Traveller1
New member
Hi!
I used to be quite shy but I was lucky to get an opportunity to study abroad in Uni and even though I was worried about it I decided to take the leap of faith.
I was the best thing that ever happened to me and frankly, life-changing. It took me awhile to overcome the shyness abroad but confession it to new friends actually helped a lot.
I’ve been trying to convince some of my friends to do the same because I want them to have this awesome experience as well. I recently stumbled upon this forum and decided to share my thoughts. I hope you don’t see this as an intrusion as I feel like one should be a “real” member to give advice or whatever we should call it.
Anyway I hope that this might help someone out there to take the leap of faith and travel. If you want to travel but are worried about making friends and all that, this might be for you. But it does require you to want to travel and be willing to adjust a couple of things that probably will be uncomfortable at first – I know they were to me.
Should there be a lot of interest in the guide, I might write a longer one with more detail.
When I’ve been back home on vacation my family and friends always ask me this one question: “Weren’t you scared of not having any friends when you moved abroad?”
You bet! That was the single most frightening thing to me! Before moving abroad, I had only been traveling to a few countries on holidays and none of the popular ones that my friends always talked about. I wasn’t particularly interested in travelling and I always felt like it would be difficult as I wouldn’t have any friends wherever I went.
Yet, as it turns out, there is no need to worry.
My impression is that a lot of people are worrying about this with little reason. What many fail to remember is that most other foreigners have the same issue as you which means they want to make friends 100x more than they do at home.
Of course if you just arrived compared to someone who’s been living there for a while, you will have less friends than that person but as all expats know it is common that people come and go — it’s just how it is. Which also means that if you stop making new friends you will end up with none at some point. I tried both so if you do travel, please learn from my mistake.
If you are shy and not comfortable making new friends or walking up to a girl (or guy) in a bar, then traveling is actually one of the best things for you if you are willing to work on your shyness.
Like with anything else, you can only get better by practicing but it is just so much easier to do abroad. Allow me to explain.
First of all, nobody knows you, so you can act in any way you want or be who you want to be.
It might take a bit of time to get comfortable doing something different but trust me it’s much easier and once you have done it a few times and you realize that people judge foreigners much less than locals, you will feel doing it becomes so much easier.
It will also be much easier to talk to people and have a good conversation. More on that in the “what to say”-section.
If this is your first time moving abroad, I suggest forcing yourself to set aside a couple of hours, 2–3 times weekly for the next couple of months to meet people. You don’t want to be in the situation where you are at home or working 24/7 and after three months find yourself in a foreign country not knowing a single soul.
I don’t mean going to dreadful networking events or anything like that. It can be parties on the weekend or just a small get together with a few people you know a bit and a couple of their friends, the point is just that you meet people you get along with and want to hang out with again. In my experience it’s much easier to get along with people abroad but it will still take a while to find those people you really connect well with.
Once you have some friends, things will start to snowball as people are much more open to introducing you to their friends. That’s why you will make it much easier for yourself if you force yourself to do it in the beginning and become more selective with your time as you get used to talking to more and more people.
What does a great network look like?
Of course you should also have friends in your network that you don’t do work related stuff with. Personally I like to have a mix of local friends and foreigners that don’t work online. In my experience it is very rare to become as close to a local as you do to other foreigners (except if it’s your bf/gf).
They will just never understand what it’s like for you to live in a foreign country doing what seems to be the dream to many. Locals are great if you are a curious person, like me, who like to learn as much as possible about the culture, food and try to pick up the language. Most of us will be proud of our home country and love to answer any questions about it, just like many locals do.
Foreigners, on the other hand, will understand you much better and you will probably connect way better with them — the closer their home country is to yours the better you will connect with them (all other things being equal).
For example, if you are from Germany and you meet someone from France you much more likely to connect well with that person compared to someone from, say, China or Brazil as those cultures are much more different.
One thing I suggest avoiding is living with your countrymen. I know that it is the easiest and most comfortable solution but in my experience you will get a much better experience if you don’t live with them and instead meet up with them weekly or on occasion.
The problem with living with countrymen is that you will get into a comfort zone very fast where you might speak your own language at home. Since you already took that leap of faith when you moved abroad, and busted your comfort zone, you now have to work harder to break it again. That’s why it’s much easier for you if you learn to live without them and then appreciate it when you meet up them instead.
The key to a great experience abroad is just a little bit effort each day and it will snowball quickly.
