{"id":1820,"date":"2014-05-29T21:46:48","date_gmt":"2014-05-29T20:46:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blog.iese.edu\/expatriatus\/?p=1820"},"modified":"2014-05-29T21:46:48","modified_gmt":"2014-05-29T20:46:48","slug":"the-expat-dilemma-building-new-or-keeping-old-relationships","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.iese.edu\/expatriatus\/2014\/05\/29\/the-expat-dilemma-building-new-or-keeping-old-relationships\/","title":{"rendered":"The Expat Dilemma: Building New or Keeping Old Relationships"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"tumblr_l94shbjaWY1qbovywo1_500_large\"<\/a>In one of my recent posts<\/a>, I discussed the cases of expat<\/strong>s visiting home, missing the familiarity of it and trying to balance between the \u2018new\u2019 (even if temporary) and \u2018old\u2019 homes. Continuing on this topic of this double expat life<\/strong>, today I would like to focus on expats\u2019 relationships, and more specifically, their friendships<\/strong>. A couple of years ago, I have written<\/a> about expat friendships<\/strong> already, highlighting the dilemma of making new friends either with local people in the host country<\/strong> or other expats. However, coming back to the notion of a double expat life<\/strong>, we can also assume a double set of relationships, and thus define the dilemma as choosing between friends in the \u2018new\u2019 home and the \u2018old\u2019 home. In other words, should expat<\/strong>s focus more on building new friendships<\/strong> in the destination country or maintaining old friendships<\/strong> back home?<\/p>\n

I am putting it intentionally as a matter of either\/or, as I believe that during the initial stages of expatriation<\/strong> the required investments into relationships are higher and the allocation of time and energy resources becomes very demanding.<\/p>\n

Indeed, if we speak about creating a new friendship<\/strong> network in the host destination, I think we can all agree that it is a time and energy consuming process. \u2018Making new friends is not that easy\u2019 is one of the most common anecdotal expat<\/strong> experiences, isn\u2019t it? To overcome this difficulty, as a recently arrived expat<\/strong>, you would be advised<\/a> to communicate a lot, make some extra concessions of your free time to bond with people, join interest clubs and associations and so on. To put it simply, in order to make new friends in the host location you need to work on establishing and developing these relationships. Naturally, this takes time and energy.<\/p>\n

Now, on the other hand, most probably there are friends back home, who expect their share of your attention too. Especially during the initial time of expatriation<\/strong>, your closest friends might want to catch up on a regular basis as they may feel excited about your move, curious about your new life, adventures and overall well-being. Most probably as an expat<\/strong>, you would also look for this contact to remain involved in your friends\u2019 lives and feel the comfort of familiar relationships. As such, keeping in touch with friends from home is important, but as easy as the expression of \u2018keep in touch\u2019 might sound, in reality it also needs planning and investment of one\u2019s time and energy.<\/p>\n

Naturally, making this dilemma a purely either\/or matter is an exaggeration. Both building new and maintaining old friendships<\/strong> are important for expatriates<\/strong>\u2019 well-being and can be combined to an extent. Yet, the point I would like to make is that managing both processes equally well can be challenging and may pose extra demands upon the initial relocation. Moreover, this challenge seems to be rarely spoken about, which makes it even more unexpected and thus more difficult to cope with. For example, \u2018old\u2019 friends might feel left out and offended by the expat<\/strong>\u2019s lack of time due to engaging in different activities with \u2018new\u2019 friends. On the more practical side, it might be even difficult just to find convenient time to skype, for instance due to time zone differences.<\/p>\n

All in all, I believe that although the expat dilemma<\/strong> of balancing \u2018new\u2019 and \u2018old\u2019 friendships<\/strong> can only be partly solved, being prepared for the challenge, as well as managing one\u2019s own and others\u2019 expectations in terms of availability may be a good start for coping with this situation.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In one of my recent posts, I discussed the cases of expats visiting home, missing the familiarity of it and trying to balance between the \u2018new\u2019 (even if temporary) and \u2018old\u2019 homes. Continuing on this topic of this double expat life, today I would like to focus on expats\u2019 relationships, and more specifically, their friendships. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":345,"featured_media":1825,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[18330],"tags":[82019,18342,82018,17550,82016,82017],"class_list":["post-1820","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-views-and-news-about-expatriates","tag-double-expat-life","tag-expat","tag-expat-dilemma","tag-expatriation","tag-friendships","tag-host-country"],"acf":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.iese.edu\/expatriatus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1820","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.iese.edu\/expatriatus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.iese.edu\/expatriatus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.iese.edu\/expatriatus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/345"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.iese.edu\/expatriatus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1820"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/blog.iese.edu\/expatriatus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1820\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1822,"href":"https:\/\/blog.iese.edu\/expatriatus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1820\/revisions\/1822"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.iese.edu\/expatriatus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1825"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.iese.edu\/expatriatus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1820"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.iese.edu\/expatriatus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1820"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.iese.edu\/expatriatus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1820"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}