Friends are the single most important thing you need to survive living abroad, and you need to make them fast. Living abroad can be very isolating (doubly so if you’re a new mom), I imagine it contributes to why many people end up moving back to wherever they are from. Especially where I am, because there is NO small talk. It might be a cultural thing, or it might be that I’m a foreigner who probably doesn’t speak the language, I’d say it’s 90% the former. The introvert in me lives for the fact that I can just be in my head, chuckle at my podcast, and daydream uninterrupted. But on the other hand, it severely hinders your ability to meet people.
My friends and family are half a day away, so when we first moved, my husband was the only person here I could talk to. We were living in a hotel at the time, so whatever alone or privacy we got during covid was eradicated. I was still breastfeeding, so I wasn’t all that motivated to leave the house, which meant the only people besides my husband I talked to, was our realtor, and an interpreter who took me to the Driver’s License Center to sign up for a driving test. Instantly, I became an oversharer. They both knew how I met my husband, anecdotes about my single life, and my breastfeeding schedule all within minutes of meeting me. I only met the interpreter once, I try not to think about what her impression of me must be because it makes me cringe. I ended up turning to Facebook…yes, Facebook.
Facebook is a really good resource for people in this situation. There are tons of Facebook groups that cater to different audiences, and I joined them all. Surprisingly enough, the Facebook groups were able to sustain me for a little while. I never posted anything, but my history as a long time lurker of various messageboards finally became useful, and kept me somewhat entertained. One thing I found interesting was that sometimes people would make posts looking for friends. I agonized over whether I should do something like that, but I just couldn’t do it. I wasn’t good at making dating profiles, I realize this wasnt that, but it felt similar. I’m not good at describing myself, and certainly not in writing. I don’t think I have a photogenic personality, if that makes sense, I think I just come accross better in person. So a post looking for friends was out, but I figured I would try to go to at least one social event advertised…I didn’t. To be fair, the social events I saw that seemed like they might be fun, also made me feel like I’d be the old b*th at the club. I had to find another way.
Making friends as an adult is hard. Most adults find friends at work, or through their kids, which applies in this situation as well. Since I don’t have a school age kid, and the only job I can easily get abroad is teaching (which was a non-starter), I had to increase my social media activity. I started following a bunch of instagram pages of groups, businesses and people in my area just in case there were opportunities to connect. A lot of the stuff I saw definitely catered to a younger crowd, which makes sense, since that would most likely be the crowd that would be able just up and move to this side of the world. Now don’t get me wrong, the fashion loving/ party girl in me would love an evening out, but 1, we didn’t have childcare which meant going alone which is something I hadn’t done in YEARS, and 2, the idea of anything remotely clubish exhausts me. My watch starts flashing that the noise decibels are too loud… and it is too loud. Those days for me are long gone.
Eventually, at the suggestion of my husband’s colleagues we joined a private social club. I realize that this sounds extremely privileged, but it’s a great landing place for families like mine, new to the area, that might not speak the language yet, or know how or where to find things they need. It softens what can feel like a crash landing, especially for kids and trailing spouses, as we’re called. They host lots of events and opportunities to meet other expats and locals, so we joined in the hopes we might meet some other couples. They also had in-house sitting services so on Fridays, my husband and I would go to the bar for happy hour. Except, the sitting service closed at 5pm, so we went at 3pm and left just before 5pm, missing any actual HH crowd or specials. We were often there basically alone. It was still nice just to get out of the house and have adult time.
One Friday, after 5 months of extreme family bonding, we met who I can only describe as an angel. A brotha walked into the bar. In general I was happy to see him because we weren’t sure we’d meet any black people at the club when we joined. He immediately came right over and said hello, which was also shocking because up until that point any black folk we saw in passing would avert their eyes. My husband and I came up with a theory that, if we saw a black person and they smiled or acknowledged us, they must be tourists (that hypothesis hasn’t changed much). The heaven sent brotha chatted us up for a bit, and then he invited us to an event for Black families the following day. There we met what is now our family. It was such a sigh of relief. We met a few other black expat families that would be here for the same time frame. Our lives changed from that day on (we had also just found our apartment which felt like a miracle after a long hunt). Our friend group is amazing, we now spend holidays and vacations together, we celebrate each other’s wins and birthdays, and offer support however we can. They make living far away from home enjoyable.
My advice to anyone moving abroad is to join as many facebook groups as you can. It truly is the best start to meeting people and getting answers. I’ve met other amazing people outside of my core group of friends since being here through facebook forums. Of course be active on all the other social media platforms, but don’t neglect Facebook.
