Do you remember how easy it was to make friends as kids? Most of the times, all you needed was a common interest like a sport or music in to go on and forge a friendship that, sometimes, could last years or a lifetime!
Personally, I had a bit of difficulties making friends when I was kid. Not for lack of trying, but because of my family constant movings due to my dad’s work. Sometimes I did not want to bond with people because I knew I was about to leave soon and it would be easier to part ways without much to be left behind. This came to be my reality from ages five to eight. Then, when we finally set our family in one place, I was able to find a few friends throughout my life, some that are still in my life many, many years later.
Once again I decided to move, now on my mid thirties and to different countries: in 4 years and 4 countries later, I found much harder to forge new friendships and especially harder to keep them in my life. I have been wondering how is that came to be. The friends from back home are also becoming lesser in numbers. I joke that this is natural selection at its finest, since only the good and true friendships can stand the distance and the lack of real everyday contact. This does make me happy, actually: the part that I end up losing contact with acquaintances and not so good friends that were actually just hanging around without much purpose in my life. For me, less in this case came out to be more.
I was able to make some new friends through studying and working, and a nice amount of them kept in touch even though I do not live nor work with them at the same country anymore. I like to think the same as I said before, if they did not stay in my life, if neither of us took a bit of effort to stay in touch and relevant to each other, maybe it was not meant to be.
Of course, depending of the country that you find yourself in, it can be more or less difficult to make new friends. Take for instance, the Irish. They are quite chatty and social people that will find not much issues to strike a conversation with a new coworker or classmate in school. I had similar experiences in Spain as well. In Finland, it can be more of a challenge to meet and make new friends, not because they do not want to, but because Finns value their personal space and they need more time until you can reach out for them. I have made a very good friend in Finland, also a non-Finn that comes from the same country as I did. We always joke that although we were able to become friends and keep the friendship going (we live in different cities) the fact that we both came from the same place was not a dealbreaker for staying friends. Both of us acknowledge that some people will try and force a friendship with you with only that in common and it is not that you cannot do it, it just won’t last if there isn’t anything else to be added.
I do miss my old friends from back home quite a lot, but since you cannot have everything (unless I would win the big jackpot in the lottery and I could travel back home many times a year) at least technology like instant message apps such as WhatsApp and Skype help to keep up with the latest wedding or baby that is on the way. It isn’t and it won’t ever be the same, but for those people that chose to keep you as dear friend even being so far away from them, it is worth it.
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