A PLACE TO LIVE

This could possibly be the biggest decision you make upon moving to Dallas. Everyone I know spends 95% of their time (outside of work) within a 2 mile radius of where they live. If you live in North Dallas, you will go out in North Dallas and your best friends will ultimately live there. Same goes for all the areas around town. I LOVE to go out, so one of the main criteria for me when choosing a place to live is I have to be within walking distance of a bar. I know, sounds kind of dumb, but I don’t drink and drive so I have to be within walking distance of at least a neighborhood bar and within a $5-$10 cab ride of places to go out. I lived in North Dallas for the first 3 years I lived here and I went out on Greenville about 3 times and downtown/uptown about 3 times in my entire first 3 years here, the majority of the other time was spent at Fox and Hound on Midway. Wherever you live, you will become friends with people that go the same places as you, which will ultimately live around you. When you look for a place to live, keep in mind what you like. If you are more of a homely person that doesn’t like to get out much and likes to be out of the way, then North Dallas/Addison area is a good fit. If you like to be in the middle of things and within walking distance to places to eat and bars, then Uptown/Downtown is a good fit for you. Choose an area of Dallas that has a personality like yours. Before you decide where to live, go out in different areas both during the day and at night to take in what they are all about. Ask people that live in those areas what they like and don’t like about it. Some places I recommend checking out before making a decision:

Knox/Henderson
Uptown/Mckinney Ave
Downtown/Main St
Addison/North Dallas
Greenville Ave
West Village

Make sure your place has a kick ass pool as well and ask about the pool scene when you look at apartments. This will be your biggest adversary to making friends during the summer. If your pool is a happening place, you will make friends. Just remember every area has advantages and disadvantages. Think about what you will be doing in most of your down time and live close to a place that has access to that. I love to run, go to events and go out, so I live in a place that I can walk to the Katy Trail, AAC and bars and restaurants. If you are on a tight budget and you can live in a place that has all the amenities around you that you want, but you may have to pinch pennies to live there, I’d say do it. In the long run your quality of life will be much better and you will be a happier person. Not to mention you will live around and meet people that like to do the same things you do. Think of it as an investment in your future. Keep it real…

JOIN A GYM

One of the first things you will notice when you move to Dallas is the people here look amazing. Where I’m from, when you turn 27, you are done. You’re usually married, have a few kids and could care less what you look like, pretty much just fat and happy. Here, people take care of themselves. 35 year olds are in better shape than 20 year olds, everyone looks good. A lot of people have help from surgeons, but there are also a lot of people that are just in shape. One of the smartest investments you can make upon moving to Dallas is to join a gym. I know to some people $40 a month is a lot of money, but think of it as an investment in your future and your social life. If you work out 3-5 times a week, not only will you look better, but you will also feel better. Your attitude will change and your self confidence will rise. You will notice people look at you different not only from the way you look, but from the way you carry yourself because of your new found confidence. One of the hardest things to do is make the time and put forth the effort to go work out and do something physical. It takes 3 weeks to form a habit and only a week to break one. Get regimented and go at the same time on the same days for 3 weeks to get into the routine. Even if you have a hard day at work and you are really tired, go for 15 minutes just to stay in the habit. Give yourself 3 months and I promise you will not only see a difference, but you will feel a difference mentally as well. Not to mention you will be ready to roll to all the kick ass pool scenes around town. Keep it real…

GO!! GET OUT!!!!

