Lol. For the 50+ we might say Timber.
Thanks for the info. It’s interesting that many people have the same challenges.
I remember when I first moved to Taiwan, an American guy struck up a conversation with me in Carrefour then suggested we go for a beer. I was a bit freaked out by this but the longer I’ve been on the island, I realize that close friendships can be difficult to develop.
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So how did you get on? Any progress?
Says who? The young lad!
I don’t think it’s just a problem for people 40+. It gets harder and harder to find friends as you get older. I’m in my 20s and it’s pretty hard if you want real friends who are superficial party goers on the weekend. Seems like all people my age wants to do here is go out and drink, smoke weed and what not. I go get dinner with some army buddies I kept in touch with in my short time here. Sometimes I make a rare appearance at someone’s big birthday at some nightclub. But otherwise I just play with my dogs and drive somewhere random. It’s even harder with a gf as we try to find couple friends to do stuff with as we don’t go clubbing, at least with each other.
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Wait till you get to your 40s and get back to us.
Nah seriously the modern world isn’t great as it is isolating many of us in our houses and workplaces and cars. We take the MRT packed in masses of people but no one talks to each other. You’re at work and you put your headphones on.
You go the coffee shop here and people wont even open their mouth to ask is that seat or table taken in many cases.
Issues can be magnified here then if you are foreigner without a family or friend base to lean on. But a lot of Taiwanese have also had to move to Taipei or the cities for work. The city is full of millions of cohabiting strangers.
Many of the happiest Taiwanese are probably the home folks, the type who just moved to the next village or town and almost completely hang out with their families and still have some local friends. They could have larger families because they are from the countryside.
They might earn 25k a month but have a support network and some social life (although I also happen to know some expressed alcoholics in those places as well).
I never liked the lack of community in Taiwan, especially Taipei but it’s really not much different in most other places in Taiwan either (lived in Taichung previously absolutely no difference there).
The only community thing Im part of is our parents chat app for my kids class at school but it’s full of gossip, much boastful , ignorant or malicious, and I refuse to even look at it now. There’s no football team， theres no community festival. Taipei is really bad like that. Nada.
Our workplace has made some effort to get folks socialising and it has had some minor success.
I spend almost my entire time with my family and my work mates . I guess Im really a Taiwanese now .
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They may not be lasting friendships, but the most unplugged and spare-time folks always seem to be eager to spend a couple of hours chatting over tea, the elderly. I must say, they are quickly becoming my favorite group to socialize with. I may not relate, AT ALL, but that’s why I go to tw every year. Fulfillment (one part) is learning about others at a fundamental level. Many are so eager too with great stories of the occupation or family farm life.
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Of the strangers I meet, I find the TW’ese to be friendlier than the foreigners. I don’t even get a chance to say “hello” most of the time.
The school I was at hired two English teachers (literally, English teachers) and I, thinking I was being neighborly went up and introduced myself and stated if they had any questions about living in TW, or anything else just ask. That was quite literally the last time any words were exchanged for the entire school year. Not even a returned “Hello.” Maybe its an English thing. However, any new Chinese teacher we hired (schools seem to go through them a lot) I would get into a 20 questions with them, and they initiate it.
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I’ve noticed our hallowed profession of teaching English overseas attracts a lot of… how do I say this…? … social misfits, introverts and anti-social weirdos. So it could be you work with a few of those. But there’s also a lot of cool and chatty foreigners. My co-workers and I have a blast shooting the shit. But I have had offices like the one you described where the foreigners have the personality of soggy cardboard too. So it’s luck of the draw, I’d say.
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I once had a guy tell me “look, I’m sure you’re a nice guy, but don’t talk to me. I don’t want to make any friends here.”
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I’m not going to lie. I’ve worked with, and met many of the strangest people who are English teachers. And Also some of the cheapest and most stingy people that’s so ridiculous to a point are also English teachers. I have a guy that I managed at my gym, he would work part time there and literally argue about like 50nt diffences in pay about how he had to stay like a extra 15min to close the gym once and expected to be compensated for that time.
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Lol reminds me this video I watched a while ago, background talk starting @ 0:45 https://youtu.be/3zG_gXUZkVU?t=42
Oh, yeah. It is time for the US Open.
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Was he English? 
No, Canadian. Most English lads I’ve met are quite nice. Most of the jerks (or awkward weirdos) are from the US or Canada, sorry to say.
Prison will do that to people.
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Americans think Canadians and British are weird. They think Americans are weird. Everyone thinks everyone is weird. Then throw SA, NZ, and Australia in the mix, then the whole mess gets weirder, according to everyone else. Between the Americans and the English, though it’s a toss up, with the edge going to the Americans.
Then there are the continental kids. All bets are off, with them!
When I was in Seoul I was friends with a mad Aussie who liked to fuck with people to an uncomfortable degree.
One day we were playing darts with some military guys from a nearby army base. One jarhead had marks all over his arm. The Aussie noticed this and asked “oy, what’s all that for?”
The army guy grunted back that it “was in memory of all my brothers I’ve lost in battle.”
Without missing a beat, the Aussie replied “Wot? You mean in PlayStation?”
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I like the way you think!!! But you better watch what you write. Such blanket statements could get the post removed. 