Friendship - defined

For most expats the attempt of "making friends" while living abroad on a two year assignment stops at "meeting people". With a time bound contract, time becomes even more valuable. To keep the energy level of meeting people at an efficient minimum (to safe energy to deal with an upset stomach, the heat, local bureaucracy and the likes) readily accessible networks of people are most welcome.

The problem is, a real friendship is like a puppy, a child, a romantic relationship. A friendship needs to be nourished, taken care of. It's a work in progress, a piece of art. A da Vinci is usually not handed over easily.

Abroad the people we meet first are our colleagues - the ones we can't choose but have to respect and work with. A common next step is trying to penetrate our colleagues' social network. That I find permissible only if language barrier and cultural differences are too big an obstacles to meet local people. I don't think it's healthy if our workplace becomes our only socializing platform.

In my experience there are two different types of "friendships" that develop from there:

It's either the convenient but halfhearted pretense friendship with people of the same skin color, language, and cultural background (interests and shared philosophies aside). Or it's the rare genuine friendship among people who ended up in the same place by interest, choice, and determination (skin color, language, and cultural background aside).

I value quality. The genuine friendships do happen, even abroad. Just like any other friendship, they require energy and care. Like my friendship with Vera. She speaks my language - and beyond.

We met in the Philippines three years ago. Like myself, Vera was starting to work in the development sector. We'd visit each other in Cebu and Manila. Now, two years later we meet again in Manila. Vera as a project manager for the Collective Leadership Institute in Germany, myself a consultant for economic development in the Philippines.

We started off right where we'd dropped the ball... two years ago! More! Having grown out (or up?) of our personal and work-related issues from the past the conversations covered a vast spectrum of positive, intellectual, personal, philosophical, and silly topics. It's amazing what two years of maturing can do... to an individual and a friendship.