As Jackie Wilson has discovered, the friends we make as expats are a genuine representation of those we make throughout our lives.

Reasons, seasons, or a lifetime. A good old friend of mine once told me that over the course of your life, people will come and go… and will fall into one of these three categories. There are people who have a specific but temporary role in our shaping as human beings, the people who are important for a certain period of time, and then, those who are with us forever. I remember at the time mentally going through all the people I knew and have known to test the theory and found that it did indeed apply. Of course, while the lifetime classification can only be definitively applied at the end of one’s days, I think we all know deep down when we’ve found one of those.

Anyway, since becoming an expat, I’ve given this idea considerable thought. Given the transient nature of expat assignments, it would be easy to file all our international buddies as seasonal. Having now been in Malaysia for 18 months, I’ve already seen my fair share of often heartbreaking departures. For most of us, there’s a certainty that, however long the season, either we or the people we make our stand-in families will one day head towards KLIA with a bubble wrapped shipment trailing along behind. But, on further reflection, it’s definitely not that simple.

My voyage of expat friendships certainly began with lots of reason-based allegiances. The biggest of these reasons was the fact that I was six months pregnant, already had a toddler in tow, and in desperate need of information and guidance. One of the first friends I met was a result of a pretty broad Google search of toddler groups in KL. Within 12 hours of my pinging out an email to an address with no actual human name, I had secured a next-day rendezvous with a seasoned expat mum who fed me the information I was craving like an intravenous drip. She went on to introduce me to a whole network of people and places that, without her, would’ve taken months to establish. That lady started as a friend for a reason, she’s definitely lasted the season, and quite frankly, whatever the future holds, I genuinely think I will always have a connection with her – not least because she’s interesting, funny, and was kind enough to help me when I needed it most. (She also filled my freezer with delicious meals when my son was born.)

The “reason” genre of friendships is certainly prevalent for mothers and especially so for expats where friends largely need to fulfil the role of family, too. Your activities in the first instance take you to situations where you are likely to meet other mums with a similar family footprint as yours. In an amazing twist of glorious fate, on the very first day of being here, waddling bleary-eyed around the pool of our temporary accommodation, we bumped into a family with an 11-week-old baby and a toddler who quite honestly could have been born to be our Holly’s best friend. I have seen these guys on average three times every week since that fateful day. The more I know, the more I like.

Then, my guru friend (see above) invited me on a night out where there was to be a fellow pregnant guest – who had a toddler! It was imprinted on my brain that this gal was important before I even met her. When I did meet her, I was laughing my head off before the main course arrived. Looking back now, both these meetings were friendships at first sight, and all of us now – husbands included – hang out together. The reason may have been our matching circumstances, or it may have been the fact that, in shipping ourselves halfway across the world with youngsters, we were simply kindred spirits. The season was our two-year Malaysian assignment, and whatever the future brings, I would gladly have both of these girls and their families in my life for the rest of it. After all, that family footprint is unlikely to change.

And now, 18 months into my Malaysia life, I literally cannot count the number of amazing people we have met, for all kinds of reasons and some for no reason that was actually apparent at the time, but always who made our time here that little bit richer, even if it was teaching us what not to do.

So what happens next? At some point, quite possibly in the next six months, Family Wilson will move on, we’ll have another set of reasons to find and make friends. There are seasons to come of which we yet have absolutely no idea. At some point, we’ll return to the UK to rejoin the lifetime buddies we already thought we had and find out for sure if that’s what they were, or if their season ended when we came here. Either way, it has been and will be emotional.

Here’s to friends… in whatever form they may come.

Source: The Expat Magazine August 2014

Read more:

• Road Fatalities and Dangerous Driving in Malaysia
• A Malaysian’s Advice on Adjusting to Life in Malaysia
• 5 Things All Expats Should Do Before Arriving In Malaysia

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