To be known is to be loved — on the joys of being a local

When a big city starts to feel small. Feat. my favourite recurring characters, a TikTok famous bartender and (gag me) main character moments

Anyone who knows me irl will know how highly I’ll sing the praises of London. When friends come to the city, I make a point of playing tour guide, littering their inboxes with personalised recommendations and pitching a move with so much conviction you’d think I was employed by the mayor. There’s a lot to love about this city. The parks, the food scene, the museums, shows and the way each neighbourhood feels distinct. I moved to London at seventeen, a fresher at uni, it’s the city that saw me become an adult. I’m naturally protective, the way you are of a sibling, I’ll complain about the rent prices, the mice, the occasional time-sucking commute, but the second someone from out of town chimes in, I will double down on the city’s attributes.

Playing tour guide this past week, a friend asked me what my favourite thing about living in London was. The fact that you’re never bored crossed my mind. The way the city makes you feel inspired. Riding the bus across Westminster Bridge on the way home from a night out. Eating pizza on the curb, looking up at the Shard after getting kicked out of a club, watching the sun come up. The way the light hits the dome of St Paul’s Cathedral at golden hour. All of these things make up the backdrop of a very colourful season of life, but what really makes you tune in every week are the characters. London as a city has a lot to offer, but what makes it my favourite place is the fact that so many of my favourite people are here. I think this city (much like other big cities around the world) has a transient nature. People will come and go, but at some point, they end up here, multiple roads leading to the same destination. Different eras of my life overlap for a brief moment in time. It’s the people that make this place home, the little slice of familiarity making a city of over eight million people feel small, in the best of ways.

five years in and this is still my favourite view of the city

Romanticising the city, recurring characters and main character moments

Few things give me the same quick burst of serotonin as randomly bumping into someone I know on the street. A weekly occurrence for me these days, it’s one of those things that make a city start to feel small. Realistically, I know it’s not that rare, I know a lot of people who have ended up in London, and I’ve lived here for long enough to know lots of people in the city. Still… it makes me feel like a character in a sitcom, with guest appearances from previous seasons sprinkled in. Last month, I bumped into a guy I knew from studying in Florence four years ago whilst coming out of the Picadilly Circus Tesco with my friend Claire, and then the following morning as I was telling her how crazy it is that I keep seeing random people from my past, a girl I knew from middle-school stopped me mid-sentence in Hampstead Heath (I’ve never illustrated a point so perfectly). Last Sunday, when I dropped by a pub to congratulate my friends on completing the London Marathon, I caught up with my first-ever boss, who was coincidentally also waiting to celebrate a friend. Walking down the South Bank with my mom in tow, I was stopped by an acquaintance from high school. I’d been replying to her Instagram stories, but we never got around to making concrete plans. I think we might finally go for coffee. Then there’s also the more frequently recurring characters, the running weekly or monthly plans that have a dedicated spot on my colour-coded calendar.

I’m a stalker’s dream — the one where I try not to dox myself

I’m a creature of habit, I love routine, and when I find something I like, I tend to stick to it. I always get the same things at my favourite restaurants, I run three variations of the same route three times a week. When I was a student at UCL, Saturday night karaoke at Mully’s was my religion. I love Pub Quiz on Tuesdays and Friday night dinners followed by The Bar. The Bar has become a fixed event on my calendar since my friend Giulia¹ became enamoured by the TikTok-famous bartender who works there. After a long-overdue dinner at her place a couple of months ago, trying to convince me to go out for a drink, she exclaimed in a Hail Mary attempt you have to come tonight, you need to meet the love of my life. Giulia and I met in the first week of grad school, when both of us started crushing on the same TA (PSA, not a lot of straight men in Marketing), however, she’s also had some questionable entanglements (not that I’m one to judge), so I was understandably curious. Now, whilst I would usually judge a man who posts thirst-trappy TikToks with a cocktail shaker, bartender did hook me up with loads of *free* olives (low blood pressure girlies will understand), so I quickly became a repeat offender.

circa 2021 en route to Mully’s with Claire and Jeanne (one of our honorary flatmates)

One of my recurring complaints about the city is how everything requires so much planning. Everyone’s calendar (including my own) is booked out weeks in advance, and good luck having a weekend brunch without a reservation! This place was my low-effort dream come true. A walking distance from my place and just down the street from Giulia’s, it felt like a low commitment to come by, have a drink, maybe decide to stay for another. So I’ll admit, I’m not a saint sacrificing my Friday nights so my friend can make eye contact that will be discussed ad nauseum over brunch (though it’s a bonus). I’m also there for the music, the company, the free olives (can you tell I’m chuffed?) and the cheap Uber home. There’s something grounding in seeing the same people every week, even if you don’t know their names, the recurring background characters of your life. Of knowing exactly what you want from the menu and falling into a familiar routine (walk in, jackets in the back, take a lap, order, dance, pee break, second drink).

at The Bar with Giulia and Zee (who have very kindly adopted me) — heading home in head-to-toe Giulia (I had a wardrobe malfunction and didn't feel like giving the Uber driver a free show)

Serendipity, excitement and comfort in equal doses

I moved into my residence hall in my first year of uni two weeks late thanks to a government mandated quarantine. I’d always imagined parties on freshers week, befriending everyone on my floor, and instead was met with a post-apocalyptic greeting. My flat of six was occupied by myself, a shy girl at the end of the hallway and a boy across from me who I never saw the entire nine months I lived there (a story for another time). On my first night, I posted an instagram story of the empty kitchen, geo-tagging my location, and less than an hour later I got a DM from Giorgia, a girl I’d known in school. It felt like divine intervention. Little did I know she’d go on to become one of my closest friends. We often talk about how lucky we were, that the city did what it does best and made sure our paths would cross. When a friend from school was visiting Giorgia at the end of our first year, she said at the end of the weekend that she felt like she’d seen everything. It was the first (though not last) time I felt a knee-jerk protectiveness about the city. I had been there for nine months, and I still hadn’t seen everything, how could she say she was done? Five years in and I still get surprised, I’m still finding new places, meeting new people. I’ve lived in Covid-London, empty and quiet, I had uni-London, making Bloomsbury and Fitzrovia and Marylebone my own personal playground. I’m discovering post-grad, real-life-adult (ish) London, befriending produce sellers and gravitating towards the same spot every week in my local Hampstead Pub.

I’ve fallen into a routine, I have familiar places and people, but the city continues to surprise me. It’s still yielding fruit and I’m not ready to let it go just yet. Samuel Johnson famously said, When a man is tired of London, he is tired of life, and I guess I still have plenty of energy for life in the city. I’m sure I’ll eventually get priced out of my neighborhood, I might move for a job. A day might come where I can no longer write off my single glazed windows that barely shut and hearing everything my neighbors say as “part of the charm”. A day when I’ll crave more space, stability, energy-efficient housing, peace and quiet. But for now I can say without a doubt that there’s no place I’d rather be.

If you couldn’t tell already, I do really love it here, and in the spirit of getting other people to also fall in love with the city (maybe a mistake since my rent keeps increasing), I’ll be posting some of my recommendations around the city over here at London Guide pretty soon.

1. Name has not been changed, and I commend her commitment to the plot (there is a medium-to-high chance bartender will see this)