When we become expats, we don’t fully realise how our social life will change.
Changing countries is considered to be one of the most stressful events (add up all the factors on the scale - the sum would be comparable with the top of the scale) with the social aspect contributing vastly.
Within a family, the more sociable partner, it seems, takes on more stress - all their friends and close connections are left in the previous home. And then goes less sociable/working partner, but it doesn’t mean he will not receive his/her dose of adaptational stress, too.
The range of difficulties which expats encounter in local communities is wide, here are some examples:
- people do not have pure pronunciation (thus you miss some words despite trying hard)
- people don’t understand your jokes
- you find inviting people to your place not as satisfying as “at home”
- you can’t figure out the “culture code” right away
- your connections lack closeness
- people coming from different cultures have different ideas about what “socialising” is
So, what’s the craic?
Some expats find it hard to make friends with Irish people or complain that Irish people don’t make good friends.
That’s not what we believe in.
Sure, in Ireland people already have friends whom they’ve known from school, with whom they crashed a hundred parties together and visited the same number of weddings. Attitudes towards immigrants, in general, have not been very positive. It seems to be only worsening with time (and brexits).
Nevertheless, it’s better than, say, in some other EU countries. Neighbours will probably not ask you directly “where did you get your new car” to inform the Revenue if they think you’ve cheated with taxes. At the same time, many people are warm and sincere towards others, no matter the nationality, and very open (steer clear of talk about personal accounts and you’ll be grand)!
Understanding and appreciation of Irish humour really adds to feeling like home, too.
Regardless, it is quite hard to be non-native in many, many other countries. Contacts you make with people seem not quite like friendship. Not like “at home”.
It is important to remember: the older a person gets, the less it is about “making friends” and the more about networking. Networking, want it or not, becomes more reasonable - and more important.
“What’s in it for me?” can not be a complicated question. No matter what stage of culture shock one is in, the answer for everyone lays in his needs: it may be a feeling of connection, meeting a fitness buddy, creating a new hobby group, finding a job or just finding “your kind of people” in a new environment.
Numerous books on adaptation stress have been written since the 1980s, and many things happened as predicted: the global nomads generation is already here. Chances are, you and your kids belong to this group. After a while, it becomes an eye-opening experience to communicate with a person who spent all their life in one place. They have no idea what you are going through. Once you figure it out, you are ready to go networking!
Some main Networking groups/activities of Dublin, as of January 2017.
- Expats in Dublin group with about 11770 members, posting job/sale/rental offers and a little bit on all other themes, you name it. As far as we know, there are regular pub gatherings.
- Internations - well-known and widely spread community, with many good reviews. It has branches internationally. Unfortunately, we haven’t been to any of the meetings, as they all fall on my busy date.
- Meetups - a vast amount of different meetup groups. You never know who will show up, but someone will. Some groups there repeat FB groups and events, but it’s easier to navigate.
- I am a Triangle community, based on an interesting idea: explaining how expat personality changes using geometry analogies, read here and here. They were opening an FB branch in Ireland but at the moment “overgrown” FB platform (hard to imagine how they did it with just 10k) and at this stage now.
- Dublin Language Exchange community - social rather than academic, with young members and massively crowded meetups in the Czech Inn.
- Count Her In - relatively new community
constellation for women with big plans for 2017!
At the moment they invite:
Mommies
A great chance to meet local moms from your area and socialise with kids. On rainy days, mothers with small children can meet in a play cafe. This is especially useful for a mom feeling lonely: while her kid is playing with buddies, herself is entertained over a coffee conversation with other moms.
Ladies
Well, there’s finally some chance common activities will bring you closer to meeting “your kind of girls”… Or is there? - Underdeveloped trend: “meet-and-greet” type of (tech) corporate communities. The idea is, with a contract, the expat’s significant other gets access to a family community, where he/she is greeted and receives some information and networking opportunities.
“My husband works in a small Irish firm, they don’t have any relocation community, we are the only family moved, but if you work for huge technological companies, it is just wonderful, that there are such communities helping to adapt, put feet on the ground! That’s Super! There should be more of these.”
Why family?
If the company invests in supporting the spouse’s adaptation, he/she is less likely to be unhappy and the specialist more likely to consider an expat experience a success.
In an ideal world, if only companies followed this suggestion and cared about work-life balance, an employee’s family could benefit from a membership in a smaller professional community with known members: by participating and organising activities, educational and social hours and coaching sessions. A company could help by addressing barriers to participation and creating urban infrastructure, i.e transportation and childcare, engaging kids in advanced educational activities. Let’s not forget that one of the main things making spouses happy, besides their own career and home, is their kids! Because of the “closed” option, the community would filter out potential job-seekers and opportunists.
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