This is something I do not know how to do. The first time I went abroad (to Florence for a summer) I really didn’t make any friends at all, despite taking Italian classes every day with kids my age. I suppose I was enjoying the first opportunity I had ever had to be by myself all the time. I did enjoy it, but I would also have enjoyed having friends. The second time I went abroad I was in Paris with 80 other American students and I had no problem making friends. It was a blast, but I wish I had worked harder to make French friends as well.
This is my third experience living in another country for an extended period of time, and I really need to make an effort if I want to meet people. I’ve been here for three weeks so I’m not feeling frantic yet, and I do have quite a bit to do in the next month or so, but I still want to get started. How?? I work from 8:30 in the morning until 6 or later at night, and I have to go to bed by 10 if I even have a prayer of getting up at 6:30 for my morning run. Saturday is errand day and Sunday is baking and cleaning day. I live the life of an elderly spinster! I suppose the other issue is that I like living like an old lady with her cats. I’m such a homebody naturally that I don’t object to much to being by myself watching ANTM on Saturday night - at least not for the first month or so. I’ve already thought of lots of things I’d like to do here - visit the flower show at Bellinzona, go to Lake Como, take a boat tour of the lake, hike on San Salvatore - and I’m not going to want to do it all alone. So make friends I must.
What I’ve done so far is to join the Swiss Expat Blogger’s network, whose members are almost exclusively in the Zurich/Geneva areas, and not near Lugano. One of the bloggers posted about a social networking site called “Meetup” where you can join groups of people with your interests for the occasional meeting. There is a group for English speakers in Lugano that will meet in April. What next? The Big Ben club (part of the Swiss-Anglo clubs of Switzerland) is going bowling tonight, the International Women of Lugano have a couple meetings in April and the American Women of Ticino have just sent me their newsletter (but how do all these women meet for coffee on workdays?). I deeply want to bury my head in the sand because meeting so many new people all together sounds completely exhausting BUT I think I have to go. I could stay in my little town for months on end without making new friends, but then I would be living out of an emotional weekend suitcase. I won’t really make a life in Switzerland unless I make friends and (I hate this expression but here we go) “put myself out there”. People are always telling me to do that (usually because they think I should be dating) but there you have it.
Dating profile next…?
This is my third experience living in another country for an extended period of time, and I really need to make an effort if I want to meet people. I’ve been here for three weeks so I’m not feeling frantic yet, and I do have quite a bit to do in the next month or so, but I still want to get started. How?? I work from 8:30 in the morning until 6 or later at night, and I have to go to bed by 10 if I even have a prayer of getting up at 6:30 for my morning run. Saturday is errand day and Sunday is baking and cleaning day. I live the life of an elderly spinster! I suppose the other issue is that I like living like an old lady with her cats. I’m such a homebody naturally that I don’t object to much to being by myself watching ANTM on Saturday night - at least not for the first month or so. I’ve already thought of lots of things I’d like to do here - visit the flower show at Bellinzona, go to Lake Como, take a boat tour of the lake, hike on San Salvatore - and I’m not going to want to do it all alone. So make friends I must.
What I’ve done so far is to join the Swiss Expat Blogger’s network, whose members are almost exclusively in the Zurich/Geneva areas, and not near Lugano. One of the bloggers posted about a social networking site called “Meetup” where you can join groups of people with your interests for the occasional meeting. There is a group for English speakers in Lugano that will meet in April. What next? The Big Ben club (part of the Swiss-Anglo clubs of Switzerland) is going bowling tonight, the International Women of Lugano have a couple meetings in April and the American Women of Ticino have just sent me their newsletter (but how do all these women meet for coffee on workdays?). I deeply want to bury my head in the sand because meeting so many new people all together sounds completely exhausting BUT I think I have to go. I could stay in my little town for months on end without making new friends, but then I would be living out of an emotional weekend suitcase. I won’t really make a life in Switzerland unless I make friends and (I hate this expression but here we go) “put myself out there”. People are always telling me to do that (usually because they think I should be dating) but there you have it.
Dating profile next…?
