Photo by Evan Leeson and Kanaristm, Flickr
When I first gazed upon the peaks of the Coast Mountains from the tiny window of my airplane seat, I thought I was ready for Vancouver. At the time I didn’t know much about this place, as I had never visited before, but I thought I knew some things. One thing I had heard was that Canadian culture is individualistic. I was not sure what this word meant exactly, but it did not sound unpleasant to me, as I had always found myself more solitary and independent than the average person in Turkey. Despite the differences in this regard between the two cultures, I thought I would adjust after an initial period of difficulty. I thought that I might even feel more at ease than how I felt back home.
During my first few months here, I met many interesting people. Right about when I got used to bus drivers thanking me for paying my fare, the buzz died down and I had an inkling of the impending problem: not only did I lack a good friend, I had no *candidate* for a good friend. What I had was numerous acquaintances, with whom I did things together and had enjoyable and superficial conversations. The new people in my life were all happy to remain as acquaintances – they were hesitant or unwilling to form more intimate connections. Despite the number of people I knew, I felt lonely and isolated. To my surprise, two years passed like this.
Though mine could be a typical case of integration from the Turkish to the Canadian culture, I doubt that the problem can be explained by just citing broad cultural differences. I observed the same reluctance about getting personal from the people who identified with Middle-Eastern and Mediterranean cultures. It was as if Vancouver instilled a particular set of values in the newcomers, independent of their earlier habits of socialization.
Confused about my social future, I started to think about the platitude that it is difficult to make friends in Vancouver. I began to ask people what they thought about this alleged problem. I found out that generally, the next thing people will say about this issue is that it is difficult to talk to strangers here. But this sounds odd to me, as I think that talking to strangers and making friends are quite different things. I come from a place where people rarely acknowledge or talk to strangers, and it is considered weird to smile at them on the street. So for me, it is always interesting to see that people complain about the lack of interaction between strangers here. To me, there is way too much.
I ended up thinking that the issue is not about talking to strangers at all. Talking to strangers is but one way of making acquaintances, and the difficulty in Vancouver is not about making acquaintances. The difficulty, as a newcomer from another culture, is in finding that group of people who provide you with social support. It is in finding people that you feel connected by strong emotional bonds, so that you can share your deepest sorrows and soaring joys without much hesitation. It is entirely possible to live without those connections here, while having numerous friendly interactions with strangers. Despite its multiculturalism, Vancouver seems to make it difficult for newcomers to form these bonds, for reasons that are mysterious to grasp.
At the end, the fact that people endure this much isolation and loneliness to start a life here proves that there is something extraordinary about this city.