Get out of your apartment, get out of your comfort zone, get out of your box, whatever you do GET OUT!!! You will never meet people in this town if you don’t do anything. Take it from me, I lived in North Dallas for a couple of years and the first year of it was spent going to work, coming home and staying in. Guess what, I had about 6 friends the entire first year I lived here and 3 of them were from my home town. GET OUT!! I am a very social person, but I don’t really like to put forth the effort. I’m socially lazy, I love to hang out, but I don’t like to actively reach out to people. It took me almost 4 years to realize you have to do that in this city. Sure if you’re a guy and you actively seek out guys to become friends with some will think you are gay (newcomers, do not practice this on Oaklawn, we will go into this in a later entry), and if you are a girl you will have a hard time finding good girlfriends to hang out because women are generally bitches to other women they initially meet, but this is part of the process of finding good friends in Dallas. For every 75 people you make an effort to hang out with, one will become a good friend. Almost all apartments in Dallas have social functions a couple of times a month, happy hours, parties in the clubhouse, football watch parties, etc. Go to these and meet your neighbors. Any chance you get to hang out with people you work with, GO!! GET OUT!!! Whether it’s a happy hour or volunteering, go do it and introduce yourself to as many people as you can. Go out to bars, even if you aren’t a big drinker, go and drink water, but GO!! GET OUT!!! Dallas has so much to offer and so much to do, but it’s no fun alone. The more friends you have the better your experience here will be. Life is all about timing, being in the right place at the right time. That being said, the more places you go and the more opportunities you give yourself to be in that place at that perfect time, the better your chances are of finding some really golden relationships and memorable experiences. Think of a great novel you’ve read. Now think of your life in Dallas as the beginning of your new novel, guess what, you get to write it. Do you want to open it one day down the road and realize you wrote the same thing on all the pages? How boring is that? Or do you want to go back when you’re old and read a novel that was full of adventure and each chapter was unlike the one before it? It’s your choice! Make yourself do things you normally wouldn’t do, make the effort to meet new people. I promise you it will be well worth it. NOW GOOOOOO, GET OUT!!!!!!!! Keep it real…

KEEPING IT REAL IN DALLAS

I chose this topic to start this blog, because it will become a recurring theme throughout. This is the single hardest thing to remind yourself of while you live here. It seems everyone here wants to be something they aren’t, or even worse, everyone else wants you to be something you’re not. This town is all about excess, more is better! The rich people want to be richer, the girl with the big boobs wants them bigger, the coke head wants to do more coke, the guy with the condo in the Ashton wants one in the W, and it just keeps going on. The longer I live here the more I realize that you are who you are and the people that will ultimately really matter in your life will appreciate you for being comfortable in your own skin. Dallas is such a big city that you can (and believe me, people do) live multiple lives and never have them cross. You can be married to a girl in Frisco, have a girlfriend in Addison and date a stripper in Highland Park and never have any aspect of those lives cross. I promise you, IT HAPPENS! If that’s your goal and that’s what you want, then go for it, you are living in one of the best cities in the US to do that, so enjoy it. But if you are like most people, especially me from Smalltown, USA, then that’s not your gig. Most people are normal guys and girls that moved here for a job and just want to meet a good group of friends and experience all this great city has to offer. The first big acclimation aspect is in conversation. You can be guaranteed that one of the first three question you will be asked in any conversation is “what do you do”? I always thought this was a very pretentious question and it always rubbed me the wrong way, but the more I live here, I realize that it’s just an ice breaker. There are so many people living here that aren’t from here that there is no common ground. Asking someone what they do isn’t really trying to find out if they are important or how much money they make, but more of a conversation starter to lead into other questions. I use to be totally against this question and would actually go out of my way not to ask it until the 3rd or 4th time I met someone, if I would ask it at all. Now I ask it all the time. Almost every time I either know someone that works in a related field or for the company they work for. If not, it leads into questions about what they do and makes them feel like you are interested in them, even if you could care less about what a mortgage broker does or how many chunks of chicken are in one scoop of a Chipotle burrito. Asking questions and responding draws people in and keeps their attention and you will definitely need to get people interested and keep their attention in this town. Just remember, when the question is directed at you, no matter what you do, keep it real, tell them the truth and be proud of it. Who cares if you don’t make $50 - $100k a year, not many people do, even in Benzville (Dallas), you are who you are, be proud of that and if someone makes you feel like who you are isn’t important, then you don’t need to be around that group of people anyway! Keep it real…