Monday 27 February 2012

You got an expat friend in me.


Hey look! Isn't someone who lies in front of steam trains exactly the kind of person you want to be friends with? No? Really?? Oh, well can we be friends anyway if I promise not to do that too often?

Ages ago I started a post about expat friendships. They are funny things you see. I started off by saying:

It would be a ginormous overstatement to say "I'm in love!", but you know that feeling of excitement you get when you think of the person that you've just met where you get butterflies in your stomach and you can't help but exclaim in your head "Woo hoo!!!!!!!!!!!"? Well, I feel a little like that. But, before you get ahead of me, I haven't traded Stevie in for one of those extra-tall Germans who have to bend in half to get on the U-Bahn, alas, no (though I dream of having one of those who understands what it says in all these letters I have to open and can gracefully steer me away from mistakenly ordering pig trotter stew with innard salad without having to carry round a German-English dictionary).

No, I have found a new friend. Or rather, as is the normal way of things in Fiona/Stevie world: Stevie found me a new friend in the swing park. I don't normally mention my friends in my blog; I'm not sure they are the types of people who like being flashed around the internet willy-nilly, and well, it seems a little unfair to write about them somehow. But I felt compelled to write about my new friend. I've been thinking a bit about friendship in foreign lands. Especially after another friend (also an expat) and I were talking about it.

The thing is, I have realised that friendship as an expat can be quite a different thing. For starters there's the language barrier. If like me, your foreign language skills are somewhat limited, it can be pretty difficult to develop friendships with native speakers. Once you've told them that they're not allowed to mount an aerial on their roof and asked after their mother's constipation and the failing brakes on her car, well, there's not much else to talk about. Especially if they're not willing to play out the part of the other person who is looking for a light for their cigarette as they hitchhike their way to Erfurt. So if you strike all the native speakers off your list, you're left with the people who speak your own language. And that can be a relatively small pond to fish from.

I know I am still lucky. I live in the capital city which frankly is awash with foreigners, and not only that, I speak English which is great. Admittedly, I wouldn't say no to speaking Turkish and Russian as well, but that's just not going to happen anytime soon

- and that's as far as I got with this post. I got distracted by nights out and parties and friendship-bracelet making sessions, etc, etc, and I forgot all about it. But allow me to continue. The thing I was going to say about expat friendships is that you have a smaller 'pond' of people from which to choose your friends and that is not always a bad thing. I have made friends with people who 'back home' I would probably not have given a chance to and therefore would have missed out on the different things that they can bring to a friendship. I've made friends with some very different, but very interesting people, so if there's one thing to take out of this foreign experience it's that I will hopefully be more open to making friends from all walks of life and not necessarily just go for people who on the surface seem 'my type'. Don't get me wrong, there have still been people who we have met and gone out with and thought afterwards that we just didn't like enough to want to hang out with- that's just life. But what I think we all hope for, is that we meet someone who shares our ideals, our sense of humour, or likes and dislikes, our cultural history perhaps: someone in other words who might just be a perfect friend.

It's easy to make friends in the same situation as yourself. All us expats thrown in together soon find each other and it's a bit like when you join a baby group when you have your first child, you meet a whole bunch of other people in exactly the same position and find you have tons to talk about, moan about, understanding shoulders to cry on, new experiences to bumble through together and laugh about, and it's all good. But sometimes somewhere along the line when the kids are out of nappies, and you've got more settled into your expat life, you realise that maybe you don't have as much in common with some of these people as you have thought and a few fall away from the group and move on, and that's fine. Chances are you will have met a few people who will be lifelong friends.

The downside of expat friendships is that people do move on, literally. Most English speakers I meet in Berlin are here for a couple of years, usually 5 at most. I meet very few people who are 'here for good'. Unless they have married a German that is. Some people struggle with the temporary nature of these friendships. But, it's not so bad. With Facebook and the internet in general, blogs included, it is much easier to keep in touch with people wherever they are in the world.

More recently though I discovered that some expats can be a bit brutal in their networking for friendships. I came to realise that someone who I thought was a good friend was actually not that interested in being 'my' friend but just wanted to use me in order to meet my other friends. Another friend told me this is not uncommon, and she has often found that newcomers attempt to make friends through her, though they may not be interested in her as a friend. She seemed to take this as just par for the course, but it all seems a bit callous to me. She suggested to me that my bad experience might have come about because the person knew that I was due to leave Berlin at the end of May. She says that she knows a few expats whose first question on meeting new people is "How long are you here for?", and if it doesn't meet some acceptable length of time in their head, then they don't bother any further with that person. I kind of get it, but I can't help but think that they might be missing out on meeting some potential good friends, and having some good times. Or maybe, just maybe, the other person has just had a lucky escape.

