Do you have foreign friends?

southsiderosie

Every time there is a thread on immigration, there are inevitably some posters who extol the virtues of living in a more multicultural society. But what does that really mean for people on a day-to-day basis?

Do people have friends who are foreigners? Are they just work friends, or do you actually go out for drinks/socialize 'off the clock' so to speak?

Having lived in Ireland as a foreigner, while I was able to meet Irish men (heh heh), I found it hard to make Irish friends, especially girlfriends. Most of my good friends there were other foreigners (although not of the same nationality as me). I suspect this is a pretty common experience for other foreigners (including Irish living abroad), so I gota ask: where were all you pro-foreign invasion immigration people hiding? :P

jugger0

All my friends are Irish, well there's one English fella and an American but there practically Irish at this stage. Poles seem to stick to their own and not give a fook about mixing, Polish people seem to be very unfriendly and cold IMO. I went to school with a Nigerian dude and he was very polite and friendly but didn't really have anything in common with the rest of us, he liked hip hop dancing we liked rugby etc.

NTMK

southsiderosie wrote: »

so I gota ask: where were all you pro-foreign invasion immigration people hiding? :P

Foreign Countries

Richard Hillman

Have a few foreign friends. The only increase in multi-culturism that i get from my friendships is that we go to the Czech Inn occasionally. Otherwise we just talk sport, drinking and pussy, just like most males.

silverspoon

jugger0 wrote: »

...he liked hip hop dancing we liked rugby etc...

It was doomed from the start...:(

The_Kew_Tour

Quiet a few, then again I have been to many countries from work so got to know different people.

Leftist

No way, they are different.

IvyTheTerrible

southsiderosie wrote: »

Every time there is a thread on immigration, there are inevitably some posters who extol the virtues of living in a more multicultural society. But what does that really mean for people on a day-to-day basis?

Do people have friends who are foreigners? Are they just work friends, or do you actually go out for drinks/socialize 'off the clock' so to speak?

Having lived in Ireland as a foreigner, while I was able to meet Irish men (heh heh), I found it hard to make Irish friends, especially girlfriends. Most of my good friends there were other foreigners (although not of the same nationality as me). I suspect this is a pretty common experience for other foreigners (including Irish living abroad), so I gota ask: where were all you pro-foreign invasion immigration people hiding? :P

Over here, I have a fair number of foreign friends, but that's mainly because I met them through work, which is very multinational. When we lived in Ireland, my boyfriend (who is French) found it very hard to make friends with Irish people, most of his friends were either French or other nationalities (not Irish).

mikom

Got a friend called Pamela.
She calls over occasionally but never knows when to leave.
I try saying "Pamela, I gotta go to bed now, work in the morning, ya see".
But she just starts screaming something about genital mutilation and grabs on to the leg of the table.

deman

All my friends are foreigners, no, wait a minute, I'm the foreigner.

jester77

I'm foreign to most of mine

Wolfe Tone

I have a few foreign friends, a few of them moved home to Bulgaria which was a shame.

bonerm

mikom wrote: »

Got a friend called Pamela.
She calls over occasionally but never knows when to leave.
I try saying "Pamela, I gotta go to bed now, work in the morning, ya see".
But she just starts screaming something about genital mutilation and grabs on to the leg of the table.

She sounds like my mate Didier Dragba.

onemorechance

Does Mayo count as foreign? If so, yes.

FatherLen

i hope not!!!

Kevin Duffy

One each from Scotland and England and several from Kildare. One might be from Tipp, but I never asked. I know a girl from Clare. Nothing very exotic I'm afraid, sorry.

Hurricane-Dean

Have an asian, french and pakistani friend, oh the mischief we get up to....

Sanjuro

Have a couple of Canadian friends. City-destroying aside, Canadians are some of the soundest people on the planet.

NothingMan

I have foreign Facebook friends that I met once 6 years ago while Interrailing, other than that... my mate Rory lives in Australia, that count?

onemorechance

FatherLen wrote: »

i hope not!!!

The immigration from Mayo to Galway has dried up with the recession. I however immigrated in the opposite direction years ago. Loved my time in Mayo, great people up there.

Biggins

Yes.

pawrick

Most of the friends I hang out with in Dublin are foreign and come from all over.

In some cases I've gone to their countries on holidays with them and my place is like a hostel most of the time now! I also dated a few foreign girls over the years as have a few of my Irish friends.

The main reason I have so many foreign friends here I think is because I moved to the city when I was a teenager and rented with some foreign people years before the whole polish invasion and from that experience I always was more open to making friends of any nationality and in to the whole experiencing new cultures thing.

Orando Broom

The soon to be wife and associated forrdiners as a result of such an unholy union.

Leftist

Relevant point made earlier about how we're hard to make friends with for foreigners.
Compared with some we tend to stick with childhood friends most of all. Hard to get in there for the job stealers.

--Kaiser--

Some of my best mates of fordners

Killer Wench

Yes, many. I'm a foreigner in a foreign land and have made friends through college and work that I see outside of those spheres. While in the US, as a college student I lived in an international dorm and as an adult, I was a meet-up organizer for an international meet-up group.

RachaelVO

Hurricane-Dean wrote: »

Have an asian, french and pakistani friend, oh the mischief we get up to....

Sounds just like a Benetton add!

saintsaltynuts

For some reason i find the Lithuanians more friendly,social and sound at work than any of the foreigners we have in this country....coincidence?Im from Dublin by the way.

number10a

How the hell can you not have a foreign friend when you're living in Ireland in 2011?? My boyfriend is Polish, my last boyfriend (still best friend) is Polish. I have other Polish friends too along with friends from Morocco, England, Waterford, France, Latvia, Germany, Russia, China, Canada, Australia, Costa Rica, USA, Mexico and Algeria. And I live in the back-arse of nowhere. Oh yeah, and I have friends from Ireland too.

softmee

jugger0 wrote: »

. Poles seem to stick to their own and not give a fook about mixing, Polish people seem to be very unfriendly and cold IMO. .

