How to make friends

Obviously I am not going to write about all the methods because that would take a book and I don’t have time to write a book. But what I intend to do with this article is to write about how to make friends with people of a different culture. I find that a lot of people when they step outside their culture have trouble making friends with people of a different culture. The reason for this is that suddenly you are not sure of what is considered OK and what is not considered OK. You are not sure if you might offend the other person. You are not sure if they think that you are a dork and that you came from an alien country where girls generally do not even wear bikinis(in the sense that they are overdressed for a place like the beach)! You don’t understand the customs and you don’t understand the sports that are popular in the new place. That is when having a conversation with a person of a different culture becomes most difficult.

The work around that is to work at it. The starting point of-course is to ask for help. Do not be embarrassed to do that. Most people, you will be surprised to find, will go out of their way to help if you ask them. Put yourself in that position, when someone asks you for help, doesn’t that make you feel good? Doesn’t that make you wanna help the person out. That is what I found out when I came to America. I find a lot of things happening around me that I am not used to. The culture is different and really set off from what it is in India. Especially if you are coming from a small town instead of Delhi, Bombay or Bangalore. I grew up in a small town and I can see the difference in culture and attitude. For example where I grew up women don’t drink. A woman who drinks is considered to be of bad nature. Whereas here most women drink and that is alright. The can drink and still be great people!

So how do you evaluate people? Well you ask, you tell them that you are from a different place and ask them what is the norm here. Tell them about how it is in your culture, what are the customs what are the traditions and the prejudices. That is a good point to start. They will then tell you what their customs are and what is OK and what is not OK. You learn more about the culture that way and that becomes an easy way to adjust. I am not saying that you need to imbibe the new culture, but you are at a remarkable point where you can take in the best of both worlds!

Another way to make friends is to go for socials, football games, basketball games and other stuff that is considered part of the tradition here. That way you get to have fun and at the same time you get lots of stuff to talk about.

How do you not offend a person… be respectful. Keep all your biases back in your home country and keep an open mind. Remind yourself that you are the alien and you have come to learn about and be part of a totally different experience. Before making statements like “nice girls don’t have guys as roommates”, the better statement would be “In India girls who have guys as roommates are looked down upon, but I see that here that is perfectly normal”. When you establish that you are inquiring based on cultural differences people are more open to explain where the fine line between “normal” and “weird” lie.

That applies vice-versa too. If you are an American and you end up visiting an Indian be really really respectful. If it is important for you to make a good impression dress really conservatively when visiting older people, do not and I really mean do not call people twice your age by their first name.

Don’t worry in not knowing where the fine line lies. Let them know in advance that you are new to this and you are here to learn and you are respectful. If that is done, the hosts tend to be more forgiving and tell you when you say/do something that is slightly inappropriate.

Cheers! I encourage all my readers to try and get as much inter cultural exposure as possible. It makes you into a better person.