The cycle of despair
Since my parents left roughly two weeks ago, I have become acutely aware that I am almost completely alone and as such have been feeling very depressed. Not only this, but I have become aware of a cycle which could well see that this situation goes unresolved. The strategy I have followed to date has been successful in only one instance and for that I am grateful, alas all other contacts I have made through this method have turned up fruitless. I have been using this website to find and hopefully make new friends and by in large it has been unsuccessful, but I will get to that later.
The cycle I have become aware of has been born of my present isolation which I began feeling after moving into this new city without actually knowing anyone who lives here. In my first few months I met a fair few people although most of them I wouldn’t really call friends, rather they are better described as if-you-ever-have-a-problem-you-can-call-me acquaintances, I suppose you could call it the exact opposite of the friend in need. The overwhelming majority of these people have no time for me, but have all the time in the world for my problems which, as nice as the sentiment is, does little to placate my sense of devastation. The result is I am rapidly losing my faith in the people around me, in particular any new people I meet and hence feel a strong desire to coup myself up in my flat. In turn this generates more despair and creates a worsening situation with no really conceivable method of release save moving to where my actual friends are.
One of the factors contributing to my dissatisfaction with many of the people I have met since arriving in Beijing is that many seem to have very little idea of what a friend is. Over the course of the last two months I have added about six people to my MSN list, all people of whom live in Beijing and who claim to be looking for friends. All of them have expressed a desire in one way or another to be my friend. Of them, I have met four of them in person and for each of them we have only met once. The troubling thing is that, altogether, I have been ’stood up’ more times than I have actually had meetings with any of these people. Not stood up as in I go to the meeting location and they don’t turn up, rather an arrangement is made a day, two days, a week in advance and then cancelled at the last minute. It angers me to no end having this situation repeat itself over and over again and leaves me with little more than a feeling of despair. So, the end result is I have six more people on my MSN list who may as well be messaging from Afghanistan as it doesn’t look like I will actually meet them and I’m sure people in Afghanistan have far more interesting lives than those I seem to have encountered in Beijing.
On a brighter note, maintaining a connection to my Sydney friends has been much more rewarding. I seem to spend more time doing things with them than I do with anyone I know in Beijing and they actually do live miles away. I think the hard part of making friends here is that it is impossible for me to find people who are interested in any one of the niche activities I do and interests I have. I’d even go as far to say that the people who hold the same interests I do by nature tend to seclude themselves. Still, one can always hope if nothing else.
Michael Camilleri wrote:
I was having a conversation earlier today about the difficulty of making friends in foreign countries. I wish I could say we came to some brilliant solution but it’s much the same situation over here. The friends that I’ve made are almost all people I work with (the friend I was talking with today is the exception, I spoke to her randomly on a train).
I think you’re right that your interests tend to skew towards people who are unlikely to go out that much. I’m sorry this sounds harsh but perhaps you need to develop some wider interests? Physical activity can be a good way to meet other people, even if it’s just something like going to a gym. Alternatively, ex-pat clubs should exist in major cities like Beijing and you could keep an eye out for other group activities like book clubs or movie clubs that encourage people to meet together and talk.
Failing all of those you could try volunteer work. Not sure what kind of people you’d meet doing that, though.
Posted 26 May 2007 at 4:41 pm ¶
xixi wrote:
don’t forget you have “us” your real good friends:)
Posted 26 Jul 2007 at 9:18 pm ¶