Someone I had met only twice called me her friend.
My first feeling was not warmth. It was a small, quiet no. A voice in me said, we barely know each other. This is not a real friendship yet.
I have spent years moving between countries, and now I coach other internationals on finding their footing in new cultures. So you would think I would know better.
I sat with that voice for a while. And slowly, I saw something I had not wanted to see.
Where I learned to love people
To understand why, you have to know how I grew up.
I grew up loud. I laughed with my whole chest. I trusted people fast and let them in before I even thought about it. For me, that was simply what friendship looked like.
Then, still a teenager, I moved to Germany.
The Germany I lived in taught me a different way to hold friendship. Slower. Quieter. Earned over months, years, sometimes decades before anyone uses the word friend at all. And it is a beautiful way, once you understand it. A German friend, once they are truly yours, stays yours for life. There is nothing shallow about that kind of loyalty. I respect it deeply. I carry it in me now.
The ruler I did not know I was holding
But somewhere along the way, without noticing, I let that one way become the only way. I started measuring every new friendship against it. If it moved faster than what Germany taught me, some part of me quietly decided it could not be real.
The danger is deciding, even quietly, even kindly, that one of them is the right one.
That is the real danger, I think. Not the culture that moves slowly, and not the culture that moves fast.
That is the part I had to catch myself doing.
Because the truth is, my own culture never agreed with that rule either. Where I come from, people open their hearts fast, and it is just as real, just as lasting, just as true. Neither way is wrong. I had simply picked one way and turned it into a measuring stick for everyone else.
It happens to many of us
I see this happen often, not just in myself. So many internationals carry one country’s definition of friendship, of respect, of closeness, into every new place they live, and quietly judge everything else against it. It is not a flaw. It is simply what happens when the place that raised us leaves its fingerprints on how we love.
I am still learning this. Even now, when someone opens up to me quickly, there is a small voice that hesitates first. I notice it. I do not silence it anymore. I just try not to let it decide for me.
If you want to read where this thinking started, I wrote about it in Integration is Not Imitation.
If you have ever felt that same small hesitation, when someone’s way of loving, of connecting, of calling you friend, did not match the rhythm you were raised on, I would love to know. Did you judge it, or did you let yourself wonder why it felt different?