Why don't you move abroad?

Coming from an Eastern European country to the UK, I was told by many colleagues who had also moved there that people in the UK are very difficult to befriend (make friends, not acquaintances), as if it were part of English culture. "They are just like that," they would say.

I made many friends with other immigrants from all over Europe. This suggested that the English were somehow uniquely challenging to befriend.

What I realized later in life is that this couldn't be further from the truth. The actual situation is that when you move to another country as an adult, most people your age already have established friendships from school and earlier life. They don't "need" a friend as much as you do. This applies to every country. The reason I got along so well with other immigrants was that they also "needed" to make friends, as their childhood friends were all left back home.

I'm not saying this to invalidate what the original poster was saying, but it's definitely something to keep in mind when you move abroad - it will be HARD to make true local friends and you will have to work for it.

I'm an immigrant to the UK and I agree with you. This sort of thing gets said about a lot of countries, you will hear the same thing said from British people who move to Australia or NZ.

I've been in the UK 20 years now and I don't have a lot of British friends, even now. I moved when I was 27 years old. The friends I have are from common interests and work. I was lucky enough to meet one great friend at a workplace who loved rugby and skiing and socialising, like I do. We spent a lot of after work nights getting drunk in pubs, and we played rugby and went on skiing holidays. I then met a few of his friends, some of whom I've now become very good friends with, all these years we're still friends. But I can count these on one hand.

I don't resent it, though I do lament it. It's just that bonds tend to form early in your life and it becomes a lot more difficult later.

On the other hand, it was easy to make friends with people from my home country because you have something in common and you are all looking to make friends. And it's easy to network, because you just need one connection to get into a social circle.