Where do you look for people?
Finding people can be done in a lot places. I started out by meeting some exchange students at Uni but it could also be through work or another type of organization. Here are a couple of examples:
• Home-country events such as get-together at the embassy
• Through other friends
• Flat mates
You can find the people you are looking for everywhere — be creative!
When I move to a new place I usually use the opportunity to find flat mates that work in different places or that I don’t have any other connection with as they will make it easier for me to meet different people. I can promise you that I would have never done that before I moved!
What to say
There is one thing that has been extremely useful to me when making friends abroad; curiosity.
As mentioned previously most people are proud of their country and will be happy if you show interest in their roots. At the same time, you will learn about new food, culture and perhaps language that you can use to impress your friends and family (and if you are in a poor country, perhaps it might help you negotiate stuff like taxi prices ;-)).
One of the best things about being abroad is that when you meet new people the topic always seems to start out with the countries and where you are from, which also makes it an easy icebreaker because you can follow up by asking them if they know X and Y from the same country. This gets much easier the more you do it as your network grows and you know more people and learn more cultural insights you can turn into questions.
If you go to an event where you know there are is a mixed crowd you can be pretty sure there must be some locals so if you don’t know what to say you can always prepare some questions about the country’s food, culture or language. You can use the news or history books for inspiration.
The key here is to let them do the talking and hear their point of view as they will probably know much more about it than you. Something that works really well for me is asking “why”-questions on news topics or how they ended up in this place (why did they choose to come to this country for example).
Action step you can do today if you are already abroad
Plan something with a couple of people you already know and make sure they invite some people you don’t already know (you should do the same) and speak to those strangers — after all your friends must like them if they invite them, right?
Feedback
I know that this is a short and simplified version but the point is for you to get an idea about what it’s like to be shy abroad. At least for me it was not at all as bad as I had imagined it.
As I mentioned in the beginning I could write about this topic forever but I’m trying to keep it short, sweet and actionable. If there is enough interest in the subject, I might write some more.
If it can help clear up some doubt for just one person, that’ll make me happy — so please leave some feedback if you are reading this. I will appreciate it a lot.
Feedback could be that if you liked it, what in particular you liked about it or what you would improve upon — or if think something is missing.
Thank you for reading!
I used to be quite shy but I was lucky to get an opportunity to study abroad in Uni and even though I was worried about it I decided to take the leap of faith.
I was the best thing that ever happened to me and frankly, life-changing. It took me awhile to overcome the shyness abroad but confession it to new friends actually helped a lot.
I’ve been trying to convince some of my friends to do the same because I want them to have this awesome experience as well. I recently stumbled upon this forum and decided to share my thoughts. I hope you don’t see this as an intrusion as I feel like one should be a “real” member to give advice or whatever we should call it.
Anyway I hope that this might help someone out there to take the leap of faith and travel. If you want to travel but are worried about making friends and all that, this might be for you. But it does require you to want to travel and be willing to adjust a couple of things that probably will be uncomfortable at first – I know they were to me.
Should there be a lot of interest in the guide, I might write a longer one with more detail.
When I’ve been back home on vacation my family and friends always ask me this one question: “Weren’t you scared of not having any friends when you moved abroad?”
You bet! That was the single most frightening thing to me! Before moving abroad, I had only been traveling to a few countries on holidays and none of the popular ones that my friends always talked about. I wasn’t particularly interested in travelling and I always felt like it would be difficult as I wouldn’t have any friends wherever I went.
Yet, as it turns out, there is no need to worry.
My impression is that a lot of people are worrying about this with little reason. What many fail to remember is that most other foreigners have the same issue as you which means they want to make friends 100x more than they do at home.
Of course if you just arrived compared to someone who’s been living there for a while, you will have less friends than that person but as all expats know it is common that people come and go — it’s just how it is. Which also means that if you stop making new friends you will end up with none at some point. I tried both so if you do travel, please learn from my mistake.
If you are shy and not comfortable making new friends or walking up to a girl (or guy) in a bar, then traveling is actually one of the best things for you if you are willing to work on your shyness.
Like with anything else, you can only get better by practicing but it is just so much easier to do abroad. Allow me to explain.
First of all, nobody knows you, so you can act in any way you want or be who you want to be.
It might take a bit of time to get comfortable doing something different but trust me it’s much easier and once you have done it a few times and you realize that people judge foreigners much less than locals, you will feel doing it becomes so much easier.
