Will I ever have enough friends in the Netherlands?

Or the August dread.

A charming ghost town

It was August and the weather was sweet: perfect for Rita's visit, a Portuguese transplant in Paris, and one of my best friends. In my second year of Amsterdam, everything that seemed impossible in Portugal – a stable financial life, recognition for my artistic background, job opportunities – was available in a foreign country whose language I didn't even speak.

I lived in an Eldorado. The most remarkable thing, I told Rita, was how easy it was to make friends.

It felt like I had been incredibly lucky, but it also felt like I had done something incredibly right. Many people I knew found it a challenge to make new friends in capital cities, BUT I had been adopted by a big group of folks from all over the world, Dutch included! That August, however, Rita met none of them.

After visiting the English language bookstores in Spui one afternoon, we sat at the terrace of De Brabantse Aap. I was very invested in introducing my news pals to my long time friend. I had hyped it up so much that Rita was now eager to meet them too. Exploring a new city is great but meeting the people!… One’s experience of a new place is never complete until you meet the people! - I had assured her.

Carlota is in Spain, Frank is in Italy, even my flatmate is on holiday. Usually there’s always someone up for a beer - I sighted between sips of La Chouffe - You really need to come back some other time to meet everyone!

Touring Rita around Amsterdam with no friends in sight felt like I was just showing off a charming ghost town.

Introducing: the dread

Settling in a foreign country with a stable economic situation and a diverse international population sounded like the dream for me. But there was a catch. It had nothing to do with culture shock or homesickness. It was the August dread.

I think the first to leave was Aidan. He had found a position as a professor at the University of Florence and moved with his Spanish girlfriend. Who could blame them for trading flat Holland for the sunny hills of Tuscany? After him, others followed. I kept contact with many friends: I received photos of Carlo's babies on WhatsApp and followed Cata's yoga classes via Zoom. I also got to travel to see them: spent ten days with Stefania in London, ten more with Antonio in Oslo, a week with Almudena in Malaga. This was wonderful.

Back in Amsterdam, I realized that those newfound bonds, abundant and thrilling as they were, could also fleet away as quickly as they were born. My world had expanded, but I was losing companionship in my daily life.

The solution had to be learning Dutch. If I managed to make enough friends among the local-born, I'd never ever find myself lacking company or gezelligheid. The language would be my freeway to stable, eternal fellowship. A lot was at stake so I did it. And earned everyone's admiration for it.

The dread intensifies

I put myself through a zillion of very awkward convos to finally achieve the feat of expressing myself as a full-grown adult in the Netherlands. And now that I was finally a fluent Dutch speaker… the August dread still made spectacular comebacks. On Christmases, and Carnivals, and Easters, and Ascensions, and during all those extra midterm holiday weeks that I never knew existed.

It was dazzling to see everyone constantly flying abroad for leisure. But folks vanished for Sabbaticals too. Months in a row soul searching around the globe, maybe six, maybe eight, maybe twelve, still-haven't-decided-yet, they’d say. Sometimes years of location-independent work (did I know how cheap life was in Southeast Asia?)

The Dutch seem to be among the nationalities that travel the most. The expats, with their comfortable Dutch salaries, do the exact same thing. I certainly could not keep up: the costs were prohibitive for my meager salary.

So even after almost ten years of Amsterdam life, countless hours of language learning and culture bonding, I came to the conclusion that the sacrifices made in the name of conquering an isolation-free life didn't save me from the dread. What started as an August phenomenon morphed into a larger, existential question: Will I ever have enough friends in the Netherlands?

When is enough enough?

Upon moving, I tried to fill my agenda with social activities, say yes to every kind person who wanted to meet up and be way more outgoing than I naturally am. After all, I was an extrovert, and being an extrovert in this day and age, pays off. My life was as exciting and gregarious as I had envisioned it albeit increasingly exhausting.

Despite having built a robust social circle in a short time, a part of me kept feeling unstable along all these years, and I found myself grappling with generalized anxiety. This felt like pure contradiction. Was I not the one boasting about my friendships? Was I not living the life I had intentionally chosen? Did I not have oh-so-many-friends-from-all-over?

Many years in, it didn't matter how many parties I threw, how many strangers I spontaneously invited over to dinners at my place, how many people I befriended with. The feeling that I could find myself utterly lonely at any moment kept looming over me. The dread kept making its reappearance. When would enough friends be enough? What did enough friends even mean?

Estrangement

The lifestyle I was pursuing was unsustainable but it took me getting ill to realize it. Once I ceased to relentlessly seek social connections, a kind of orphanage set in. I no longer had my coping mechanism. Friendship-wise, I doubt that my life in Portugal would be any more fulfilling than it is here, especially when three of my best mates live abroad as well.

(*at a party, two years in ⤴️)

To play devil’s advocate: If I had never left my hometown and hadn't exposed myself to a predominantly international environment, I'm pretty sure I'd suffer from sameness. I was looking for better quality of life and different opportunities in the creative sector when I moved here but, equally, I wanted to expand my world and I craved a more multicultural life.

Moving abroad was the best decision I ever took and eventually I discovered that it was the loneliest thing I’ve done too. It involved loss, even for a person like me, who always dreamed of leaving. The loss of language, references, familiarity, the discontinuation of identity, the stripping of roots.

Now, when I'm in Portugal, I feel like a family guest. One of those guests who happens to know too many secrets about the household. The holidays there are lovely, but I'm itching to go home after two weeks. I don't feel like I fit anymore. I have an enormous appreciation for the person I became and the life I've built in the Low Countries.

But it finally dawned on me that, on a more or less significant extent, estrangement is a fundamental condition of migration. Nothing I do will change that.

Adagios for times of dread

Eventually, in an attempt to deal with the August dread, I created three adagios. These are reminders that helped me avoid disappointment.

• Every August, my migrant friends disappear back to their countries.

• My Dutch pals disappear every August too - destinations vary.

• Most expats will eventually leave the country.

• Amsterdam locals - both migrants and natives - move all the time; thus, loneliness is not an August exclusive.

Amsterdam is my home. Speaking the language didn't sort all of my problems, however, it made me as intimate with the culture as I can possibly be. I spontaneously curse in Dutch now (!) I sunbathe when it's fifteen degrees out and struggle when it's hotter than twenty-five. I say hoor at the end of every sentence and lekker for everything. I'm a sucker for gezelligheid, I drink fluitjes, I keep the curtains open, I am an Efteling fan, jump in the canals in the Summer, sing-along to bloed, zweet, and traneeeen! when drunk, and obviously wouldn't be able to survive without a bike. I disregard red traffic lights whenever possible, and other minor rules if they don't serve my personal freedom.

I'm not that open to newcomers anymore (I am one of those now). Cultivating friendship after friendship with people who might leave in the long run is draining. I have decided to focus on the dears that I am already close with, to nurture pre existing bonds, knowing that it takes time to create a sense family with other people.

The roots I set in Amsterdam are well implanted, and they grow by the day. Currently, whenever the August dread comes, I assure myself that yes, I do have enough friends and the melancholy shall come and go. After all, this feeling is the price to pay for a life that's richer and more aligned with who I am. Then I mourn a little, miss my people who live far, and proceed to greet the cashier in front of me with a Wat een weertje, zèg!

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Ana V. Martins founded Amsterdive in 2016 out of a love of personal tales and Amsterdam culture. 13+ years an Amsterdammer, she’s a writer, community weaver and host of writing circles. Her most personal avenue of writing is Ana Creates Meaning.

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