Welcome to episode two of my podcast. As you discovered recently, I love using my voice. After hearing my first recording and listening to some feedback, I realized I need to improve a little bit with how I podcast. I think the way I speak can be interrupted because of how I think—my thoughts get interrupted, and I wish I could speak more coherently. I also get easily distracted when someone is talking to me or when I get a notification.

Today I want to speak a little bit about moving to London and the tension I've had between Oxford and London. For years, there's been this voice inside of me saying, "You should move to London. You should move somewhere where people reflect your professional life and your personal life." Even today, I've been thinking that I need to move to London. It is a totally unresolved tension that has stayed there for a long time.

When I was sitting in the bath, I decided to lay out the pros and cons for either choice. The pros of staying in Oxford are that I have a lovely routine and an amazing best friend, Marcus, who lives nearby and supports me in the darkest and hardest of times. I have my cleaner, my hairdresser, my skincare person, and my dentist. I have access to university facilities, formal dinners, and academic life. I've memorized every inch of the city and I'm so used to it. This is my home—I have my own place here, I've lived here for years, and I love this city. I've built wonderful routines, and I love my gym. I'm in my thirties, and I look young.

The downside is that Grindr is dead—not that this matters, but it is—and the dating market is full of students in their early twenties. They are at a different life stage than me; they're working all the time and don't want to commit. Despite the comfort the city brings, emotionally I have literally outgrown it. This is home, but it feels like staying in the childhood place where you were raised. I have outgrown this city.

At some point, I need to date. After watching a podcast from Alain de Botton, I realized that dating is an effort and love is a skill—something you build. To build my life with someone, I need to be in a place with a good dating pool where people are like me. I feel like London is perfectly suited for this, and it's also perfectly suited to make friends. Oxford is a university city where I studied and made my friends, and here I am now, but it still doesn't quite fit—you get me? The upside of London is a large gay dating pool, probably more friends, upgrading my life, and being able to go on dates and meet people—spending my thirties somewhere that matches where I am in life. I don't care about the facilities or restaurants; what I care about is the people.

When I was in the bath, I realized that no matter what choice I pick, both are going to be painful. If I stay in Oxford, I'm going to keep feeling that I've outgrown the place and that I'm left behind, seeing students everywhere and not feeling like I'm fully living—even though I'll be comfortable in my routines with my existing friendships, my hairdresser, my cleaner, and everything else, without access to that dating pool or an upgraded social circle. If I move to London, I'll have a large dating pool, potentially date a lot of men, and potentially find a life partner—or not—and be close to other professionals, but I'll lose all of my routines and my immediate access to friendships here.

I am torn. Eventually, I want to move to London—maybe not right away, but it remains a very unresolved tension. When I go to see places there, I get this "ick," like my body says no because it feels like a foreign place and I'm leaving home. But that's natural. If I were totally happy in Oxford and everything were perfectly fine, I wouldn't be doing this every month, telling myself I need to move to London.

I'm going to sit with this tension today, because it's something I need to give serious thought to, being who I am. That being said, my life is not a waiting room. I'm going to enjoy my life whether here or in London, whether there is a romantic man in it or not, no matter what. That's it—that's my podcast.