You’re Not Interviewing for a Best Friend | Building Expat Community in Riyadh

The Belonging Project — Part 1

The line I didn’t want to hear

“You’re not interviewing for a best friend.” Someone said that to me a year after moving to Riyadh on my first expat gig, and I remember nodding politely while thinking, err well, actually… I sort of have been.

Because when you move your entire life to a desert city you’ve only ever seen on Google Earth, you’re not simply hoping to meet “nice people". You’re hoping — quietly, desperately — someone you really click with, who gets your humour, your shorthand, your way of seeing things.

Not a brunch buddy or a compound acquaintance.

Although, in the beginning, that’s often all there is — and for some people, even reaching that point can feel surprisingly hard and lonely.

A proper friend.

The kind who already knows who you were before this move, and who won’t need you to explain your humour, your shorthand, or the deep emotional topography of your family.

But of course, you can’t interview anyone for that role.

And that’s the first lesson.

The ache of the friends you left behind

No one warns you about the sensory loss of leaving your old friendships. The daily familiarity. The comforting irrelevance of small talk. The luxury of being fully known without footnotes.

You land in Riyadh full of logistics - visas, school places, new routines - but emotionally, you’re still standing in your old kitchen trying to understand how proximity vanished overnight.

Your partner dives into the job they were hired for.

Your children are swept into the ready-made ecosystem of international school life. And you… well, you’re somewhere in between. Holding the emotional clipboard for the entire family while quietly thinking:

But where are my people?

Everyone is an expat, but no one arrives the same

Riyadh is a city of mixed stories.You’ll meet:

• Third-culture lifers, who haven’t lived in their passport country since the ‘90s.

• Corporate nomads, who can pack a villa into eight suitcases.

• Fresh arrivals, whose Absher app still has the power to make them cry.

Some people left home decades ago; some left last week. Some will be here forever; some are counting down the days until repatriation.

And in the middle of all that, you’re trying to figure out where you sit - and who might sit with you.

The myth of the instant tribe when building your expat community in Riyadh

There’s a peculiar pressure in expat circles to find your “tribe” immediately. You go to a coffee morning and feel as if you’re quietly assessing compatibility: Is she my type? Could we be friends?

And, if we’re honest, are we going to make each other’s lives easier — or harder? Let's be honest. We have had/still have those kind of people in our lives.

It’s like Tinder for friendship, but with more pastries.

But here’s the thing: your “tribe” isn’t something you join. It’s something you build — slowly, unintentionally, through repeated moments of showing up as yourself. It cannot be forced, and it certainly doesn’t arrive on day one.

Instant friendship is a cinematic fantasy. Real friendship abroad is much more mundane and beautiful - it’s the accumulation of tiny recognitions:

“Oh, you feel that too?” “You also miss home, even though you love it here?” “You’re also trying to be brave for everyone else?”

That’s where connection lives.

When everyone else belongs before you

This is the hidden emotional landscape of many expat moves: your partner and children belong far earlier than you do.

Your partner has colleagues, a routine, a defined sense of purpose. Your children have classmates, teams, birthday parties, drama rehearsals. You have a supermarket, a school gate, and the weight of everyone else’s transition.

You are the family’s emotional landing strip - the one smoothing turbulence, absorbing anxieties, holding space for every wobble.

But it leaves very little space for your own.

This is why so many women say the first year abroad feels lonely in a way that’s opaque and hard to articulate. It’s not that you don’t meet people. It’s that you don’t yet meet your people.

How friendship actually forms

The friendships that make this place feel liveable tend to arrive without fuss. No fireworks. No big declarations.

Just familiarity building over time - shared walks, repeated conversations, the comfort of being remembered. And eventually, the relief of speaking honestly about missing home without having to soften it.

These slow friendships are the ones that stick. Not the ones you hunted for, but the ones you noticed forming in your peripheral vision.

The Emotional Lag of Expat Life

The truth is this: moving abroad forces you to meet yourself again. You learn who you are without the scaffolding of familiar people around you. And then - only then - can you begin to recognise the ones who speak the same emotional language.

So no, you’re not interviewing for a best friend.

You’re just showing up — tired, hopeful, occasionally awkward — and letting things form in their own time.

Which, inconveniently, is how real friendship tends to work.

Coming next in The Belonging Project:

The Family Support Animal — the emotional labour no one prepares you for when you become the anchor of an expat family.