It seems that this is quite a common trait amongst expats. People feel that it's not worth their while investing in temporary friendships, and get bored repeating their story to a seemingly endless queue of transient friends. I read a post on another blog where the author talks of the superficial nature of expat friends, and discusses how expats often put other expat friendships on 'PAUSE' as soon as friends from home come to visit or someone more interesting comes along. But isn't that always the case. For someone like me who has always lived my adult life away from 'home' having friends or family to visit was never usually a case of a quick half hour out of my day and more often a weekend or a few days, and so because I saw them less often it seemed more important to spend all my time with these people even if that meant putting local friendships and plans on hold. So I am not sure that I entirely agree with that being an aspect of the transience or superficiality of these friendships.

Anyway, I think it's an interesting topic. What's been your experience of expat friendships? I'd love to hear all about it.

19 comments:

  1. Great post! I have been working on developing friendships with German friends as I would like to integrate here as best I can, but somehow I find it hard to really connect with them! Even after knowing them over a year, they still feel more like acquaintances than close friends. I'm not sure if it is more a language or a cultural thing.. But I have made lots of really great expat friends and just seem to have more in common with them and a better connection.

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    1. I have a couple of friends with absolutely excellent German and I wondered why they bothered with expat friends rather than just mixing with Germans. I asked one of them and she said it's just easier when you have a shared cultural background and shared references, and I suppose get the same jokes and so on. Not that they're not friends with Germans but I guess it can be harder to connect. I don't have enough German friends to know to be honest!

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  2. What a great post! And some of your points are so spot on - like the fact that you can become friends with so different kinds of people.

    We came to Germany for two years, but I have never thought that I wouldn't like to make new friends here as we are leaving so soon. And I must say that I have been very lucky as I have met some nice Finnish people here. It is great to meet someone who I can speak English with (as my German is quite poor), but I can nowadays really appreciate the easiness of communicating with my native language!

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    1. Yes, doesn't it all make you appreciate your native language? I have been thinking of all the things I can do SO EASILY when we go back home. All those phone calls that I used to put off to organise things, sort things out, get us enrolled on things, no longer a problem! Though I am not necessarily referring to friendships there, I think I have also come to appreciate speaking to Scottish people more too. It's like a smaller club that I belong to. :-)

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  3. I can speak German and yet I still only really have 1 friend who is German and that I speak German to. It's not that I haven't tried but it just doesn't seem to work.

    I do find it hard having people who you care about leave all the time. It's a tough thing to go through every year if you are someone like me who invests a stupid amount of emotion and expectation into friendships and I think that's hardened me a little when it comes to meeting people but I have learnt that it shouldn't be a reason to not build a friendship with someone you connect with and heck, with FB and the internet in general, the other person leaving the country no longer means no more easy contact albeit on a different level.

    I definitely appreciate that I have built friendships with people that I otherwise would never have had the opportunity to meet and that is absolutely one big plus of it all.

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    1. ...and obviously, you have me ;-D There better be tears and wailing when I go! What is it though that makes your friendships with Germans not work? I was thinking more about this and obviously a lot of people we know are married or going out with a German partner. Is it easier to have a relationship with a German of the opposite sex than to have a proper friendship with a German of the same sex??

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    2. This is one of my favourite topics! I am married to a German and it works really really well, but having lived in Berlin for five years, I can honestly say I have one good friend who is German and with whom I can openly talk about most things. Its not that I dont spend a lot of time with German "friends" (mostly my husband's friends and their wives/girlfriends/children), but for some reason, even after all these years, it just doesnt feel like a friendship at all. I have come to realise that it probably never will and that did upset me for a bit (I always thought it was just a matter of time....). The reason? I dont know, I think its a cultural difference that goes way way further than I would have imagined (and Im half German and speak fluent German so I cant be the language!). So I am very very happy to have met so many wonderful expat friends, otherwise I think living here would be very lonely indeed!!

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    3. I find it really interesting too. S and I were just talking about whether. let's say Brits who move to other English speaking countries such as Canada, the US, or Australia still have issues making friendships with the locals because presumably we're still a whole lot different culturally. Or does the fact that Brits are immersed in elements from these countries more often due to tv and films make things easier? Do British expats in Australia seek out other Brits? Hmmm.... I must ask my friend Fiona in NZ...

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  4. I'm reading this with a mix of "wow! great advice" and "eeep!" - I'm moving to Stuttgart in about 4weeks with my German partner & my son - I speak very little German & will need to hook into the expat community in order to have a conversation outside of home (& the usual language class "My name is...; I have one cat, 3 guinea pigs & a hamster...; On the weekends I like to play volleyball...").
    I'm just hoping that I will meet people who I can call friends - or at least can talk inane rubbish too over coffee & kuchen :)

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    1. You will! Honestly, I have met some brilliant people. In fact some of the friends I have met here I feel I will have for life. I think it depends on your approach to things too. The advice given is that as soon as you arrive you should dive into as many activities and things as possible so that you meet people while you are still in the honeymoon period, and you are feeling upbeat about the whole adventure. Once you hit "the wall" where you start to see the negatives, run into bureaucratic problems, etc, etc, then it can be harder to get yourself out there and you can feel both down and then isolated on top of that.

