Finding New Friends in a New Place
Hiking in Switzerland near Montreux with friends I’ve made since my move to Lausanne. I wouldn’t have known about this route or the wonderful restaurant we enjoyed without a new friend organizing the day for us. July 20, 2021.
I’ve moved to different counties more than once in life, and I’ve learned a lot about the world—and myself—via the experience. (Read up on how I got to Switzerland on this go-around.)
I’ve also learned a lot about the importance of friendships and connections, and how isolating it can feel to move to a new place where you don’t know the city or a single soul in it.
After my move to Lausanne, I drafted a post with tips about getting started in a new country. However, I’ve since had several people ask me how to make friends when they’ve moved to a new place, explaining that just having a connection or two would help to quickly ameliorate their feelings of isolation and alienation.
After sketched a few ideas to share with these people, I realized that Observing Leslie readers could find them of value as well—so I developed my thoughts into this article. And, in the drafting, I realized that you could use these tips and tricks to meet people even in your current city. (No moving necessary!)
After all, I can’t think of a time in my life when I didn’t need friends, including new ones.
How to Make New Connections and Acquaintances
You’ll read my list of suggestions for meeting people and think, “how obvious.”
And your thought will be correct!
However, I’ve learned that the most obvious things often are the ones we miss.
If you want to make new friends, either in your current town or in a new place, consider the following opportunities:
Have a hobby or an interest? Find classes to expand your skills and knowledgebase. All of us benefit from continued education, so you’ll gain from the experience even if you don’t meet kindred spirits in the classes you find. However, you’ll more likely meet people like you in a class on a topic of a mutual area of interest. Just remember to find opportunities to introduce yourself and strike up conversations before and after class and during class breaks. You can find classes via an easy web search using the name of the hobby or interest and the name of your town or area.
Identify groups that participate in your favorite activities. Having an activity helps make the initial meeting of new people less awkward, as the meeting focuses on doing something other than just making small talk. Further, you’ll now know people with whom you can do things you enjoy, even if you continue to do them solo as well. Search engines will help you find groups in your area that match your interests, as will sites like Meetup and Facebook.
Though you’ll meet people at work, work contacts have limits and caveats when it comes to developing what most people would consider true friendships. However, people you know in the office may know of places, groups, and classes in your areas of interest. Don’t hesitate to ask for suggestions and referrals from colleagues and your professional network.
Volunteer for causes that interest or concern you. Every area has nonprofit groups and associations that need help. Often, you can find a list of volunteering opportunities on the local government website. And if you see an organization or an event that interests you as you explore your new area, call or e-mail it via the contact information on their website and ask about volunteering opportunities.
Building new relationships means leaving the comfort and emotional safety of your home or office—and I know how hard that can feel. Going out into the world to encounter a bunch of strangers will intimidate even the hardiest of extroverts.
The good news: The risk of going out into the world to meet new people pays off more often than not. Even if you don’t make a new friend on your first foray, you’ve experienced something new, encountered different people, and gained confidence for your next attempt.
In other words, in the realm of risks, getting out and trying to make connections is an extremely low one.
Building Friendships across a Language and Culture Barrier
Making new friends in a different place that shares your native culture and language has a level of ease that you won’t have if you want to make friends in a different country than your own (even one that shares the same language) or in a place that has a different local language than one you can speak.
In these cases, making connections takes on an entirely new level of complexity.
And, I’d venture, it has an even more critical aspect: Finding friends or even acquaintances in a place where you don’t know the culture or the language can help you avoid falling into a homesickness-driven depression—and it can help you better understand how to integrate more quickly via tips from people who’ve navigated the same situation.
A few ideas for finding friendships in places where you don’t yet speak the language or know the local customs:
You can still find volunteering opportunities for causes of interest or concern for you. Seek out possibilities that require no language skills, require people who speak your language (you’ll be surprised how often organizations need volunteers with different backgrounds), or that require basic skills in the area’s language that will help you practice speaking and understanding the locals (a valuable skill to develop).
