Forging friendship fatigue

Forging friendship fatigue is a very personal issue for me. Recently I have noticed that I just don’t seem willing to put myself out there to find new friends when I know perfectly well I feel lonely for good friends, you know the type: the ones you can tell anything to, do anything with and generally they make you smile.

Bangkok has not been kind to me in that regard because I had a very good friend here but as is the condition of being an expat, my good friend’s husband up and retired when the company my husband and he work for downsized their expat staff so they are now back in the States. She was the one person I really connected with here. That happened six months or so ago and they just came back to visit us which I have to say was bittersweet. I have kept myself busy since she left and have even attempted to get involved in new activities hoping to find another person or two I really connect with but so far to no avail.

I have been an expat for 25 years and have made a new life in at least nine different cities in seven different countries. Much of the time my children have been with me but now that they have grown and with their own partners, have their own jobs and lives on the west coast of Canada it is Forging friendship fatigue is a very personal issue for me. Recently I have noticed that I just don’t seem willing to put myself out there to find new friends when I know perfectly well I feel lonely for good friends, you know the type: the ones you can tell anything to, do anything with and generally they make you smile. just myself, my husband and our two beautiful dogs, Louis and Sassy.

In most of the places we have had to make new friends. Some situations it is much easier than others or rather less demanding. When we lived in a camp or a confined community whether company owned, secured, or expat dominated it was easier to make friends. We were all in the same boat so to speak and we learned to get along, well mostly at least. I did hear of an experience of one woman who was ostracised from the community for the entire four years she lived there because of something two women believed she shouldn’t have done: which was leave their children in the care of their nanny while they went to her husband’s dying father. The whole family was shunned, even some of the children were told they could not play with her children. She and her family suffered horribly and were very glad to move on.

If we lived in a city then usually we managed either through our work, the children, their school or activities to develop friendships with people. But as I get older I just find it harder and harder and I found out through my research that I am not alone in this feeling. In each place we have lived we have always had a number of good friend couples. As the years have gone on I think the number has got smaller. I usually have one or two very good friends and then a number of other friends I know I can have fun with and count on. I must say in the last few cities that we have lived in the number seems to be dwindling.

Bangkok is a wonderful place to be an expat and I don’t want to seem that I am complaining, it is simply that for me I am finding it very difficult not to be lonely. My husband is here and I am thankful for that but right now I find it so hard to find people that I want to attempt to make the demanding physical and mental effort to connect and make friends with. With the ever changing global economy it seems people are coming and going all the time and after all these years you would think I would be used to it but somehow I’m not.

I have recently found out another friend of mine whom I was just really getting to know is retiring and returning home, which saddens me. A person I felt I had somewhat connected with is also destined to leave in June but she prepared me for this awhile ago. It just never seems to get any easier and I have to wonder how many others out there that feel same as I; lonely but not really sure if they are really sure they have the strength and the energy to keep putting themselves out there in hopes of finding that ‘friend connection’.

Experts say that as we grow older it is more difficult to build friendships for both internal and external reasons. Many of us relied for a long time on the group of friends we had in school and then in college. After college our lives begin to change. Often friends move away from each other to different location with significant others or start to build families that form a significant distraction taking away from free time a person has to spend with one’s friends. In college, 20s or early 30s we are more likely to live communally, in dorms, share accommodation creating an environment of intimacy, sharing and time spent in company.

Internally we build friends by sharing the same values, backgrounds, interests and over time trust. As time goes on these things may change and where a childhood friend was trusted and valued your shared ideals have changed enough that the relationship no longer exists. As we get older making these connections, especially trust (which takes time and experience) is harder to do and that is part of the reason we just find it harder to make friend as we get older.

Now add being an expat to that and it is no wonder forging friendship fatigue happens. Friendships are usually developed quite quickly (or at least they have been in my expat life) and they disappear just as fast since mere distance of place and time can put a heavy burden on a friendship. Never mind, that many of the things you had in common, your living circumstance, being a foreigner in a country not your own, evaporate once one of you moves on.

Every expat knows that the relationships you forge are temporary and yet become a part of who you are. It is very hard to come to terms with the duality of knowing that to enjoy living somewhere you must strive to make new relationships and friends but that you also grow weary of doing so at the same time.

Experts also say that one of the ways to combat this lethargy is to try new activities, create new interests so you can meet like minded people. Expat communities in general do provide lots of opportunity for that and Bangkok is no exception. It does take quite a lot of courage and energy to join various interest group to find those like minded people. This is my
challenge in Bangkok: to learn to deal with this transitional change and to muddle through and hopefully be blessed to find someone I can forge a friendship with and connect.