My Hot Take on the Expat Bubble

Living abroad, have you ever felt like you’re in the expat bubble, but aren’t quite sure how to get out of it?

I get you. I’ve been there, too.

In fact, although I moved abroad to learn Spanish and experience another culture, I spent the first 8 months in Chile spending my days teaching English at work, and then speaking English with my English-speaking Expat friends.

I felt so frustrated that month had gone by, but I hadn’t gotten any closer to learning Spanish, or immersing myself in the local culture.

I ended up doing a complete 180 away from the ‘expat bubble’.

This blog’s topic is about the expat bubble, what it is, my hot take on why it happens, and some mindset shifts to get out of the expat bubble to fully experience life abroad wherever you are.

If you’re feeling stuck or held back by the expat bubble, this blog post is for you! (This blog post is also a podcast, listen here!).

I’ll be diving into:

• Defining what what the ‘expat bubble’ is exactly
• My personal experience with the ‘expat bubble’
• My theory on why expat bubble’ occurs in the first place
• How left unchecked the expat bubble can negatively impact your life satisfaction as an expat
• Mindset shifts to breaking out of the expat bubble

Without further ado, let’s get right into it!

What even is the ‘expat bubble’ exactly?

First things first, let’s define what I mean exactly by the ‘expat bubble’. 

There are lots of definitions but the most common include only being friends, hanging out, or socializing with other expats. This can be accompanied by not learning the local language, and spending all of your time in a very “expat-populated” part of town.

To keep things simple, this is what I have in mind when I will be referring to the expat bubble.

My personal experience with the ‘expat bubble’

So when I moved abroad in 2016, I was teaching English as a second language for the first 8 months.

All of the friends that I made, all of them, spoke English. The vast majority of them were fluent in English as they were either American or British Expats also teaching English.

I want to say that I honestly do not think there is ANYTHING wrong with that. This group of friends was really important to me for the first year, because they were the only community I had at that time.

But the thing is, before I really realized it, months had gone by and I hadn’t learned any Spanish. 

I was teaching English all day. 

Talking to my expat friends in English all day.

I found it so painful to try to speak Spanish to Chileans I would meet because I would speak Spanish once in a blue moon so hadn’t built up the ability to go through the vulnerable and uncomfortable experience of learning a second language.

This went on for a while, and it felt like a failure at the time.

My goal when I first moved abroad was to become bilingual, and to experience another culture and without even realizing it, I had ended up doing the exact opposite..

And I think this is so important to talk about because it happens to so many expats, all the time.

I ended up doing a 180.

I quit my English teaching job, and started working as a sales assistant at a Digital Marketing Company. 

Without knowing any Spanish. 

Without knowing anything about Digital Marketing.

This whole thing that I had avoided for the past 8 months was now impossible to ignore any longer.

I had to figure out this whole Spanish thing, and this whole Chilean company culture thing because my livelihood depended on it.

I made a good Chilean friend and a Spanish friend at that job, and that became like this lifeline for me as a way to get out of the expat bubble. And honestly, a whole new life in Chile began for me at that moment. 

At the same time it was incredibly difficult. 

Learning Spanish and a job on the go was not comfortable or easy.

I can see now looking back that I had become so fed up with the expat bubble, but I was completely unaware that I was in it, and the term entirely so I went running in the opposite direction head first.

Sometimes life is like that and that’s all good, but there is a more gradual, easier way to do this!

And before I get into that, I think I want  to dig a bit deeper into why the expat bubble can feel so hard to break out of in the first place so we understand what we’re working with.

My hot take on why the ‘expat bubble’ occurs in the first place

The way I see it, there are the tip of the iceberg reasons, and there are the bottom of the iceberg reasons.

The tip of the iceberg reasons are the obvious reasons you are probably already aware of.

Things like, language & cultural barriers. Another one is the logistics or practical part of where do you even meet people who aren’t expats? 

I acknowledge these are both parts of why the ‘expat bubble’ happens so much, but my hot take is all around the bottom of the iceberg reasons.

The things that go on beneath the surface, that we can’t see, but we all experience.

AKA what goes on beneath the surface that actually accounts for the majority of the actual iceberg itself.

To put this plainly, it’s the “Affinity Bias”, the human tendency to gravitate towards other people with similar backgrounds, interests, and experiences as us.

To go a bit deeper though, when we have a common shared experience it leads to closer bonding and just vibing easier with someone in general. 

I don’t want to say trauma bonding because that’s kind of extreme but when you’re both going through the same experience, it’s easier to connect emotionally on a deeper level. 

This is kind of my hot take on why the expat bubble really feels so hard to break out of, because maybe our closest friends are expats, and making friends with the locals feels harder, because we don’t have that shared experience. 

We have to work more, give it more time, try more – or at least in the beginning it might not be that satisfying compared to those deeper emotional bonds of a similar lived experience with our expat friends, so we might feel like it’s not even worth trying at all.

Especially as adults, because I think we all can agree that making friends as adults is a lot harder than making friends when we were younger. 

But throw in another country, another language, and this just gets even more hard.

When we have this contrast of bonding with other expats, and a quicker path to a deeper emotional connection as adults – it can feel daunting to befriend a local, and step outside of the expat comfort zone abroad.

When we accept this, and make space for our expat friends to move on different timelines than our friendships with locals, can we comfortably step away from the expat bubble.

How the expat bubble can impact your life satisfaction as an expat 

A couple of things happen when we leave the expat bubble unpopped.

In my experience mainly a couple of things happen:

It keeps you in your comfort zone.

Now there is nothing wrong with the comfort zone, but because living abroad is an experience that stretches us to grow beyond what we thought was possible – it’s hard to experience the best parts of living abroad, and fully immerse into the local culture if we’re only in our comfort zones.

This leads to my next point…

It causes you to miss out on many experiences of living abroad.

Such as language learning, learning and growing by meeting people from across the world, and navigating new and uncomfortable situations. 

Something important to keep in mind is that you don’t have to ditch your expat friends, or not be involved at all in the expat community in order to avoid being in the expat bubble. 

The expat bubble is really an extreme way of living abroad that we want to avoid, but in no way is it necessary or even helpful to cut off friends with other expats. 

Mindset shifts to break out of the expat bubble (without sacrificing the expat friends that you have created)

Remember when I talked about our closer bonds with expats because of our shared lived experiences. Well, this is important to keep in mind for this mindset shift!

Adopt an approach of…

“My friendships with expats are allowed to look and feel different, and move on a different timeline than my friendships with the locals.”

When you allow your expat friends to have those close bonds, to have a quicker path to an emotional connection without expecting that same experience with the locals, you have realistic expectations of your friendship timeline with the locals.

This allows you to have perspective in your friendships, and to not take rejection or lack of interest personally if it happens.

Embrace the idea that…

Different not better when it comes to our different cultures.

When you hold space for your culture and theirs to be different, not better – there is no better way, better culture, right or wrong. 

There are just two ways of doing things. 

When both cultures are respected and allowed to exist, is when a true intercultural friendship can form out of safety and trust.

Lastly, ask yourself…

What is a small step towards making progress on the ‘tip of the iceberg’ reasons such as language and where to meet people. 

For example, this could look like signing up for a language exchange meetup so you can practice your language skills and meet locals at the same time.

What are your thoughts on the ‘expat bubble’? Comment and let me know