How Do You Make Friends As An Expat?
No matter where you live in the world, it’s human nature to seek community. When becoming an expat, one of the biggest items on the ol’ to-do list is to find a way to make friends and start building relationships. But how? This is a question that gets asked all the time, and there are a lot of resources out there to suggest the best ways to meet new people. Instead of following in those footsteps, I thought I’d do something similar, but different, and track the friendships we’ve made in Valencia and how they initially began.
Names have been changed to protect anonymity.
Family: The Smiths
Background: American
How we met: A friend of mine from the States, when she found out we were moving here, made an introduction to a family from Spain who had lived in Baltimore for several years but had since moved back to Valencia. I spoke with the mother, who recommended we connect with this other American family, who we then met up with for a playdate with our children in the park. This was two weeks into our adventure here; they’ve since become some of our closest friends.
Family: The Nelsons
Background: American
How we met: An American family we met through the expat FB group invited us to a picnic in the park where we met the Nelsons. We continued to see them from time to time at other picnics, and eventually liked each other enough to find time to meet up just us. They too have been amongst our closest friends since we moved here.
Family: The Harrises
Background: Spanish and British
How we met: On the very first day of school our first year, we met a family at the bus stop with a child the same age our younger son. They became fast friends, which made it easy for us to become good friends as well, hanging out each day at the bus stop in the mornings and afternoons.
Family: The Floyds
Background: Australian
How we met: We met them at a school activity right at the end of our first school year. It was their first year in Valencia as well, and we struck up a conversation that lasted most of the evening which then led to getting together outside of school and continuing on from there.
Family: The Garcias
Background: Mexican
How we met: The Floyds invited us to a picnic in the park with a different group of their friends, including the Garcias. We got to talking, and have grown the friendship ever since.
Family: The Richards
Background: Canadian
How we met: My wife started taking an exercise class in the park, and she befriended a woman from Canada, who it turned out was already friends with the Floyds as well.
Family: The Renos
Background: American
How we met: One of our first weeks in Valencia we went to an Oktoberfest celebration. Someone heard us speaking English and engaged us, and we ended up sitting and visiting with them the rest of the time, and a friendship was created.
So, how did we make our friends? Let’s tally the results:
Two came from picnic gatherings that lend themselves to long, relaxed conversation
Two came from people we met through our kids’ school
One was an introduction from a friend of a friend
One came from an interest-based activity
One came from a random encounter, but at a community gathering
All of them do share one thing in common - they each required us to put forth effort, whether that was saying yes to an invitation, getting involved in local activities, and in general being willing to extend outside of our comfort zones.
Overall, the lesson should be - friendships are there for the making, if you’re willing to invest the time!