You are talking about the kind of people who don't speak english well and thats why they stick to their own.. why they seem unfriedly -partly because they are feeling unsecure and beeing unfriendly is kind of "safety mechanism" like, "I will be unfriendly first in case they are unfriendly" -belive me in most cases this is the way it is. There is also different mentality and culture issue. We (I am polish myself) dont usually greet people with "hello how are you" ten times a day - in a fact, we dont even say it once in Poland if we dont know somebody. If you dont know somebody well, you just say Hi or Good morning, if you do, you usually exchange few more words then just "how are you". I appreciate your opennes and easy going way, but I find it not honest sometimes. There are Irish people who can smile and bee very sweet when saying "how are you" bla bla bla and then turn back and talk about you to somebody else in not so pleasent way..
So, just try to be nice first and you will be surpise how nice polish people can be. It's like having visitors -you are the host and we are visitors in a way.

yupyup7up

Yup!

a few polish, a few indian, a few pakistani

hardCopy

I have a friend from Armagh

kfallon

RachaelVO wrote: »

Sounds just like a Benetton add!

I thought it was the start of a joke

number10a

softmee wrote: »

I appreciate your opennes and easy going way, but I find it not honest sometimes. There are Irish people who can smile and bee very sweet when saying "how are you" bla bla bla and then turn back and talk about you to somebody else in not so pleasent way..
So, just try to be nice first and you will be surpise how nice polish people can be. It's like having visitors -you are the host and we are visitors in a way.

I've noticed this alright about my Polish friends. They generally don't bitch about someone and then act all sweet to their face. And it makes sense. If you don't like someone, why be nice to them to their face and then give out about them when they're gone? Polish standards of friendship are very genuine and loyal, much more than most Irish friendships.

Azureus

number10a wrote: »

How the hell can you not have a foreign friend when you're living in Ireland in 2011?? My boyfriend is Polish, my last boyfriend (still best friend) is Polish. I have other Polish friends too along with friends from Morocco, England, Waterford, France, Latvia, Germany, Russia, China, Canada, Australia, Costa Rica, USA, Mexico and Algeria. And I live in the back-arse of nowhere. Oh yeah, and I have friends from Ireland too.

Well done you.

I dont have any foreign friends and its not because Im not open to it. I live in Dublin and just havent met anybody who I would click with that much-in college for example the English students would stick with eachother to the extent that they would alienate the Irish people (and other nationalities) by their clique-ishness.

I have French and German colleagues who I get on fantastically with, but by choice I keep work/social life realtively seperate so I never became close friends with them as such. Same goes with the eastern europeans and chinese who I work with. I have recently started hanging out with a really nice group of Americans who may possibly become proper friends I dont know. But as for my proper friends, they are all Irish and Im not ashamed to say that. Its probably just because Ive known them longest and I trust them the most I dont know.

I love travelling and am very open to other cultures and would actually love to be friends with other nationalities...just hasnt happened yet in ireland. I imagine that it would be easier when Im aborad-I'll work on it

theboss80

Kevin Duffy wrote: »

One each from Scotland and England .

Must be some cracking jokes about the three of ye. Do ye walk into bars alot?:D

theboss80

number10a wrote: »

How the hell can you not have a foreign friend when you're living in Ireland in 2011?? My boyfriend is Polish, my last boyfriend (still best friend) is Polish. I have other Polish friends too along with friends from Morocco, England, Waterford, France, Latvia, Germany, Russia, China, Canada, Australia, Costa Rica, USA, Mexico and Algeria. And I live in the back-arse of nowhere. Oh yeah, and I have friends from Ireland too.

Hows the language barrier?

kfallon

theboss80 wrote: »

Hows the language barrier?

Oi - behave yourself :mad: :P

theboss80

kfallon wrote: »

Oi - behave yourself :mad: :P

:D

flyaway.

Yup... I have friends from Turkey, Poland, Latvia, Pakistan, France and India.

I seem to have less Irish friends to be honest :P

smokedeels

Yeah, loads.

Girlfriend's foreign too. Eastern European girls ftw!

starviewadams

Play football with 4 Vietnamese lads and a guy from Nigeria,they are all dead sound!

kfallon

Jaysus does anyone have any Irish friends anymore

westendgirlie

I have no friends

hondasam

kfallon wrote: »

Jaysus does anyone have any Irish friends anymore

no they do nothing but complain, usually about the weather.

I have a lot of foreign friends.

KeithAFC

Knew a guy who lived up here for a while who was from the Irish Republic. Got on well with him too, even with the obvious differences. So i suppose that might count.

Aoifey!

I have a good friend who's Filipino and I know a few polish people but I wouldn't exactly call them friends, I know them mainly from school/college. I have tons of English friends.

RichieC

KeithAFC wrote: »

Knew a guy who lived up here for a while who was from the Irish Republic. Got on well with him too, even with the obvious differences. So i suppose that might count.

you're a real multiculturist there, Keith.


me? I had a friend once from meath.

triseke

yep, quite a few. Friends are friends, doesn't matter if they are "foreign" or not.

im invisible

I made friends with a half german, half english guy when i was in college, he was a very conflicted chap, still mates with him but we used to know a jewish american girl, whos family came from poland, they didnt get on at all. True story

philologos

OP: Yes plenty. Mostly through university. I find it strange that that question should be asked, but I do agree that it can be difficult for people coming into a country to make friends with the "natives" if you will.