It will also be much easier to talk to people and have a good conversation. More on that in the “what to say”-section.
If this is your first time moving abroad, I suggest forcing yourself to set aside a couple of hours, 2–3 times weekly for the next couple of months to meet people. You don’t want to be in the situation where you are at home or working 24/7 and after three months find yourself in a foreign country not knowing a single soul.
I don’t mean going to dreadful networking events or anything like that. It can be parties on the weekend or just a small get together with a few people you know a bit and a couple of their friends, the point is just that you meet people you get along with and want to hang out with again. In my experience it’s much easier to get along with people abroad but it will still take a while to find those people you really connect well with.
Once you have some friends, things will start to snowball as people are much more open to introducing you to their friends. That’s why you will make it much easier for yourself if you force yourself to do it in the beginning and become more selective with your time as you get used to talking to more and more people.
What does a great network look like?
Of course you should also have friends in your network that you don’t do work related stuff with. Personally I like to have a mix of local friends and foreigners that don’t work online. In my experience it is very rare to become as close to a local as you do to other foreigners (except if it’s your bf/gf).
They will just never understand what it’s like for you to live in a foreign country doing what seems to be the dream to many. Locals are great if you are a curious person, like me, who like to learn as much as possible about the culture, food and try to pick up the language. Most of us will be proud of our home country and love to answer any questions about it, just like many locals do.
Foreigners, on the other hand, will understand you much better and you will probably connect way better with them — the closer their home country is to yours the better you will connect with them (all other things being equal).
For example, if you are from Germany and you meet someone from France you much more likely to connect well with that person compared to someone from, say, China or Brazil as those cultures are much more different.
One thing I suggest avoiding is living with your countrymen. I know that it is the easiest and most comfortable solution but in my experience you will get a much better experience if you don’t live with them and instead meet up with them weekly or on occasion.
The problem with living with countrymen is that you will get into a comfort zone very fast where you might speak your own language at home. Since you already took that leap of faith when you moved abroad, and busted your comfort zone, you now have to work harder to break it again. That’s why it’s much easier for you if you learn to live without them and then appreciate it when you meet up them instead.
The key to a great experience abroad is just a little bit effort each day and it will snowball quickly.
Where do you look for people?
Finding people can be done in a lot places. I started out by meeting some exchange students at Uni but it could also be through work or another type of organization. Here are a couple of examples:
• Home-country events such as get-together at the embassy
• Through other friends
• Flat mates
You can find the people you are looking for everywhere — be creative!
When I move to a new place I usually use the opportunity to find flat mates that work in different places or that I don’t have any other connection with as they will make it easier for me to meet different people. I can promise you that I would have never done that before I moved!
What to say
There is one thing that has been extremely useful to me when making friends abroad; curiosity.
As mentioned previously most people are proud of their country and will be happy if you show interest in their roots. At the same time, you will learn about new food, culture and perhaps language that you can use to impress your friends and family (and if you are in a poor country, perhaps it might help you negotiate stuff like taxi prices ;-)).
One of the best things about being abroad is that when you meet new people the topic always seems to start out with the countries and where you are from, which also makes it an easy icebreaker because you can follow up by asking them if they know X and Y from the same country. This gets much easier the more you do it as your network grows and you know more people and learn more cultural insights you can turn into questions.
If you go to an event where you know there are is a mixed crowd you can be pretty sure there must be some locals so if you don’t know what to say you can always prepare some questions about the country’s food, culture or language. You can use the news or history books for inspiration.
The key here is to let them do the talking and hear their point of view as they will probably know much more about it than you. Something that works really well for me is asking “why”-questions on news topics or how they ended up in this place (why did they choose to come to this country for example).
Action step you can do today if you are already abroad
Plan something with a couple of people you already know and make sure they invite some people you don’t already know (you should do the same) and speak to those strangers — after all your friends must like them if they invite them, right?
Feedback
I know that this is a short and simplified version but the point is for you to get an idea about what it’s like to be shy abroad. At least for me it was not at all as bad as I had imagined it.
As I mentioned in the beginning I could write about this topic forever but I’m trying to keep it short, sweet and actionable. If there is enough interest in the subject, I might write some more.
If it can help clear up some doubt for just one person, that’ll make me happy — so please leave some feedback if you are reading this. I will appreciate it a lot.
Feedback could be that if you liked it, what in particular you liked about it or what you would improve upon — or if think something is missing.
Thank you for reading!