Spreading Friendships across the Globe

Finding and Keeping Friends as an Expat

The term “expat friendships” doesn’t have an official definition. The way I see it, expat friendships are any kind of friendship an expat has to another person — be it to another expat, to a local, to a bosom buddy back home, or to any other friend that an expat has made along his or her journey of life.

From my personal experience as a German-American expat in Canada, I sometimes found it hard to balance all these friendships. The most effortless friendships are to those living closest to you: you spend time together, you share experiences (good and not so good), you laugh and sometimes cry together and you help each other. When living abroad, these friendships can be very intense, even though you might have only known each other for a short amount of time.

Thanks to technology, staying in touch with friends around the world requires much less effort than it used to. At the same time, though, it is important to distance yourself a little bit from your friends at home to help you focus on where you’re living now and on meeting people and making friends there. After all, since most expats live abroad for an extended period of time, developing a local circle of friends needs to be a priority.

Technology may make it easy to keep in touch with friends back home and all over the world, but that’s not the whole story. Sure, it’s great that Facebook lets me know what my friends are doing. I can look at their pictures on Instagram, message them on WhatsApp and even video call them through Skype. I’m amazed at and thankful for the communicative options that social media platforms offer. But still, those digital friendships lack the substance of face-to-face encounters on a regular basis. It’s one thing to share experiences with friends, and it’s another to only write to someone else about those experiences. And let’s be honest, out of my 800 Facebook friends, I’m only really close to a very small percentage of them.

The Perks of Being an Expat Friend

The intensity of friendships in general can be very different — there are those friends whom you’ve known all your life, the ones from school or university, people you’ve met abroad and all your other friends. With every friend you have a unique history and a distinctive way of relating to each other. Your friendships with fellow expats can be very short but all the more intense for a number of reasons. 

• They worry about the same things.
• They also go through culture shock.
• They have similar feelings, such as homesickness or frustration.
• Their experiences are like yours.
• They are there to celebrate small (or big) achievements with you.

All these similarities between people living in a place where they feel somewhat lost at first can form strong bonds and thus special friendships.

The Challenge behind Expat Friendships

Usually, when expats arrive in their new country of residence they first bond with other expats. It’s perfectly logical and understandable — other expats can make the landing in a new country a little softer and more pleasant in the beginning.

Nonetheless, for a true expat experience it is important to become friends with locals, too. By just hanging out with other expats, chances are high that an expat will miss out on a lot. Locals are the ones that can show you the culture from the inside. With them you can not only practice your language skills, but learn about their cultural heritage and try out the local culinary delicacies.  

During their time abroad expats also relate differently to their old friends and friends back home, which can be problematic at times. The feelings of missing out, not being involved, and not understanding what’s happening aren’t uncommon among both parties. While you might worry about how to extend your visa, your friend at home might be preoccupied with finding a new job. It certainly doesn’t have to be, but it can be difficult to relate to each other if your lives are just completely opposite.

Moving Back Home

It is not unusual for expats to move back home after some time of working abroad. But what happens to all the expat friendships?

With the friends back home there are basically two outcomes. You might meet and it’s as if you just saw each other a week ago and everything is as it was before you left the country — one of the greatest experiences! In my opinion those friendships that survive the distance are the friendships that will last for a lifetime, no matter if you have contact every week, every other month or less than that.
Another possibility is that you encounter your old friend, but you don’t really relate to each other anymore. Too many things have changed, let alone the friendship. Losing friends is, unfortunately, part of being an expat, and accepting that can be tough.

Now, what about the close friends you’ve made during your stay abroad? Well, you’ll probably try to stay in touch. At least you promise to do so when you say goodbye to each other. It’s going to be difficult to maintain the same level of friendship you had before, no doubt. And as with all expats, you’ll need to readjust, too, when you come back home. While you are generally still the same person as before, your life might be completely different in your home country, which can complicate friendships.

But again, living in the 21st century, technology makes things feasible that were considered beyond the bounds of possibility one hundred years ago. So, since it is the International Day of Friendship, why not celebrate this day and make use of that technology by calling your friend thousands of miles away, letting them know you still think of them and catching up on the latest news? You can also go and meet up with the friends you have met abroad, and maybe even talk to a stranger and make a new friend.