Be my Friend... Please?

Making friends.

You're never exactly taught how to make friends. When younger, we get thrown into environments with people of the same age and left to figure it out for ourselves. The most innocent do it best, perhaps. I remember announcing to my parents after my first day of kindergarten that Sally and I were going to be best friends forever and ever (forever may have been a stretch, but we were certainly best friends for quite a few years). Later at school, despite moving around friendship groups and being bullied by a couple of ex-best friends, I came out the other side with the best group of friends I could possibly wish for.

Friends so good, that when it came to attending university I didn't really try to make new friends. It didn't help being thrown into a broad degree with thousands of people. I did make attempts, in the beginning, but found it so exhausting to make small talk with people who I then never saw again for the rest of the degree. Joining a touch football team would have been a much more successful friend venture, if only I could play touch football. It doesn't matter how lovely you are, continuing to drop the ball doesn't make you the most popular team member!

Besides, I had managed to slot myself into my new work environment nicely. Spending all day with colleagues and then choosing to spend free time with them as well? That's not friendship, that's family. With a second family now larger than my actual family, filled to the brim with mutual love and care for one another, making new friends got put on the back burner.

Until now.

Yes, in between stressing about accommodation and employment, in my mind I had skimmed over the fact that it would also mean making friends. Not quite as easy to do when you're not necessarily thrust into a group of people you will be spending copious amounts of time with.

Sure, there have been pleasant interactions with people in the corridor of where I'm staying. Though despite continuing to pull out the "going to the toilet again, Trevor?" joke all I manage to get is an odd look in return. I continue to smile at strangers going in the opposite direction on the escalators at the tube stations, hoping they'll also feel we could be kindred spirits and jump over the railing to travel with me into the sunset.

All joking aside, it hasn't been completely hopeless. I am now buddies with the night time security man on the front desk. And also the luggage minder man, who might also be involved in some washing car black market as every day he seems to be cleaning a different $100 000+ car despite the student accommodation surroundings.

There's also the night time guy over at the Pret a Manger across the street (where I have been buying just about all three meals a day from). Knowing of my situation, he now asks me when I come in to collect my dinner whether I'd made any new friends that day. It's hard to pretend you're not desperate when in fact you are. Sigh.

It's times like these that you tend to clutch on to the old friends that seem so much easier to keep. Living in different time zones and appreciating the fact that they are living with an abundance of friends around them to keep desperate times in check doesn't help. Cute little non-descript emails and messages are sent to let them know I'M STILL HERE, and I secretly hope for confirmation that we're still friends in the form of essays and gushing words of "life is not the same without you" in return. Unfortunately as much as I hate to admit it, their world continues while mine has been tipped upside down.

Still, there is hope! A new workplace and new house environment will allow me the time to win some people over. My beautiful friend Sophie continues to make friend suggestions on Facebook for all of the people she knows over here on the off-chance that we too can be friends. Plus, it seems like the Lord has thrown me a lifeline in the form of an old Contiki friend who is also making the trek over to London solo. Despite her good looks and natural charm, I hold on to the fact that she will also be as desperate as I am and we can initially cling to each other for the sake of enjoying social activities in the city with someone other than ourselves :)

Love, Em xxx