Every city and town of a reasonable size has associations and groups dedicated to expatriates and immigrants. You can often find groups for people from specific regions or countries (like the United States or India, for example) or for immigrants and expats from a hodgepodge of areas, usually with English as the spoken language for activities. As members of these types of groups often do not stay in the area for more than a few years, you may find building lasting connections difficult—yet members often can give you valuable tips for integrating with the area and will empathize with any fish-out-of-water feelings you experience.
If you’ve moved to a region that doesn’t speak your main language, enroll in a language class. Try to find a class most likely to attract students similar to you. For example, find a night class if you work in an office during the day, a day class if you have children in school and your job is to manage them when they’re home, a class at a university if you’re of that age. Language classes will help you learn the local language, of course, along with several other side benefits, and they give you an opportunity to meet other people new to the area who don’t yet have fluency, either. (People fluent in the local language will have more opportunities to join local events and make local friends.)
Once you have even a limited ability to speak in the local language, push yourself to join groups not in your native language. Don’t allow yourself to get trapped in your “language bubble.” Locals will appreciate your effort and will often help you continue to learn and practice—people like to help other people, after all. (I promise, no one will laugh at you. Take it from my own personal experience.)
On the customs- and language-learning subject, two key points:
Unless you plan to stay only a year or two, you should work to learn the language and understand the local customs. Even if you plan to stay only a short time, invest in grasping the basics. Doing so shows a level of respect for your host region and will give you an entirely different perspective on where you’ve gotten the opportunity to live for even a short period.
People who live in towns and cities that attract a lot of foreigners—especially transient foreigners on short-term contracts—get tired of the transience of expats and don’t want to invest in friendships with people they know from experience will leave after a short time, never to return, or who haven’t made the effort to integrate into the community and learn the language and culture. Don’t be that person. (And if you are that person, don’t feel upset when you don’t have many local friends.)
Yes, integrating into an area with different cultural norms and a different native language has immense challenges, yet the rewards in terms of your personal growth come much higher. You’ll better understand your new country or region, sure, yet in the process you’ll also learn a lot about your own culture, customs, and language—something that comes only when you gain the distance that discovering contrasts provides.
Evolving Acquaintances into Friends
You won’t connect on a potential-friendship level with most of the people you meet, even at events dedicated to activities and areas of interest. Many of the people you encounter will become casual acquaintances—and these are nice to have, too.
However, when you meet someone that you’d like to get to know better for a possible friendship, you need to invest a little more deeply than saying hello when you see them each time you end up at the same type of event or activity group. You need to take a more focused and, yes, direct approach.
I’ve often noticed that people seem to hang back and hope to get invitations from others—not realizing that they can invite people to do things, too.
Be a little bold and invite a small group of the interesting people you’ve met over to dinner, out to lunch, or to join you for an activity. (Board game nights at your place or a café always help people connect and have fun. Just remember to choose games that work across cultures and languages!)
People love to get invitations and feel pampered when someone organizes something that includes them. Be that person!
Also, if someone mentions an upcoming event or activity that interests you, get a little brave and ask to join them (or suggest that you attend together or with a couple of other people). Sure, you may find that they can’t invite others along or that they can’t attend for some reason, but at least they’ll know you have an interest and will include you in the future. Unless you put yourself forward, people may not realize you’d like to join them or think to invite you.
When it comes to evolving an acquaintance into a friend, remember that friendships take investment—even (if not especially) at the beginning of the relationship. Sure, we’ve all made fast friends with someone in our lives, but these sudden close connections are more a rarity than the norm.
If you want to build real friendships with people, you need to invest your time and your interest and allow the connection and the closeness to develop.
Coming out of the Cocoon and Making Connections
We moved to Lausanne and, shortly thereafter, COVID hit. I don’t need to explain how everything closing and months of confinement put a damper on building friendships. (Not to mention my challenge in having even basic conversations in a different language while in face masks.)
Restrictions have eased up a bit and vaccination has rolled out (though still not as widely as it should have), making meeting new people a little more possible. All this to say that I’m still in the process of making new friends in my latest new place—and that I’m actively applying these principles to do so.
I’ll update this article as more ideas and experiences occur to me. I’d love to hear as well about any adventures and successes you’ve had making new friends in new places!