from insider to outsider to insider, again

I was living in The Netherlands when I took the leap to leave the corporate world and start my own business. It wasn’t so much that I'd always dreamed of running my own business someday. It was more a case of life giving me the shove I needed to start walking a different path. Back then I was working in a stressful environment filled with constant deadlines and, quite honestly, a lot of bullying. It was taking a toll on my mental, emotional and physical health. For a long time I stuck it out because the job paid the bills and allowed me to live a good life. That was until I fell physically ill… very ill.

After a couple of years of constant illness, including hospital visits and months away from work, I knew it was time to call quits on the corporate world. I decided it was better to leave while I still had the chance to recover than continue until my health made the decision for me. And so I left.

Starting my own business brought me into a completely different world. I’d never run a business before, and suddenly there was a lot I had to learn. One of those things was networking. Now, I’m an introvert. So although the idea of meeting other women running their own businesses sounded sensible, actually walking into a room full of strangers and talking to them was another matter entirely.

I remember heading to my very first networking event in Den Haag. With a mix of excitement and dread I sat on the train, navigated the tram system and eventually arrived outside the venue, where I stood for a few minutes giving myself a pep talk and seriously considering whether getting back on the tram might be the better option. Eventually I went in.

At first it was easier than I’d expected. A couple of women greeted me warmly and there were friendly faces asking who I was and what I did. Then the initial welcomes ended and people began mixing and talking amongst themselves. That was the difficult part. I didn’t naturally know how to move into those conversations. I felt awkward and out of place, and although I stayed, I left a little early.

The following month I went back. This time there were faces I recognised, which made an enormous difference. I made a beeline towards them and, if I’m honest, probably treated them as something of a safety net. Gradually, as the months passed, I became more familiar with the group and more comfortable talking to people I didn’t already know. Then something rather surprising happened. The woman who had once stood outside a networking meeting trying to persuade herself to walk through the door became someone who attended networking events two or three times a week across The Netherlands. I even started my own little group for women who had businesses so we could support one another.

From the outside, I probably looked like a prolific networker. I would arrive at events where people recognised me, introduce me to others and treat me as though I was an old hand at the whole thing. My network became huge. If somebody needed help with something, chances were I knew somebody who could help them. I'd become very good at networking. And for a long time, I took that to mean networking suited me. Those two things turned out not to be quite the same thing.

In 2015, my husband was made redundant and eventually found a new job in Switzerland, which was a little too far to commute from The Netherlands. So we moved. And with that move I left behind far more than a country. I left the network I had spent years building. I left people who knew me, friendships that had developed over time and a social identity I had worked extremely hard to create. I'd gone from somebody who once felt like an outsider at networking events to somebody who could walk into rooms and be recognised.

Then I moved country and became the new person again. It was only after arriving in Switzerland, when all that networking suddenly stopped, that I realised just how exhausted I was. For years I'd been running my business during the day and travelling to events two or three evenings a week. I'd met some amazing women, many of whom became friends, and there was genuine value in those relationships. However, the level of social effort required to maintain that life had taken far more out of me than I had acknowledged at the time. I had proved that I could network. That didn’t necessarily mean, however, that the way I was doing it fitted me.

When we moved to Switzerland, I didn’t immediately begin searching for new groups or rebuilding what I had left behind. Quite the opposite. I withdrew. We lived in Switzerland for five years and, although I loved my life there and Switzerland will always have a big piece of my heart, I left knowing less than a handful of people.

For a long time, that was what I wanted. After years of sustained social effort, I needed very little social contact outside my family. I didn’t feel any urge to walk into unfamiliar rooms and introduce myself all over again. There's something quite particular about moving countries in that respect. You can spend years becoming known somewhere, gradually building friendships and learning where you fit, and then one relocation places you back on the outside.

You may know perfectly well how to make conversation, how to attend an event, how to introduce yourself and how to build connections. You still have to begin again, though. And being capable of beginning again doesn’t necessarily mean you have the energy or desire to do it immediately.

