Expat - family - friendship

Lyon, France

This article follows one where I was writing about the fact that being close family does not mean close in opinions, personality, values . . .

That can be particularly hard to handle, with many consequences on one’s life as it goes against what we are taught to believe. 

Families represent the first roots, those from which we grow and colour our future by acceptance or rejection.

Those with which we have to decide the distance we want to keep with.

Far ? Close ?

Families are a social and a political cement as well.

How to manage the equation between:

Respect- Love – Spectrum for the freedom to be different – Guilt – Anger . . .

All that made me bounce on the very specific situation of the expatriates.

Most expatriates say their friends are family.

They consider them as hugely important in their life. Sometimes more than their original family.

Friends give a sense of belonging to a community.

Friends cut the social isolation. Very often, work is absent for one person in the expat couple so social links cannot come from the ‘work department’

Between friends, there is no common history. There is no past relation. The board is blank when meeting the first time.

No ‘psychological debts’ to adjust to. Those can be anchored in several generations.

One can even invent themselves differently and ‘pretend’. Nobody will know.

No strings. Freedom to be.

No need to stay in touch forever. Which gives more freedom to as there is a choice.

Expatriation is like a ride in a taxi. You get in the new location, you chose to draw new relationships, activities, roles. . . like you would chat with the taxi driver and then you can get out of it. You are gone and keep what you chose to keep from it; till the next one (back home or different location).

The difference is in the choice.

You do not chose your family and all its history you are part of.

You can chose your friends.

Nothing new there.

Many writers have created stories around this.

One that pop into my mind instantly is the “Familles, je vous hais ! “ “Families, I hate you !” from André Gide ( 22/11/1869-19/02/1951 – French author and winner of the the Nobel prize in literature in 1947)

I believe that the expatriation frame makes this even more important.

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