When you are an expat, friendship is tricky. When you move around a lot, local friends are a rare commodity.
Currently, my closest friends live in New York, Oslo and Bern (soon to move back to Florida).
I’m a firm believer in the fact that it’s better to have a few very good friends than a whole bunch of glorified acquaintances, but when your close friends live in a different country, or a different hemisphere, you don’t have the luxury to snub socializing just for the sake of it, not unless you want to turn into a hermit. And while it is wonderful to have good friends you can count on, no matter where they are, sometimes you need someone close by. Someone who is more than a glorified acquaintance, possibly. Surely it is possible to meet someone locally who has BFF potential?
And so you put yourself out there, which is quite literally like being back on the dating scene: sometimes fun, more often terrifying.
Which is when, all of a sudden, a formerly normal, well-adjusted gal turns into the friendship equivalent of Ginnifer Goodwin in He’s not that into you: needy, nervous, often trying too hard, giving out all your contact info to anyone who sounds remotely interesting.
So you try to meet lots of people, and while you are normally a sociable, relaxed person, all of a sudden you find yourself giggling awkwardly, acting overly perky (often annoyingly so) and really caring what others think of you (shhh, I know). Even worse, your conversation skills seem to dry up and give way to uninteresting anecdotes and non-sequitur observations. Worst-case scenario, you end up blurting out something completely inappropriate.
And then sometimes, just like in the dating world, someone you had your eye on, someone who seemed fun, and interesting, someone you’d like to stick with, ends up picking someone else over you. Sounds juvenile, I know, but when you are on a desperate search for a new local BFF, someone to help you feel a connection with your new surroundings, possibly explore them together, someone you are willing to spend a lot of time with, and you think you have found it, only to find that they have found someone else… it pretty much feels like being dumped.
Which is when you retreat into yourself and wonder “I have a wonderful family, a blog and a great book and DVD collection. Do I even need to put myself out there?” YES. Yes you do. Because we are not supposed to live a life of quiet isolation. Women especially, seem to fare far, far better when they have a circle of friends to socialize and share things with. Life is NOT a solitary activity. Even expat life.
So you brace yourself, and you get back out there, and make friends. Try to be yourself, because you don’t want to end up with someone who likes the “pretend” you.
It’s not foolproof, it’s not an exact science. But it beats feeling lonely. And it definitely beats the Paris Hilton way. I think.
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