      Having said that, I didn't really do that. I didn't (for some reason, not quite sure why now) go to any of the big Toytown Expat meet-ups (and try and facebook friend as many people as possible in an hour), and I seem to have made my friends on a slower more gradual basis. Having a child is a great way in, but even with that, both of mine went to a German Kita and my language skills weren't good enough to make friends with the other parents there. I never really worried about how long people might be around for: certainly at home there are people I have met and enjoyed their company and it's all been good but then they've moved away or we have different schedules or whatever and you just don't see them anymore. It's just life. Make the most of the time with people that you have.

      By the way, there is an absolutely excellent Freibad in Stuttgart. We went in the summer and it was the best one I have been to. It's near the Mercedes-Benz plant beside the river. It has a great play area for small kids, 3 pools (I think), slides, not far to walk from the grass to the pool, etc, etc. Very busy of course but it was really good.

      Good luck with your move, and hey, don't worry, you'll meet other volleyball players on the weekends :-D

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    2. (I got distracted by boiled eggs, but..)What I meant to say when I mentioned "your approach" is that I read that a lot of people find these expat friendships not as deep as proper friendships. That everyone is so busy going on about what a fantastic time they're having, and telling stories about all the great things they've been doing/places they've been visiting. And what they're not saying is that it can often be really hard. I read that in a number of articles about life as an expat. But, to be honest, if that's the approach that people take then I can't see how friendships can be any deeper. If you are having a crap time, then frankly there is nobody who will understand better than the expats around you. While the friends we all have from home may be the ones who we tell all our woes to normally, they can't always relate to the problems you are coming up against in your new life, whereas other expats know *exactly* how you feel when you cried at the Burgeramt when you found out you were missing a vital piece of paper and needed to make another trip there, or if you need a bar of Dairy Milk to get over your 'chat' with the Frauenarzt. These are the people who have been there, done that, and KNOW where you can find food from home in foreign lands.

      Treat the people you meet like the friends you already have, share the good and the bad experiences and you'll have a great time.

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  5. This is really interesting, and somehow I've managed to never think about it before. The bit where people sometimes end up leaving way too soon is always a bit sad, but I've never let it stop me from hanging out with anyone. That would be way too sad, like you said, awesome times would be missed and hell I'm used to having a lot of my close friends be far away, so what's another one who lives who knows where in the world? More of the world to have a good reason to visit, I say!

    Thinking back to my first year I would say I didn't bother spending time with folks I wasn't into really being friends with, though what I did do was visit a lot of bars that were awful and participate in the occasional really boring activity just to get out and be social. But I never bothered hanging out one-on-one with anyone who I wasn't interested in really having some level of real friendship with.

    That being said, I've had a much harder time connecting with folks in the expat community than with Germans in the various circles I have ended up running in. Coincidence I suppose, simple difference in interests and all. At least I have always seen it as a coincidence. Though since getting pregnant (when I started going to an English speaking La Leche League group) I have started to hang out with expats more than I ever have before in my six years here. You're def right on that count, becoming a parent suddenly gives you all this stuff to talk about with people you might not have connected with over anything else. Also interesting now that I think of it, the expats I've been friends with over the years have almost all not been from America (where I'm from) but from lots of other English speaking countries. Also coincidence? No idea.

    Anyway, some very interesting food for thought here.

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    1. Oh, I loved my baby group! I hope you enjoy yours too. There's tons to talk about - illness provides endless chat; rashes have never been so interesting! And by the time I got on to my second and some of my friends were just starting with their first babies, I had been there, done that, had all the conversations and didn't need to go over it again, so I never made as many friends with kids the same age as Hamish as I had when I had Orla.

      Anyway, on the expat topic, I haven't met very many Scottish people here. I find it always easier to connect with other Celts, particularly Irish people, and I have discovered that I really like Canadians! Not that I thought I wouldn't like them, but I haven't met a Canadian here yet that I haven't thought "Yeah, you're ace.". Having said that, I will probably bump into one today who is not, ha!

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  6. Great points here... it can be quite a challenge to find like-minded expat friends, and to "get in" with people when you don't speak the language. I've found the language tandems to be a good way to meet people, and I have a few that I've been meeting with regularly for the last 6 months. When I left Prague I decided I needed to not ONLY hang around with Americans/expats like we did there, just because it got horribly depressing to watch people leave constantly. So I've tried to not do that here, but it is a challenge.

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    1. I've not tried language tandems (at all!) probably because I haven't been to German school for well, the best part of a year, but it's a good tip. Thanks!

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  7. I hadn't really thought about this before! I haven't been here long enough to see anyone leave, but I have heard of expats who've been here a long time getting "newness fatigue"--this constant stream of new people wears them out! :)

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  8. Great post! Thanks for opening the floor to thinking more about expat friendships. Being an expat is exhausting, your brain is constantly thinking in several languages and your friends move on! I totally agree that people should give new friends a chance even if they're only around for a couple of months. You never know what might happen in the future!

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    1. Thanks Nikki, there's always room in my life for ice people!

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