u/Turbulent-Cat9505

I just graduated with a 2:1 in straight law this year, and have recently started a ‘legal analyst’ role at a well viewed commercial law firm.

The role was advertised as essentially being a paralegal, so I assumed it was pretty much the same thing under a different name. I took it as I thought full-time legal experience outside of internships would help my CV.

I’ve recently finished induction and started the actual role to discover it’s in fact just 9 hours a day of document review (8 if I don’t count my lunch).

Genuinely the role feels like a computerised sweatshop where I’m just tagging documents - this is not how the role was advertised but when I try and vent about this to family and friends (none of which work in law) they just tell me this is the real world and all work is boring, etc, etc.

I understand the likelihood of having a job that’s fun and interesting 100% of the time is nonexistent, but with this role I genuinely go into work, sit down, and spend 8 hours a day tagging documents in silence alongside others doing the same thing.

There is no team work, no client interaction, no problem solving, etc, I can feel myself going insane from this mind-numbing repetitive task that doesn’t challenge me or make me actually think more than twice a day.

I’ve also been informed they only consider people in this role for a training contract after 3+ years in this exact role, with no room for progression until then.

I worked as a hospitality manager alongside my studies. I genuinely found that job to be significantly more stimulating and interesting than this. It was 8-9 hours on my feet and incredibly stressful at times but there was problem solving, human interaction, and team work. All the things I believe I would genuinely need to enjoy a job.

I’m strongly considering going back to that job (they’ve told me they’d take me back) and applying for training contracts until I hopefully secure one, but I don’t know if that would hurt my CV/look worse.

Ideally, I’d like to qualify into family or criminal law but I just need to know if other legal work is as repetitive as this, as everyone seems to claim, in which case I’ll need to heavily consider a career change.

I can't tell whether this is a fundamental difference that will lead to resentment or not.

I (22F) have been with my boyfriend (22M) for 3 years. We both bonded over a shared love of a video game and a lot of our initial friendship and relationship progressed through sharing that hobby together. I used to be a huge gamer from age 16-20 and although I still enjoy it occasionally I've found it to become secondary to the rest of my life.

Long story short, in the two years or so I've really found my 'people' if that makes sense. I always had friends but really no one I ever clicked with as well as my current group of friends who I genuinely view as family. We often go out and do things together, whether that be go to the beach, the bar, have food together, travel, etc. Not to sound sad but it really reignited the passion I lost during the lockdown to go outside and have real life experiences and not just live life through my phone screen or video games.

My boyfriend, however, is quite anti-social. I don't think I ever truly realised the extent of this until I became quite social and extroverted myself. He works from home full time as a software engineer (we live together) and besides that goes out to see his friends once or twice a month or works on cars a lot as he's really passionate about them.

Over the past 2 years I tried countless of times to introduce him to my friends. I would invite him to join and he would always decline. I expressed I wanted him to meet them, he again declined. I truly didn't realise the extent of how little effort he made with them until my best friend who I've known since I was 4 years old told me he's only met my boyfriend 5 times in the three years we've been dating. And all of those times have been when my best friend's come over to the house I share with my boyfriend. It's not even a case of it's all women or anything, my friend group is 50/50 in terms of men and women.

It's hard because I truly do love my boyfriend, our personalities, humour, etc, mash so well when we're in the house and joking and talking together. But honestly since we've moved in together (2 years ago) I think I've been outside of the house with him.. definitely less than 20 times. In 2 years.

It sounds pathetic to say but I do love our time together and I have never doubted the concept that we would get married and have kids, it never even seemed like a question to me, he's kind, thoughtful, genuinely very sweet and I do truly love him. But I've expressed to him so much about how I want to live life with him, go on dates, try new food, see the world, etc. He's kind of made it clear that's just not who he is and it won't change no matter how much I want it to.

I finish university next month and I want to spend my summer travelling and enjoying the last of my 'free' time before I settle down into a corporate job in September. I have saved and prepared for this and asked my boyfriend if he'd come on even one of the trips I have planned and he basically told me doesn't care for travelling and would rather save his money.

In September he's moving home with his parents to save the final bit of money he'll need for a house deposit, and I'm moving in with two of my friends. We'll only be a 15 minute drive from each other but I can't help but fear this might kill our relationship since so much of it seems to centre around living together and being in the same house.

He doesn't want to meet my friends (he actively dislikes them as he thinks they aren't serious enough about their future, etc) and so I can't see him coming over to my house very often. His parents are super religious and although they like me they definitely wouldn't let me stay the night at their house.

I just can't even fathom what our relationship will be like come September and how it's going to work when we aren't in the same house anymore. I have visions of it leading to resentment and I guess even now I'm getting kind of tired of being shut down all the time in regards to what I want to do.

I think if I didn't have the friends I do it would be easier for me to realise if this is a marker for ending a relationship, but since I can go out and experience what I want to do with them, I know I'm not missing out on anything. I guess I'd just like to experience stuff with him as well.

I think it feels kind of personal to me as well as we broke up for 3 months previously and in those 3 months he was casually seeing another girl and I know he hung out with her and her friends like 3-4 times a week. When I tentatively mention this he states that it's because he got along with her friends better but he's never even met most of my friends bar my 22nd birthday party where he didn't talk to any of them, only his friends.

His friends were invited because over the past 3 years I've genuinely made an effort to get to know his friends and engage in his/their hobbies. I have good relationships with most of them to the point I consider them my friends, too. They've actually spent more time with my friends than my boyfriend has.

I genuinely feel like I have 2 halves of my life right now. One half is my part time job, my university life, my friends and family which all merge together perfectly, and the other half is my boyfriend which I feel like is it's own section of my life which doesn't cross paths or merge with any other part. It's nice to have down time with him and come home after chaotic days to chill out with him, but I just don't know if long-term this is something that would work out. I guess I'm just looking advice from people who may be wiser or have first or second hand experience with such a situation and how it ended up working out.

TLDR: My (22F) boyfriend (22M) does not make any effort to meet my friends or be involved in any part of my life bar what we share together despite me making efforts to meet his friends and engage in his hobbies. Long-term can this work out?