FOREIGNERS MAKING FRIENDS IN WARSAW (Warsaw)

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Remember high school, that place we had to go 5 days out of 7? Remember all the friendships we made back then, making plans to just hang out? Remember just hanging out? Remember when life was less self-monitoring and how easy it was to make friends when there was no pressure and social barriers were less concrete? Remember how you laughed at the jokes that might embarrass you, especially in the company of your professional colleagues today – the new place we go 5 days out of 7?

Well, short of going back in time, how do you make those close friends in later life? Those people you met and became close with in the good old days still exist. The difficulty is finding them and having a nurturing environment to grow the bond.

I have an answer for that in Warsaw.

Every two weeks, for the past three years, a group of us foreigners get together to play a tabletop role-playing game in English. You do not need to know all rules to play. This game is our platform to explore the attitudes and beliefs of strangers within a story where we imagine ourselves together. We come together first as strangers but, as we play, we become friends. We even start to share friendly camaraderie creating inside-humour and rekindling the embers of the social freedom we enjoyed in high school.

So make it a date to join us, regularly. It costs you nothing to join in but your time; and even that won’t be a cost to you once you start to enjoy the group and reap the benefits of having close friends. It does take time but the time passes in friendly company.

For our partners, typically local natives, who do not participate in our tabletop role-playing game meetings, we have a Widow’s Club where they all get to know each other and do things together. We also have private parties, cinema outings and shared trips together around this country. But it begins with us getting to know strangers through the attitudes and beliefs they express in our relaxed game before the door opens wider.

Nothing will change from your side of the computer monitor – or it would have already. If you can be a close friend to someone and you are looking for close friends to meet, get in touch.

Join our activity group, with the intention of joining us at the dinning room game table:
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More information on benefits of role-playing:
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An example of tabletop role-playing games – courtesy of Wil Wheaton (Wesley Crusher, from Star Trek: The Next Generation):
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