Genuine friendships in the UK comparable to other countries

[Paperbear]

I grew up in the UK but to be honest I've always been drawn to people from other ethnic backgrounds, I love multiculturalism.

However, a few years ago I moved to a very English village with not much other cultural influences and if I am honest, after several years here I feel like that even the most strongest friendships here are all about being 'one up' on each other and ruthless competitiveness.

People talk behind each others back and seem to be extremely disloyal. I thought moving into the village I would find the opposite but I am finding the core of village friendships to be pretty ugly. Has anyone else experienced this? I've been here 8 years now and the more and more I discover about 'true friendships' in the area which turn out to be to me to be anything but - the more disappointed I become.

I doubt this has much to do with nationalities and much more to do with bad luck. Various different countries and places in and out the UK. There are fabulous people and wankers everywhere. The main problem with the countryside is that there's less choice!

You’ve just been unlucky, I think, and shouldn’t extrapolate. Insulting to all the rest of us English villagers, no?

You’ve just been unlucky, OP. Sometimes the kind of people you like just aren’t there in a smallish place. That was true of the last place I lived in England.

Having said that, I’m not from the UK, and when I first moved to England to study (very international setting, in the 1990s), I thought after six or nine months ‘How weird — I’m not making any English friends, only other foreigners!’ Then I realised after a few more months that I was, in fact, making one or two English friends, but those friendships were developing far more slowly than the others (though, many years on, one has proved the most enduring of my life.)

I really don't think this is just English people. I know Middle Easterners, South Asians, Greeks and Eastern European women who are competitive, snobbish and braggy around income and status.

Do you think you're insecure and with foreign friends you feel you have the upperhand and less threatened by them? Sort of like 'dating down' just by virtue you're more 'native' than them and they are in your country? I have met people who only befriended people in worse or lesser circumstances.

I think what I concluded about the specific English village I lived in for six years was that it just had a very unchanging population — nearly every child in DS’s class had at least one parent from the village, and the other often came from the vicinity or had some connection to the area, and had had the same friends from primary school, and had extended family living all round. There was one other foreigner. It meant that everyone had always known one another, and the whole concept of ‘making a new friend’ or even ‘introducing yourself and others to someone who doesn’t know you’ wasn’t a thing,

If you are drawn to multiculturalism why not look at moving again?

If you know people are sniping behind each other's backs you must have some friendships within the village. Do you ever gently challenge the disloyalty?

Be part of the solution OP not skirting around the outsides.

That’s nothing like my friendships in the UK. I have a couple of groups of wonderful friends, we don’t live in each others pockets but we chat and meet up regularly and have a great time. I also live in a village, but my friends live all over.

Which countries have you lived in to compare?

I grew up in a village and your experience reflects mine. Genuine friendships were hard to find. I now live in a big multi-cultural city where it's been easier to find like minded people.

But yes there are people who can only feel good about themselves if they think they are "better" usually financially than others. You find them everywhere, regardless of income, geography, culture.

Just note who they are, give them a wide girth and tell them nothing.

Interesting, OP, and matches my experience. I'm not from the UK and living in a small town. It's difficult to make friends or even acquaintances - people just aren't interested and everything has to be done the way they have always done things. All my friendships here are with fellow foreigners and, TBH, not what I would really describe as genuine friendships that are mutually supportive and where people are actually fond of one another. There is the strange competitiveness you describe, a one-upmanship and some gossipy unkindness.

With others no matter how much hospitality you show you always seem to go back to square one in terms of friendship.

I think in small towns people have all the friendships and networks they need and not looking for more.

Can't wait to return to the big city with a more diverse pool of people.

Because the move was to be for my children to grow up in a village rather than the city. I'd like to move but I have to consider more than just my feelings so I am trying to navigate this.

Yes I was and did challenge the disloyalty to begin with, however, the more I did this, it wouldn't be long before this behaviour happened with another friendship within the village and so forth. So I decided to observe from a distance what exactly is going on here, and the more I did this the more I realised this is actually how friendships work in this area and it got me thinking if this is representative of UK villagers in general. I didn't get this in any multicultural environment or when I lived in Europe or the Middle East, hence the post.

What concerns me is that it seems like if I want to be in this group, I have to do this as well and regardless of my position on the matter but I refuse to do it. I have been asked before why am I not speaking about X behind their back, why don't you do it? I don't want to be they are desperate for me to join in. Mind boggling.

No I think people that have travelled from different countries, or have family from different countries have got amazing life experience, stories to tell, different food they enjoy, different languages, unafraid of life changes. I just like this aspect, and always have. I have had English friends too but I am just drawn to different cultures. The move was based on a family decision for my children.

Oh and I have lived in Spain, France and Italy as well as the UK and haven’t noticed any particular challenges with making friends in the UK compared with those countries. In fact I found it the most challenging in Italy, the people around me were very stand offish and cold, but I don’t blame the entire nation for that, it was just bad luck I think!

Interesting. That gives me some hope actually. I really hope this is bad luck and not the wider picture. It's honestly terrible.

Sometimes it’s easier to be friends with people who don’t have the same background as you because you can’t make direct comparisons with each other and you are more generous to them / give allowances for difference. I think it’s worth you giving that a bit more thought.

A poster suggested you are insecure. I expect that made you feel defensive. But I would look further into why you find it hard to be friends with English people and ask yourself if it’s entirely them. Maybe it’s something you are bringing to the friendship?

I have an East Asian background and that culture is incredibly judgemental, they will tell you straight to your face that you are fat and if you do badly at school you are a failure. I was poked in the tummy by a relative who said I was still a bit fat, I had given birth about 2 months before and had the temerity to be a size 12.

I grew up in a tiny town, moved to the two largest cities in the UK and then have settled in another small town. Have had zero issue making friends in any of those places.

What you are probably experiencing is the sharp elbows of the well off.

Is moving impossible? I know you said you moved there for your chikdren, but you’ve got to live there too. My DS loved the village he grew up in, but I moved him away because I couldn’t stand it, and decided that mattered too.

I think you missed the point of my post. I am observing friendships which do not involve me at all. Friendships within the village and so the dynamic of the village and how it works in UK villages.

The fact I mentioned I like people from multicultural background may have thrown you off but I am English and of course have had English friendships but as an adult I see myself drawn to different cultures.

This however, has no bearing on what I am observing because the situations do not include me.

If you think it's bad in an English village, then don't move to a Bavarian one!

Small towns and villages are notoriously difficult to crack. I don't know how you didn't already know this. It's the same in the States. There are fewer people for a start and obviously fewer social outlets. Everyone knows everybody else's business and, in a goldfish bowl, every movement is deemed news worthy. Besides, UK villages have been overrun with outsiders. They're rarely inhabited by "genuine" locals these days. I live near the Cotswolds and residents are mostly monied Londoners snorting cocaine, shagging other people's partners and wearing designer labels. Villages are usually the last place to make friends, unless you're a certain type.

I am looking into it. My partner is extremely against it though.

Oh, that would be an interesting thread topic — comparative village studies in different cultures. I grew up in a village in my home country, and thought that meant I had a reasonable base for knowledge that would help me when I moved to an English village. Turned out I couldn’t have been more wrong.