When Being Surrounded by People Still Feels Lonely in the Expat Community Riyadh

Closed gates don’t mean there’s nothing behind them — just that belonging takes time.

Why proximity doesn’t equal belonging in the expat community in Riyadh

The Belonging Project — Part 3

When being surrounded by people still feels unanchored

It’s entirely possible to be busy, social, and still feel slightly unanchored.

You can have plans in the diary, people around you, conversations most days — and yet feel as though you’re skimming the surface of your own life. Present, but not quite settled. Involved, but not fully anchored.

This is something many people discover after moving abroad. Connection is available — often immediately — but belonging takes longer.

Why the expat community in Riyadh doesn’t always create belonging

In cities like Riyadh, social life often comes with built-in infrastructure. Compounds, schools, clubs, coffee mornings — all designed to make life easier, especially in the early months when everything else feels unfamiliar.

For many people, this works brilliantly.

But it’s also possible to live metres from other families, share facilities, attend the same events, and still feel oddly separate. You see people often, but not necessarily deeply. Interaction is constant, but the connection stays surface-level.

It’s no one’s fault. It’s simply how shared space works.

This is a familiar experience for many people navigating the expat community in Riyadh — busy social calendars, shared spaces, and yet a lingering sense that something deeper hasn’t quite taken root.

Why shared space isn’t shared meaning

Belonging doesn’t come from geography alone. It comes from shared meaning — from doing something alongside other people that matters to you.

This is where many expats feel a quiet mismatch. You’re surrounded by activity, yet missing depth. Social life exists, but it doesn’t quite land. You’re participating, but not anchored.

It’s not that people aren’t welcoming. It’s that connection needs something else to hold on to.

Purpose changes the texture of a place

Something shifts when you stop asking “Who can I meet?” and start asking “What do I care about here?”

Purpose alters your relationship with a place.

Volunteering, joining a project, committing to a cause, starting something small - these aren’t social strategies. They’re grounding mechanisms. They attach you to your environment in a way casual interaction never quite does.

When you show up regularly for something that matters to you, familiarity deepens. Faces turn into names. Conversations extend beyond logistics. You’re no longer just living somewhere — you’re participating in it.

Belonging grows through repetition, not intensity

There’s a tendency in expat life to expect connection to arrive quickly and fully formed. But belonging rarely works like that.

It grows through repetition.

The same walk, week after week. The same class, same faces. The quiet reliability of being somewhere often enough that you stop explaining yourself.

This is the kind of connection that doesn’t feel dramatic — but it lasts. It gives shape to your weeks and weight to your days. It turns a city into something you recognise, rather than something you move through.

Stepping outside the familiar

For some, belonging begins when they step beyond the compound gates — not in a literal sense, but an emotional one.

You stop orienting your life solely around expat structures and start engaging with the wider rhythm of the city. You learn its pace. Its pauses. Its peculiarities.

You find spaces where you’re not being catered to — and that’s where something interesting happens. You adjust. You pay attention. You soften your expectations.

And slowly, the city starts to feel less like a backdrop and more like a place you’re actually in.

The relief of being useful

There’s something deeply settling about being useful in a place that doesn’t yet feel like home.

Purposeful involvement — whether formal or informal — creates a sense of contribution. You’re no longer just consuming a lifestyle; you’re adding something to it.

That sense of contribution builds dignity. Dignity builds belonging.

And belonging, once it arrives, doesn’t need to announce itself.

When the city starts to recognise you

Belonging is often marked by small things.

You’re recognised without introduction.

You’re missed when you don’t show up.

You’re expected somewhere — not because you live nearby, but because you matter there.

That’s when proximity turns into connection.

Not because you tried harder. But because you stayed long enough for something to take root.

Belonging doesn’t replace home — it stands alongside it

Living abroad doesn’t mean abandoning your old life. It means allowing a new one to exist alongside it.

You don’t have to choose between where you came from and where you are. You just have to let this place mean something while you’re here.

And sometimes, that meaning begins just beyond the gates you thought would contain your life.

Coming next in The Belonging Project:

The Art of Saying Goodbye — what repeated endings do to expat friendships, and why we keep opening ourselves anyway.