so where are your friends from, do you tend to stick to friends from your own country or do you have a diverse bunch of friends

diverse, none from my own country.

what does my head in is when people insist I meet this 'very nice Dutch couple/woman/man' just on the basis that they are from the same country...it's really not like I used to like everybody I met back home...

so yeah, they are from all over the place, if they are nice, funny, easy going, then I am interested no matter where they are from basically...

lol thats why I posted, met this person today who was just so keen on only meting other people from the same country, why? It just amused me

oh I know...why flippin move if you only want to meet your own kind so to speak...it's a weird thing...

Exactly! Even worse when on vacation! Once we booked an ridiculously small "hotel" (think 5 rooms on the beach) on a Caribbean island (we lived on Curacao), and when we were checking in the owner (who was Dutch unfortunately) already obligated us to spend the whole weekend with him, showing the island, bbq'ing and whatever. Dude, I come to be away from everything, not to do the exact same thing I can do at home!

I worked (and going back end of July) in the Hospitality industry in Dubai, and always try to avoid Dutch guests, but somehow always end up being called automatically when there was yet another vacationing couple checking in with the obligatory (1 hour long) small talk, have to see spots and blabla

yeah...it can be a pain in the ass if the only 'bond' you have is the nationality and nothing else and the others cling onto you like leeches just for that reason....

With regards to the question; before I left Dubai I had friends from all over the world. Aussie/NZ, USA, UK, Lebanese, Philippines, GCC, but also some locals I knew from work. Still in contact a lot with most of them.

MH: I do have to confess, on very, very and I mean very rare occasions I did find it nice to talk my mother tongue, but this only happend about once a 3 months.

it's nice sometimes I agree, although I can 'raak mijn ei kwijt' pretty good in English, so it doesn't bother me too much...as in I'd rather speak to a nice English person than to a not so nice Dutch one...
but I do like to read Dutch magazines from time to time, although the longer you are away, the less you know what they are on about, the people they interview etc...

Yeah I know the feeling, we had an aircrew coming in very regularly, and one of the pilots always brought a Dutch newspaper for me, its a nice change from Gulf News/The National, but when he brought the Telegraaf sometimes I really was like; wtf are they talking about??

Very diverse. I have friends from all walks of life and different colors. Maybe I can hold my own UN council sometime

In the UK I had friends who were Sikhs, Greeks, Italian, Scotch and Paddies too.

So really it shouldnt be any different out here.


Taz

WTF is Scotch?..
All my friends are Scottish..to associate with lesser types would be simply awful...

Wait..we have the odd English friends, and actually we are very fond of this Welsh family.

Kiwi's are OK, Ozzies are in general fun, I don't like Saffers in general, Oirish are cool people.

I draw the line at Belgians though or the surrender monkeys (french)..they are wierd.

We have friends of a multitude of nationalities.

Our only stipulation is that they are not up their own arse.

Oh yes and we don't like ugly people.

is it at all possible??