Moving to a place not entirely of my choosing has brought some interesting personal problems into my life. The language barrier is sometimes frustrating for all parties involved, but I get things done to a certain degree, if not the fastest and most complete way. Hebrew is difficult to learn and I’m finding I cannot remember even the simplest phrases from day to day, so I carry out my small, infrequent conversation at the stores and with various service people in simple English peppered with an exaggerated form of charades.
There are many people from the US here as well as a few from the UK, Australia and other English-speaking places. I have socialized with some through CS’s work functions and a few random get-togethers. The problem is I can’t make friends of my own. Like anyplace, many of the people I meet I get along with fine, but someone you really make friends with is a more random process. I won’t be friends with everyone I meet, although some will always be social acquaintances – people we like but perhaps don’t have any deeper level of commonality with.
I don’t have many choices in whom I spend my social time with, which isn’t to say it isn’t enjoyable, but I have no opportunity to meet people on my own. I work from home all day, so I don’t get a chance to spend downtime outside of functions with the women that I’ve met. At night, Little Miss Thing goes to bed at 7:30 and I have a few nightly conference calls here and there, so I usually get to leave the house on the weekends with CS and kiddo for going about town just the 3 of us, or spending time with other families and many times I need the weekend time to get normal errands done. At home, I looked forward going grocery shopping because Amelia enjoyed it and it was time out of the house. Now I dread it. I can’t read the labels, find what I need, or understand what anyone is saying. It takes me twice as long to do half as much and the whole time I just can’t wait to get out of there.
I don’t have any friends here. I’ve only met one of our neighbors the day we moved in as the walls and trees are very high with the dual purpose of keeping people out and keeping extreme levels of privacy from streets and yards. CS talked to another neighbor that was a less-than-successful endeavor to achieve a level of “neighborliness”. I’m not sure if there really is a level of true friendship among the US community here but more a forced social construct because you have to work together, attend the same functions, etc.. Of course any workplace has that, but I don’t work there and yet it’s the only social resource I have.
I don’t need to have BFFs here as I have friends at home. It would be nice to find people I have things in common with that I could talk to or even just go to a pub with. There is one woman here that I get along fairly well with, but her situation is similar to mine and you can’t just rely on one person all of the time for your need to socialize after looking at the same 4 walls all day, week, month. It tends to burn out a person. I don’t have any outlets here and, oddly, I have less free time than I had at home.
There isn’t a solution, really. I will be home in January for a quick visit and maybe in the summer and then…who knows? Thankfully my books are here. I do a lot of reading these days.
Apropos of nothing, I had completely forgotten about that Peter Pan website until you put that link up. Terrifying.
You my dear could make friends in any language.
Cant wait for you to come back!!
This does sound frustrating, I wish there was some grand solution, I think the best thing, if possible, when possible, is to keep an open mind, make a real effort to learn the language (well this not being the easiest one to learn I suppose) and then just think of it as a phase, the people you meet here will perhaps not be your bestest friends, just casual acquaintances you’re stuck with for the time being.
But when others don’t make an effort… Well then it’s good to have books, music, movies, the Internet… And maybe this time away from home could actually be the time for learning some new craft, getting a new neat, nerdy hobby?
Hi Heather,
I meant to comment on this post ages ago. We lived in Johannesburg and Madrid when we were first married, while my husband worked for an American multinational. South Africa wasn’t a problem because I worked and there were a couple of other expatriates that we were friends with, but Spain was different story. He was the only expatriate in the company and we knew noone and had never studied Spanish.
I’m going to suggest something that you may initially think is something you would NEVER do, because I thought the same thing. I joined the American Women’s Club and this is what I did: I went to a couple of Newcomer’s coffees and maybe a museum visit or two and I met 2 or 3 women that I become REALLY good friends with – one I’m still friends with years later. And I met some others who were nice casual acquaintances that I saw every once in awhile.
I thought the members were going to be all gross Americans, but actually many of them were Americans married to Spaniards who just wanted to keep some American connections. Many of them spoke Spanish beautifully and it was very interesting to hear how they had negotiated their dual culture lifestyle. I had it easy compared to them.
So anyway, these groups that seem yuck at first actually are good for plucking a few people from and then you never have to go back. It might be worth a visit or two. Also I had both my kids in Spain and the AWC was also good for advice about doctors and stuff.