I go out for beer from time to time with my friends, occasionally host or attend dinners or brunches but not so much the “girls night” type of thing. If that happens, it is usually just with one friend.

Another issue you might be facing is a more traditional culture focused on marriage and family – if a single woman is hanging out with girlfriends, she’s not establishing a relationship with her future husband/baby-daddy.

If she’s married, she may have many other things to do at home and little incentive to hang out with non-married friends who don’t understand her responsibilities or particular problems (that happens a lot everywhere – married people *vanish* from single friends’ lives).

Regarding the unfriendly American who won’t speak English – maybe you’re mistaken about her, or she’s mistaken about you. Either way, stop being friendly to her. Ignore her. She’s not interested and it’s not about you.

When I travel, I am open to sharing a beer with other travellers – but do not want to get hooked up with a “newbie” who wants a travel guide or language expert. And I’m not always interested in expending the energy for the “getting to know you” chitchat and small talk and hate it when people engage me in a “Oh, you’re from XX, do you know XX?” games. Ugh.
 
I lol at your baby-daddy comment. Everything was so serious up until then. Again, another great perspective on different personalities and whatnot. Thanks for the comment.

On one hand, I think it is so important to always be open to meeting others from your home country, because we all really do need that connection to home, and sometimes it’s nice to just speak freely in your mother tongue when you need to confide in someone.

Some of my dearest friends here are from the United States, and we have such wonderful times together like in your pictures above. And if they were from outer space I’d still be having the same good time with them.

I connect with people based on how we perceive the place we are in, for sure. People who live here and really reach out and connect with the local culture and life, I tend to connect with better. Some American expats are great to be around because we both look around us with the same wonderment and sometimes the same frustration.

On the other hand, I basically refuse to meet the majority of expats in Buenos Aires because I cannot relate to a lot of them. This is just in Buenos Aires that I’m talking about. They come here with their savings because they can “live like kings” for what they think is “cheap” (thus taking advantage of the economic plight of the Argentinians) and they don’t understand why people like me can’t go out to all their steak restaurants, nor do they understand me when I say that I have to work, or when I argue with them that no, it is not cheap here.

Then there are the Tango expats (and I refuse to be grouped with them) who come here on a one-year vacation and do nothing productive other than dance Tango every night. I only dance once or twice a week because, as said above, I have to work and can’t afford to go out like that. So we do not really connect on any level. To them I’m no fun, and to me they’re expensive to hang out with.
 
One thing “we’ve” talked about here is how it is a good thing we are all more or less “in the same boat” regarding how much we spend when we do go out. Even in your home country it is hard to hang out consistently with people who spend much more or travel more extravagantly than you do. The time factor is another big issue that affects who can hang out and when. We all know being an expat, or immigrant like your friend says, is different than being on vacation.

Having been an expat in 2 different countries now I have different views on expat friends. When i moved to the UK i didn’t want to live / associate with my compatriots. I wanted to meet english people and do english things. What is the point of moving away from home only to do the same things with the same people?? However, i found it v hard to actually find a place living with English people, and when i did their silly rules etc annoyed me. Particularly those relating to having guests, relatives to visit and saying things to be polite but then never following up on them. I guess antipodeans are just more laid back and open. SO i ended up living with a bunch of aussies, kiwis and saffas and having a great time. Despite being v sociable and chatty was never invited to an english person’s place for dinner (in 4 YEARS!!). I do understand that their houses are small and most of the socialising is done in pubs but still…. Most of my friends were expats or 2nd generation expats (indian, french, italian) as i didn’t care where people were from/ their language/ religion/ colour etc but am interested in their outlook on life, having shared interests etc. Think i only had 2 english ‘friends’ and the family i boarded with when i first arrived were also great and we are still in contact/ meet up regularly now.

Coming to Italy(sicily) it is so rare to meet english speakers that it’s always great to meet up and to talk about normal things here we find funny that our friends/ families at home cannot understand. It is also good to be able to speak english fast and using slang and cultural references and (generally!) being understood. It is also great to talk about things like books, films, ideas, jokes etc that i find sicilians have next to no interest in.

However, these are the reasons i can see that expats do NOT want to meet up (none applying to me personally!).
- left their country to come here and for the lifestyle/ their own reasons but don’t want to see others from their country. ie think they are escaping but in fact they are surrounded by compatriots ha ha ha.
- Maybe have invented a new persona for themselves and associating with other expats people see them as who they really are.
- as someone else said – to think they are exclusive and unique in being here.
- to be put in the position of forming a friendship with someone just because of a common language (i would say this applies particularly to british people – sorry to offend anyone!)
- have their own life, have already adapted and don’t really care what struggles/ experiences others have.
- seen as ‘sticking with their own’ by italians. I remember my neighbour upon meeting my fried who had lived in Dubai for 3 years and couldn’t speak arabic as all the locals speak English commented how ‘anglosaxon’ it was not to learn the language/ local life.

The only things i don’t like doing with expats is speaking italian in front of (not to!) them. Makes me feel like they could be judging my ability for some weird reason. Please let me know when your next GTG is and maybe i can even come and join you.
 
When I first moved here in ’06 I *never* saw girls out along, without a group of boys. Often, even when we were with “the boys” many of the Italian women wouldn’t drink wine or beer, but just have water. I was like the American “lush.” The first time I saw a group of girls together having panini and drinking beer was about a year ago. It jumped out to me. I am thinking the “going out with your girlfriends rule” is changing here in the south, but it will be a process.

It is funny you say you don’t like to speak Italian in front of other expats. I understand that and am the same, actually, but you did a great job, I thought. We will definitely let you know about the next get together!

Another (random) theory – perhaps the question of whether one wants to associate with other expats from their home country has more to do with how said expat got along in their own country & why they moved away from it. For instance, I love where I’m from, I just want to experience living somewhere else. So I don’t have a bad knee-jerk reaction to other Americans. But if someone left their home country to *escape* the people there, not even specific people but the kind of people who are from there, I can see how they’d be far less inclined to want to hang out with those kinds of people in their newly adopted country.
 
Interesting point about the people who “escaped” from America. I could see that being a reason, as well. It can be a very dangerous habit to just hang out with expats. When I lived in Paris I became *very close* friends with some of the other Americans and we went out together 90% of the time. In that other 10% I met my husband, so all was not lost.