4: Can I make good friends anywhere abroad? No, and here’s why.

Okay hear me out. Making friends can be challenging. Period. In this episode, we’ll talk about what you should look for in your dream country and city abroad when it comes to making friends.

When I first moved to the UK, I actually moved to Brighton first for about 3 months. And I moved to London afterwards. When I was in Brighton, I had a hard time making friends. I did make one friend… juuuuust one. But when I moved to London, I met SO many people and I had more opportunities to make friends than I needed. 

Here’s what I think the difference was. In Brighton, most people were British. Some of them had lived there their whole lives and had the same friend group from when they were 12. So it’s no wonder they weren’t looking for new friends. They had their people and they didn’t really need new friends. But when I moved to London, tons of people weren’t from London. And even if they were British, they were open to having new friends because London is a come and go city. Many people live here for a season – they go here for grad school or they have a 2 year work contract for example. So people in London are always open to new friends because when old friends leave the city, they are open to new people entering their lives. And maybe they are also open to new people, because they remember what it was like to be new and not have friends. Some places are easier than others, but most of the time it is absolutely possible to make great friends abroad.

I’m going to list 1 truth and 3 lies about making friends in a foreign country:

1 truth:

1. You do need to be somewhere where you speak the same language

3 lies:

1. The first lie: You have to move somewhere where there are other Americans. 
2. The second lie: It has to be a big city for expats to live there.
3. The third lie: You will have the best connections with other expats