First Friends

"What is a Friend? I will tell you. It is a person with whom you dare to be yourself." - Frank Crane

Over the past few days I've made some friends. There's a Thai-Scot girl who lives in the room next to mine; I've met an English girl and a couple of Americans who sat down at my table while I was trying haggis.

In my flat here, there are at least eight out of twelve rooms occupied by Americans. The American population in the property is pretty high overall, which is surprising - almost 50% of the students who live here are American.

Making friends is hard, and harder still when it seems you're trying to break into a new social circle. When people are comfortable with the people and culture that they are used to, and you come from a place that's completely different to theirs, understanding their language and even their behaviour is a challenge. It's easy to find yourself lost in conversation, even if we're all speaking English.

Sometimes I feel like in order to break into that circle, I have to change the person I am to become a person who would fit in. But something happened yesterday that reminded me that I didn't have to.

Yesterday I went to a Fresher's Week event by the school musical theatre group Footlights.

For the first time since I'd come to this country, I was in a group where everyone loved the same things I do.

I met one person, a Greek girl, who like me was pretty much alone in a new country. At first I was confused because she seemed not to understand my English; she kept asking me to repeat myself and slow down my speech. It was a while before I realised that she wasn't from a country where English was the working language.

In that musical theatre group, though, we were singing and dancing and acting together, and it was easy to connect with a person who like me loved musical theatre and opera, like me loved to sing, and like me just wanted to perform.

I realised that it was easier to make friends when you're not trying so hard.

We even went out shopping afterwards, and what's there to complain about a spontaneous shopping trip?

Changing the person you are only solves a very superficial problem; it puts you in a position where you're behaving differently just to make it seem like you're not alone. But then in changing the person, you lose that which makes you become you.

I realised that you don't have to try to break into a social circle. It seems like in a new environment you want to be first-rate friends with every person you meet, but actually all you have to do is be comfortable with the person you are and let things be. Not every conversation has to be understood; eventually, the people who will become your friends will come by.

We take ourselves with us, wherever we go.

Part of the reason why it's hard for me to understand my neighbours is because we grew up in such different cultures. My American neighbours are simply bringing what they know with them. It's just that I don't know it, and that's the reason I feel excluded.

But it's fine that I'm the musical theatre lover who likes being out in the woods together with nature, singing, dancing, reading and taking photographs. And even if I can't go out and hit the town with them every night, it doesn't mean that I can't be friends in other ways.

Talking in the hall, sipping coffee by the window.

There's a whole year ahead of me; I'll make more friends yet, and I won't have to pretend to be somebody just to fit in with the crowd.

I think I'm starting to become comfortable with that.