i don't want more people. i want friends.

I met up recently with the one woman I know in Frankfurt. I like her and enjoy seeing her every now and then. She’s usually quite chatty and has been going through a lot in recent years, so there’s always plenty for us to talk about when we meet. Whilst her mother tongue isn’t English, having spent several years living in the US, she speaks it very well. And yet I noticed something afterwards that I’ve found myself returning to since. I didn’t walk away with the same grin on my face and spring in my step that I have after spending time with the FWOGS.

There’s nothing wrong with the friendship we have. I enjoy her company. It simply feels different, and I think I’m becoming more aware of that difference because I would like to build a small social circle here in Frankfurt. For many years, I haven’t needed much of one. Dennis doesn’t need or seek out friendships in the way I do, and over the years I adjusted considerably to match him. Somewhere along the way, though, I’ve realised that although I don't need many, I do need some. The problem is that I don't particularly want to go out and meet lots of people in the hope that one or two of them might eventually become friends.

I don't want more people. I want friends. Perhaps that sounds obvious. Although it has taken me a surprisingly long time to recognise the distinction in myself, particularly because when I first moved abroad, meeting people seemed to happen quite naturally. I was in my late twenties when I left Northern Ireland for Amsterdam, where I had moved for work. Almost as soon as I’d put my bum in my chair, my manager came over and told me that a group was going out on the Friday evening and that I should join them. At the time, I simply saw it as part of this new international life I’d stepped into, meeting people from different countries and cultures when everything about living abroad still felt new.

It’s only recently that I’ve thought back to that group and realised that it was predominantly made up of first-language English speakers: Americans, British, Zimbabweans and Australians. That recognition brought back another memory from the same period. Two women already working in the team I’d been appointed to manage had also applied for my job and were unhappy that an outsider had been given the position. One of them once made a fairly snarky comment about how strange she found it that English speakers living abroad tended to gravitate towards other English speakers, whereas she was capable of making friends with internationals from everywhere.

I remember the comment all these years later, which perhaps explains why I still feel slightly uncomfortable admitting that the friendships I now crave are mostly with other first-language English speakers. There’s something about saying that out loud which makes me want to immediately qualify it, to explain that I’ve lived internationally for more than twenty years and have known, worked with and socialised with people from many different countries. Yet that still doesn’t change what I’m noticing now.

I live with and am married to a German. Dennis's English is excellent and English is the language we use with each other, however even he doesn’t get my jokes and humour much of the time. It’s such an ordinary part of our life together that I rarely give it much thought, although I have started wondering how much energy I have spent over the years communicating across those tiny differences, the ones that are barely noticeable because you become so accustomed to them.

Perhaps that is why the FWOGS (Foreign Wives of German Speakers) feel so different. There are four of us, two Canadian and two British, including me, all first-language English speakers and all living abroad with German-speaking husbands. When we are together, conversation feels natural. Our humour makes sense to one another without needing anything extra. I don't have to think particularly hard about what I’m saying or whether something will land in the way I intended it. Being with them is easy and effortless. It’s fun. They feed my soul and light me up.

I think that ease matters to me far more now than it would have when I first moved abroad. Back then, I was in my late twenties and early thirties, and meeting people from different countries was part of the excitement of the life I had chosen. I’m now in my fifties. I have changed over those years, as anyone would, however I have also spent more than two decades living outside the country where I grew up, adapting to different places, people and ways of doing things.

I don't think I recognised until recently that socialising can become another place where adaptation happens. It may also explain why I sometimes appear, even to myself, to be far less social than I once was. I see women posting in Facebook groups asking whether anyone would like to go hiking or whether there are hiking groups they can join, and despite loving walking, I immediately withdraw from the idea [link: blog: I Want Friends. Just Don't Come Hiking With Me]. Sometimes I don't even fully read the post. I don't want to make conversation while I walk or match somebody else's pace, change where I intended to go or adjust how I want to spend those hours. Walking has become my time alone and I don't want anyone breaking into that solitude.

Yet the fact that I want that solitude does not mean I want to live without friendship. That’s the part I think I’ve been muddling together. For too many years, I adjusted to the fact that Dennis doesn't need or seek out friendships in the way I do, while at other times I assumed that if I wanted more social contact, I should probably join groups and meet more people. Neither quite describes what I find myself wanting now.

Even friendship with someone who shares my first language doesn’t automatically create the particular ease I’m looking for. I have a really good school friend in Northern Ireland whom I love meeting whenever I’m back. We’ve known one another for many years, however our lives have followed very different paths. We’ve both changed as we’ve grown older, which is natural, although my more than twenty years abroad have changed me through experiences she hasn’t had, just as her life has shaped her differently. Neither path is wrong. They’re simply different.

Perhaps this is one of the more subtle things that happens after many years abroad. The question of friendship becomes less about whether you are capable of meeting people and more particular than that. There are friendships in which part of you is still translating, adjusting or explaining, even when everyone speaks English well, and others where you notice only afterwards how little effort being together seemed to require.

It’s the sort of distinction that can be difficult to explain because from the outside there may be no obvious problem to solve. It’s also part of the territory that can emerge in my Personal Support sessions with women living abroad, when the thing they’re trying to understand is not why they cannot make friends, it’s why the friendships or social lives available to them don’t necessarily give them what they now realise they need.

I’m still working out what that means for me in Frankfurt. I would like a small social circle here, however I have no desire to work my way through endless coffee meetings or groups trying to create one. I’ve become choosier about where I spend my social energy and with whom, although that also means accepting that the people I click with may be harder to find.

For now, the FWOGS are still the clearest example I have of what I’m looking for. I don't need them to fill every part of my life, and I don't need lots of them. There’s simply a particular space that friendship fills for me which solitude, marriage and acquaintances do not. Although I realise I don't need many, I do need some. And when I find the friendships where conversation feels easy, where the humour needs no explanation and I come away with that grin on my face and spring in my step, I notice the difference. They feed my soul and light me up.