I always knew I wanted to study abroad but I had never expected to find myself so incredibly at home in Glasgow that I would hesitate upon fulfilling my younger self’s dream. Loneliness is rising in society despite digital technologies creating a seemingly more connected world. It’s a fact that lingers in one’s mind when moving to a new country to study abroad but I have been left with no regrets about the rollercoaster it’s all been and wouldn’t dare to change it.
The way I see it is that the world is always turning and it stops for no one. So, we have a choice, we move with it, or we stagnate and drift between two personal worlds of your life at home and who you are in your host country. Starting from scratch and making new friends opens a rabbit hole of self-reflection and rumination that you risk falling down. Suddenly you have complete freedom to re-imagine yourself but the white rabbit is there to guide you down it until you feel lonely in a room full of people because you can no longer see what is in front of you, just the other reality you desire. Comparison is the thief of joy in its obsession for utopia, when in fact life is already perfectly ok exactly where you are.
Exchange can feel like a simulation on how to make new friends, mixed with unsettling uncertainties whilst also knowing that everyone else is in the same situation. Perhaps it is worse this way, because while that should be reassuring, it can still feel overwhelming should you have the obstinate perception that everyone else is doing it better than yourself. Yet it’s not impossible and it is in fact perfectly achievable to make good friends abroad, it can just be intimidating at first. It has been as much a test of character (A’s all round if you ask me), as it has been my social skills.
Most of us have some personal lore we keep to ourselves and a close selection of people, but when you leave the environment in which this is situated, it is nothing short of strange. It’s suddenly less complicated, it’s easier and it’s calmer . The rush of life in the UK seems incomprehensible to the experience I’ve had in Helsinki so far.
Between last minute flight changes (for the oh so small cost of £100…), late night packing in an overweight suitcase (this is my own fault I know) and panicking over paperwork and accommodation, the exhausting moving process was haunted with a headache. It was beyond overwhelming and upon landing I found myself in a strange hotel (another last minute £100 cost…) and unable to get my apartment keys until the next day. Then after the weekend, orientation week arrived and it was time to make new friends while still feeling completely dazed about how I got here and remained fixated on all that I had left behind (Tesco savings included).
Yet even after the rockiest of starts, it did, as always, get better. I had a flatmate who kindly helped me move into our apartment and when we couldn’t turn on our fridge, we met our neighbours who so generously allowed us to keep our pesto in their’s, and made the fortunate discovery that one of them was also a Glasgow Uni student. We learnt card games together and met others in doing so, after all, everyone is invited to play Cabo. My friends in my tutor group and I had lunch together and certified our friendship in a group chat founded on the basis that all our names started with ‘M’. Then of course, what better way to get to know a new friend in Finland than by going on a walk through the snow to the frozen sea and building the one and only alcoholic-esque snowman named Johnny.
My point is not to highlight the disorganisation, but simply to demonstrate that just because something isn’t conventional, or as you imagined it to be, it doesn’t make it any less fun. Culture shock isn’t a strong enough phrase to convey the differences between here and home and I do not wish to connotate this with negativity but instead with opportunity. There is comfort to be found amongst the uncertainty should you be willing to accept letting go of the notions you once blindly clung to for stability and instead, in an embracement of change, find fortitude within yourself. To build a life abroad does not equate to replacing that at home or forgetting creature comforts, but rather it just unknowingly tests your self-confidence until you find it.
Change is one of the few things in life that is both feared and desired in an internal conflict of craving stability and striving for the self-improvement everyone else seems to be achieving. Tales of Erasmus, and university life more generally, are undeniably glorified, not in the fabricated sense but rather in their negation of the resilience you learn they provide a false representation of what everyday life should look like. There are few certainties in our polarising world but let me offer you the guarantee that you are not the only person who has ever felt alone or perhaps just slightly lost in life’s complexities.
There is something to be learnt from the people you meet and those who you befriend will, whether it be large or small, have some influence on your life, often in how you perceive yourself and your own capabilities. There is a lonely world out there but you don’t have to subject yourself to it by focussing on disheartening future hypotheticals that blindly question the unknown longevity of a friendship. There is a much better alternative of just living in the moment and trusting yourself whilst your empathy and courage grows.
I mistakenly thought exchange meant everything would change. I worried about distancing from my friends at home and worried about making more in Helsinki, but that was just pessimism talking and oh how wrong I was. You don’t have to control everything and you don’t have to know everything, but you do have to be willing to look for the peace that hides in the chaos and trust the process and yourself to get there.
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