How did you make new friends?

Hi again.

I see you made it to the Netherlands - well done.

To try and answer your question; it's not easy.  The Dutch friendship circles tend to centre around family and school-friends and maybe close work-colleagues; they don't tend to welcome in outsiders.

You could try joining sporting groups; football and tennis are quite big in Holland.  Try joining a gym or a running club.

Hope this helps.

Cynic
Expat Team

Thanks. To be honest I'm not really expecting to break into an established Dutch friendship circle nor I'm trying to. For a start it doesn't make sense for a group of people to all speak English because I cannot speak Dutch.

What usually happens in these big group is that you normally have let's say 2-3 people finding something in common and form their own circle, while the others gradually drop off.

I also worried about this when I came to Amsterdam a few months ago, since I am also an introvert. I realized that I basically had not made any new friends in the last 2-3 years, I was just maintaining my old friendship circle where I lived. 

The main thing for me was learning how to get better at having meaningful conversations. You can definitely spend two years talking to classmates and coworkers at a very superficial level and never develop any significant bond that could evolve into a friendship.

Get used to talk about what you love - be it a hobby or side project you engage with. It is astonishing how fast you can click with someone when you demonstrate that you are passionate about what you do.

Btw, I grew up in such a way that I never talked about what I had accomplished or what I was doing, ever. Learning how to do this was very awkward at first because I was worried that people would think that I was gloating or something. I just got better at doing this with practice.

I am currently trying to create a music group with a few acquaintances,  but if you don't want to do much work, you can probably join a MeetUp group about a topic that you are interested in.

It certainly takes a lot of effort. You can't just take a backseat and expect people to invite you to things. This was probably the mistake I made in my last two relocations where I didn't really make any long lasting friends.

I'm also the same in the sense that my friends are from my school/university days, and it's a worry now because I'm talking to them less and less.

Maybe I shouldn't panic after 2 months, every week I try to get out at least twice to various things to meet people.

When I used to work for companies here (I have been self-employed for over fifteen years now), it was normal that you didn't see your colleagues outside of the office. Unlike other countries, such as the UK where you may gather in the pub on Friday evening, such things are not done in the NL. Working in a company with many/majority expats could be an exception to this rule though.

When I came here back in 1991, I took on board my partner's friends. There were also a couple of work colleagues who we have stayed in contact with since moving up north. We stayed in contact with our neighbours from where we lived in the West but the contact grew less over the years.

We met most of our current friends through our children going to school here, when we all would drop off and collect the kids from each other's houses.

There are expat gatherings which still take place in the areas where the majority of expats congregate, but as Cynic wrote above, the Dutch form friendships at primary school onwards. Family comes mostly first and then the school-university friend 'kring' (don't get this word confused with 'kreng', which means something completely different). Many Dutch will also think, as you are an expat and here temporarily, that it would be a waste of effort to form a friendship with you.

Over the last thirty years, I have found it easier to form friendships with other expats, couples who are a mixture of Dutch and expat (or immigrant, including 2nd or more generation), immigrant families in general as well as Dutch singles/couples who are highly educated and/or who have traveled a lot outside Western Europe. 

I met a lot of expats when I studied Dutch in Utrecht back in the 90's and I still keep in contact with a dear South African friend I met on a language course there, although she moved on to Switzerland many years ago now.   

Life can be lonely in the NL (through no fault of trying!) Contact with your neighbours can range from none existent through to meals together, but I suppose that applies to many countries.

But, if you have a Dutch partner here, there is always the mostly huge Dutch family that you will get to meet on every birthday occasion and celebration imaginable. Just remember to make sure the chairs do not get to form a circle and you get seated between people who don't (won't) engage you in conversation (I used to hide as many chairs as I could when I first came here in order to prevent that....!)

Invite your neighbors for a coffee to start with. Works most of the time.
I think it depends where you live and work.

I learned that if I want know people of make friends, I should take the initiative. If you wait until the other makes the move, you can wait forever...