Sometimes, many times I am a lonely expat. Friendship is a recurring theme in this blog. With our transient lifestyles, today more than ever before, friendships are the quintessence of our existence. As families cease to be nuclear, extended families grow more disparate and barriers to living abroad continue to fall, our friends become our family. A life without friends is a forlorn existence and yet so many of us expats are lonely.
Yay. I have some friends
I’ve been here 9 months and I’m happy with where I am socially. I’ve got close buddies, I’ve got people I lunch and ‘do nails’ with. I’ve got people I don’t know that well but who always welcome me to their table in the pub. I’ve got people to nod to on the school run. In terms of my social connections, I’ve found Nairobi one of the easiest places to make friends I’ve ever lived. But it should be noted that I came here with a plan. This isn’t my first expat placement. I learned from my mistakes. Believe me making friends in a new country is not always that easy.
Expat mistakes
When I first went to South Africa I spent my first 6 months doing the tourist thing with my husband and our little baby. Content in our little bubble, busy discovering new worlds we didn’t feel much need to make friends. By the time the honeymoon period was over. I found myself 6 months in with just a few casual acquaintances to keep me company. When I felt ready to make friends in many ways it was already too late.
The lonely expat
People feel obliged to take care of a new arrival. When you arrive in a new town or city, regardless of where you are in the world, you’ll find people who are happy to welcome you. Those people will show you around and to invite you to a lunch or two. The trouble is that once you are 6 months in people assume you have found your groove and don’t need hand holding anymore. If you haven’t connected on any level then they will consider their part done and slowly the invites dry up. I’ve done it. Taken the new guys out. Had a laugh, considered my duty delivered. If they don’t extend the hand of friendship back then I figure they’ve found a gang and are ok. That’s why I say I came here with a plan. It took me years to make friends in Cape Town. I was incredibly isolated. There was no way I was making that mistake again, so as soon as we landed I threw myself into making friends. Accepting every invite and boorishly forcing invites on people I had only just met. People say I’m outgoing. I’m not really. I just didn’t want to ever feel as solitary and lost as I did those first few years in Cape Town.
This is something that no ones tells you though. They don’t tell you, that you need to jump in straight away or get forgotten about. They tell you to enjoy your new place, to try to make connections but they don’t tell you there’s a time limit.
I’m exaggerating a little; but recently I have had conversations with people who are struggling with friendships and feel terribly lonely. People who chose to ease themselves into expat life and now feel like they are on the outside looking in.
The lonely local
And it’s not just expats that find it hard to make friends. Another friend of mine muses. ‘It’s so hard to make friends, it’s so cliquey, everyone has already formed their little groups’. I said ‘but you are Kenyan, you already have loads of friends and family, you are your own clique’. The truth is this mum was looking forward to making friends when her son went to school. Nairobi is a small city in many ways and the chance to meet new people and breath new life into her home was exciting. I’m as guilty of everyone else in thinking that she already has a life of her own. I supposed that she wouldn’t be looking for friends and so focussed on friendships elsewhere.
Working expats vs non working expats
The working mum that doesn’t have time for lunches and nails. The assumption that she makes friends through work is largely incorrect. Anyway she wants friends outside of work, people she can let her hair down with. She’s not visible at school and doesn’t get the opportunity for playground chat, she’s forgotten about.
The loved up lady. Newlyweds perhaps. Are they really so wrapped up in their own bubble of love that they don’t need anyone else?
The perfect family, don’t they want to escape their kids? Are they really as happy as Instagram suggests.
My amazing Facebook life
The fact is that however lonely we are, we all make a good job of looking busy and
productive. It’s the Facebook syndrome; forever posting the positives of our lives and neglecting to shar
e the negatives. We all do it, but it fools other people into thinking that you are ok, when we aren’t. It’s hard to ask for help. It’s horrible to tell people you don’t know that you need them.
They are all around these people, these sad expats. People who aren’t as happy as their smiling faces might suggest. These people could change our lives. They could be the best friends we never had. The friends who pick you up when you are down, who laugh at your stupid jokes, who add brightness to your day. People are an unopened present; a delightful Pandora’s box, if you would only take the time to find out what’s inside. After all there is always space in our lives for new friends.
If you do one thing today, offer the hand of friendship
So to all of you, all over the world. Happy in your cliques, content in your friendships from primary school, staring love struck at your new boyfriend, contentedly eating at home with your families. Perhaps this week try to notice that person that smiles at you every day in the hallway. Reply to those text messages that you forgot to respond to. Invite a new person out for coffee or lunch. Make chat with that lonely looking person at the party. It could mean the world to someone.
More than you will ever know.