I like this place because I can just vent without having to hear or care about anyone's response!
Finally quitting my job, gonna be with my family for a bit and look for something in the Netherlands without having to deal with a language barrier. I just miss being in a creative space, my job has been so soul-sucking, unfulfilling, and boring. Being in the Netherlands again isn't gonna make me happy either, but a little happier knowing I did, in fact, manage to move to a different country and start a new life to some extent. Networking just doesn't work the way it did when I was in theatre school where I would just get in touch with professionals, stay in touch with them over Facebook, and land multiple opportunities every other week. 2018 was a wild year where I was spending pretty much all of my time on sets, on theatre stages, or behind the scenes doing social media marketing work. Even got to be part of a poetry book.
Berlin just isn't built like that, there aren't many organisations like that, it's just a lot of freelancers doing their own thing and sometimes together, lord knows how they afford stuff. It's very difficult to find the "middle man" here when networking; the people involved in theatre groups, festivals, events, etc., etc. I don't know anyone here, and my social skills still haven't recovered yet post-pandemic. These professionals from Berlin aren't active on social media and every time I explicitly ask Berliners for help, I keep getting help from people living anywhere BUT Berlin. And as much as I appreciate the efforts to help, it has NOT brought me anywhere as they aren't from Berlin, let alone Germany sometimes! With all the respect, I'd rather just have no help than the outsiders (whose help I do appreciate) giving me the most general information while not having experienced the situation I'm in firsthand. And this year I'm gonna be much more stricter about it in terms of boundaries. Maybe it's my neurodivergence, but I'm not someone who usually asks for help, not because I'm afraid, it's because I am the type of person to figure things out by myself. It is when I ask for help that I get very specific in detail with what exactly I need help with and despite understanding it can be confusing as I learned over the years that I tend to speak a different language to people in a figurative way where we speak the same language but somehow it's difficult to understand me, and it does get frustrating from time to time!