A few years after moving from Switzerland to Austria, and after the pandemic had ended and people could socialise again, something began to shift in me. I wanted more connection. Not the kind of networking life I’d had in The Netherlands. I had no desire to recreate that. I simply began to miss having people around me beyond my family.

Eventually I came across a local group for international women, women who, for all sorts of reasons, had also left their home countries and were now living in Austria. There was no business agenda attached to it. It was simply a chance to meet for coffee and get to know other people. That felt different enough for me to consider trying. It still didn’t mean walking through the door felt easy. Before the first coffee morning, I Googled the venue and cycled past it earlier in the week so I knew exactly where I was going and how to get in. Then, on the day itself, I turned up bang on time because I had no idea how strict the starting time was and wanted to make a good first impression. Some things about introversion apparently survive several international moves.

When I arrived, I was greeted with smiles and the usual questions about who I was and where I was from. It was warm. It was welcoming. And then more women arrived. As the room filled, it became obvious that some of them had been coming for quite a while. They knew one another. They knew about each other’s lives. Friendships had already formed. And suddenly I felt like the outsider again.

Nobody had done anything wrong. Nobody was excluding me. I'd been welcomed into the room. However, that didn’t mean I felt I belonged there yet. It can feel awkward entering a group where other people already have shared history, particularly when you're new to a country and trying to find your place socially at the same time. Everybody else seems to know where to sit, who to talk to and what happened last week while you are still trying to remember names.

I left that first coffee morning wondering whether I should go back. Part of me thought I might simply be happier returning to the quieter life I'd created for myself. Another part of me knew I wanted connection again, even though I wasn’t completely comfortable with what rebuilding it involved. So I went back the following week. And then again. There wasn’t one particular moment where I suddenly became an insider. It happened gradually, through seeing the same people, learning more about their lives and allowing them to learn more about mine.

Over time, I formed some truly special friendships with women who understood parts of this life without needing much explanation. They understood what it was like to live somewhere that wasn't your home country, the strange mixture of liking where you live while sometimes missing somewhere else, and the practical and emotional ups and downs that can come with building a life away from the place you started. That shared experience didn't automatically create friendship. Turning up to an international women's group didn't magically make me belong. The friendships grew because, gradually, some of us connected. And the way that happened suited me far better than the life I'd created around constant business networking.

I still have moments during the coffee mornings when introverted-me doesn't quite know what to say. There are still awkward silences. There are still occasions when I am perfectly happy to go home afterwards and enjoy being alone. That hasn't disappeared. Nor do I think it needs to. What changed was my understanding of what social connection needed to look like for me. In The Netherlands, I became highly networked. I learned that I could walk into unfamiliar rooms, meet people and build an enormous network. Switzerland showed me the cost I hadn't fully noticed while I was doing it. And Austria has given me something different. A smaller kind of connection, perhaps. A quieter one. One that leaves more room for the fact that I'm still an introvert.

Living abroad has also taught me that becoming an insider is never necessarily permanent. People move. I move. The women I have become close to may eventually move somewhere else, and I may too. That knowledge is part of international life, whether we particularly like it or not.

Another relocation could place me on the outside again. I don't think I know how to prevent that, nor am I sure that's the point. What I know now is that being on the outside doesn't mean I have to rebuild exactly what I had before. I don't need to recreate Viv the prolific networker simply because I once proved I could be her. And I don't need to treat the quieter years in Switzerland as though I somehow failed at building a life there. They were different periods of my life, asking different things from me.

Perhaps that's what I understand differently now about comfort zones too. Sometimes stepping beyond what feels familiar opens something we genuinely want. Sometimes it shows us we're capable of far more than we thought. And sometimes being capable of something also teaches us that we don't want to keep doing it in quite the same way.

For me, becoming an insider again hasn't meant building the biggest network or becoming completely comfortable in social situations. It's meant finding a few people with whom I no longer feel as though I'm standing around the edge of the room. For now, that feels like enough.