I can identify with some but definitely not all of this. How close is your expat experience?

https://www.swissinfo.ch/eng/home-sw...ocals/43483622

I thought expats'd not even think to make friends with the locals...

Germany and the UK did not score that much better than Switzerland.

It's a survey of Internations users, if you've ever been to one of their "events" you will know why some of them find it hard to make friends full stop.

I have to say, I am very disappointed in the Portuguese' lack of team play. Having come top of the "Friendliest Country" rankings, you'd think their extremely large expat community here would make a bigger effort to improve their adoptive country's poor showing and lack of enthusiasm!

If you survey ANY expat group you will get people moaning about Switzerland. Most don't realise how lucky they are... in the UK a nightmare neighbour means extreme noise or even vloence. I'll take a passive aggressive or silent neighbour any day.

And EF denizens are more socially acceptable? Hmm, not sure about that.

Never been to any of their meetings, but their ads keep popping up on my facebook feed. Just looking at the pics and the blurbs make it hard to imagine that they attract any of the sort of people who I would want to spend time with.

and to think Internations is most often the place we direct newbes to when they come to EF looking for recommendations ...

It's this kind of bullsh*t stereotypical attitude which harms the expat community and makes us look like arseholes. People at Internations are like all other people, you get nice normal ones and you get insufferable ones... just like EF. I have also met many more nice people and made more lasting friendships through Internations than EF.

I also sometimes get the impression that the people who complain about and stereotype Internations etc are often the ones with social insecurities that prefer to live their life online than put themselves out there and meet people.

The way these are worded it makes me think of Jehovah's Witness or Scientology meetings.

No, I was just suggesting that they get somebody to critically assess their PR strategy.

How do you wangle that?? All I get is adverts for posh shoes, and groups like "Buy and sell in Swindon". I've never been to Swindon.

Fair enough, but I also read a lot of negative things about Internations in general which just aren't justified as there are a lot of nice people that go there that are happier and complain a lot less about life than here.

They have littly pieces of software spying on your behaviour on many large websites, not just facebook itself. Clearly, you have done some shoe shopping online before and they correlate that you are English.

I for example keep on getting ricardo.ch ads for cars as I clearly waste too much time on used car websites and FB knows it.

But since it was internation users around the globe would the statistic still hold true (unless you find me a reason why internations users in Mexico are much better than here...)

I met a Russian once who told me the Swiss are always finding something to worry about. There was some truth in that.

The Swiss are a critical folk, critical of others and of themselves. It's no wonder Switzerland has one of the highest rates of suicide in the world, which contradicts the argument of Switzerland being "safe" However, mental health has finally become an accepted part of the Swiss society and people are far less judgemental of mental issues as in the past.

Going back to acceptance, I've mentioned this before but it's still true today. There's a secret in becoming accepted in Switzerland quickly and that's through networking or finding something in common. The traditional Swiss would call it "mier cha dich hei tue", meaning that they know who you are because of your background and have something in common with you.

So that small talk that happens when you meet someone? It's vital in order to slowly break down barriers and build bridges to find a common bond to create a more meaningful friendship.

Let me give you an example of what happened in my English class. It was the first lesson and the room was full of some students who knew each other from the last semester and some who were new. There was also an energetic young man from Eritrea. Each student had to introduce their partner in English which meant they had to interview each other first. The refugee, who'd been here for three years, answered questions in English and Swiss German. Swiss German? The locals' ears pricked up and one barrier broke down. Then there was the class discussion of which canton Greppen belongs to. The young man raised his hand and with a huge smile, confidently said "Lucerne." Barrier two broke down. Now this friendly man may not find a best friend in the class but he became an accepted part of the group through his determination to show how much he knows and cares about Switzerland.

Moral of the story?

Don't expect a lot at the first meeting as those barriers can be high. All the same, Switzerland is a small country and chances are you'll meet those people repeatedly allowing those barriers to tumble down one by one.

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Faith isn't about everything turning out okay. Faith is about being okay no matter how things turn out.

They are nothing in that regard compared to us Brits. In fact I would say that in my experience the Swiss are some of the most contented people I have ever met... I think that is a natural product of knowing that life, society and infrastructure are in general so good.

I'd take that one step further by saying that because the Swiss want to protect their life, society and infrastructure, they are extremely wary of letting others in to their country in fear of losing what they've fought so hard to accomplish.

As opposed to the Brits being super accepting of foreigners and happy with our immigration policies? Oh yeah, Brexit.

The Swiss have a sensible immigration system that works, and not many countries can say the same.

My experience is that the tougher nuts to crack are not officially 'Swiss'. Also that if you crack Swiss nuts, then you are friends forever. We still have regular meetups with a Swiss family living in Luzern that we met in Subway on Old Street in London 6 years back