How many international friends do you have?

[Betsyisamum]

It’s just occurred to me my friendship circle is really limited to mostly people that are white British and live quite close to me. I live in a rural North west location with no other nationalities and my kids go to a predominantly white British private school with only a handful of ethnic minorities.

How many people do you know that are first generation internationals.

I basically know a married Hindu couple and their kids - due to the school. That’s it

My friend lives in Portugal and socialises with a mix from Russian, German and French

My dd lives in the Middle East and knows/works with people from literally every corner of the world however only socialises with British people.

Both say there can be cultural differences in building friendships - such as humour, tone of voice, shared experiences etc..

So how many international people do you know who you are friends with and are cultural differences an issue?

It’s made me feel really segregated

Oops yes I forgot

China
Denmark
Norway

I have hardly any friends who aren't white British. Those few I do have are people I used to hang out with when I lived in London (now live in fairly rural NW England). I do have a Trinidadian aunt (by marriage) and dh has family in New Zealand and Canada. I wish I did have more international friends, not least because I speak quite a few languages and would like someone to speak them to! It is very white British where I live. There are some international boarders at the school my dc go to, but they often tend to keep themselves to themselves, within specific nationality groups. Dd is friends with a couple of the overseas boarding girls though.

So it’s not just me then Lazy! I’d love to learn another language.

First generation? 2 an Italian and my uni mate from Hong Kong.

Second generation, 8 good friends, Mostly Pakistani but also a Japanese/Thai friend (mixed race), American/French best friend, Chinese and one Jamaican heritage.

But I live in SW London, growing up there were about 10 POC at my school of 2000.

With the two first generation friends the main block with the Italian was that she wasn't fully fluent and would get frustrated trying to get her point across but we were very similar culturally.

With my Hong Kong mate he had to learn very quickly that there were some differences that aren't allowed in the UK (commenting on what people were eating, their bodies, their promiscuity). He didn't mean snag of it badly that's just what they sometimes do over there but our house mate was a recovered anorexic so we had some sharp words.

I have family who are not from the UK, and a couple of friends who grew up in Ireland. No issues with cultural differences.

None. Which is embarrassing. My 5 closest friends: 4 are all white British, one Finnish.

My closest school friend went to live in Spain, so I visited, but then she moved to Japan. We've lost contact.

My other closest friend was a kiwi, and we lived in Cairo together. But I too lost contact with her because we both kept moving.

I too lost contact with my Russian friend who I lived with in Russia.

My lack of international is embarrassing.

I'm not sure that I'm close friends with anyone that wasn't born in the UK - but lots of my friends aren't white.

We have a US contingent in the family though.

Loads but that’s growing up in a university town then going to university for seven years.

It does occur to me that my DS1 has no children in his class that aren’t British with English as a first language (West Sussex). Which is rather sad.

I have quite a few, but they are mainly friends from Uni I have stayed in touch with. I spend some of my course in Finland via the Erasmus scheme and I have a number of Finnish and Swedish friends I visit from then. Such a shame young people won't get to do that anymore!

One SIL is an American, other is Indian. One daughters Godmother is American and another is Dutch.
Our best man is French
I worked in Ethiopia for a couple of years so know a number of friends of various nationalities from working and living there. Some African but many Europeans or Australians.
I have dual citizenship.
My best friend from university is Spanish and lives in Spain.
We’ve a few friends and work contacts working/living in UAE, Oman, Kuwait, Bahrain, Sri Lanka and Hong Kong . Some are expats and some are from various countries.
We have also become friends with the families of the people our daughter stayed with in Italy.