You moved abroad for a reason. Perhaps it was a new job, a relationship, your studies, or simply the desire to experience something different.
And, in many ways, life is going well.
You like your new city. You’ve met some nice people. You have your favourite café, know where to buy groceries, and have finally stopped getting lost on your way home.
Yet, sometimes, you feel strangely lonely.
Perhaps it’s a Saturday afternoon when you realise you have nobody to spontaneously call for coffee. Or a difficult day when you wish you could sit with an old friend who already understands the entire backstory.
You might even feel guilty about it. After all, you chose this life.
But enjoying your life abroad and missing what you left behind are not mutually exclusive.
Loneliness isn’t always about being alone
We often associate loneliness with having nobody around. But loneliness can also appear when we are surrounded by people.
You might have colleagues, acquaintances, and a perfectly respectable number of WhatsApp conversations, yet still miss feeling genuinely known.
There is something comforting about relationships with shared history. Friends who understand your humour without explanation. People who remember your family, your awkward teenage years, or that embarrassing incident from 2014 that everyone has kindly agreed never to mention again.
These relationships provide more than company. They offer familiarity, continuity, and a sense of belonging.
When we move abroad, we don’t necessarily lose these connections. But we lose their everyday presence.
And video calls, wonderful as they are, cannot always replace having someone nearby.
Moving abroad changes more than your address
From a systemic perspective, our sense of identity develops partly through our relationships and the communities we belong to.
At home, you may have been the funny friend, the reliable sibling, or the person everyone called when something happened.
In a new country, people don’t yet know these versions of you.
You may also find yourself communicating in a second language, navigating unfamiliar social expectations, or wondering whether someone’s behaviour reflects a cultural difference or something more personal.
Even small interactions can require more effort.
Over time, this can create a subtle feeling of being disconnected, not necessarily because anything is wrong with you or your new environment, but because belonging takes time to develop.
Why making new friends can feel surprisingly difficult
One frustrating discovery of adulthood is that friendships don’t always happen as effortlessly as they once did.
Many of our earlier friendships developed through repeated contact: school, university, shared neighbourhoods, or simply spending enough time together that familiarity gradually became closeness.
When living abroad, we sometimes expect ourselves to recreate these relationships within a few months.
We attend events, meet people, exchange numbers, and occasionally collect an impressive number of acquaintances without developing the closeness we hoped for.
But friendship is not simply about meeting people. It often requires repeated experiences, mutual interest, emotional availability, and time.
Unfortunately, there is no express checkout for meaningful connection.
Finding belonging without forgetting home
Building a life abroad doesn’t have to mean replacing your old relationships.
You can remain connected to your home country while gradually creating new routines and connections where you live.
Sometimes belonging begins with something surprisingly ordinary: becoming a familiar face at a weekly activity, sharing a hobby, or having someone who expects to see you again next Thursday.
It can also involve allowing yourself to acknowledge what you miss, rather than treating homesickness as evidence that you made the wrong decision.
For some people, therapy can provide space to explore these feelings, especially when loneliness becomes persistent or begins affecting their wellbeing.
A question to reflect on
When you miss home, are you missing a particular place, or the version of yourself you could be with the people there?
Further exploration
If you are an international living in Maastricht and would like to meet people in a more natural way, you might also explore the theatre class for internationals at Kumulus. Rather than attending an event where the entire assignment seems to be “go make friends now,” a theatre class gives you something to do together while getting to know the same people over time.
That kind of repeated, shared experience can make connection feel a little less forced, especially when you are still finding your place in a new city.
Explore the theatre class for internationals Kumulus Maastricht
Anna-Maria Sakellariou is a Psychologist NIP at Therapy Sofa. She is an english-speaking psychologist in Maastricht for individuals and couples. Her approach is informed by systemic psychotherapy.