I’ve had a very similar experience to you in some ways. Grew up a tomboy and still am in some ways, so I have always gotten along better with boys. I work in a male dominated field too, so I simply don’t meet as many girls as I do guys.
I grew up completely isolated from desi’s really, my husband was literally my first Pakistani friend and I met him when I was 20 years, so I can relate to getting along with non desi’s better as well.
When I first got married, my husband had quite a few Pakistani friends and we would meet as couples. Most of their wives were usually imports from Pakistan and I had a very hard time relating to them on any topic really; there was the cultural differences, my lack of interest in most girly things and I am an introvert so I’m sure my personality had something to do with it too. I would always migrate over to the guys section where they would be talking about politics or sports so I’m sure I looked like the odd one out.
I always felt so miserable in such situations because I would just sit quietly and all the others would be chatting away and being the best of friends. Eventually I think they stopped inviting me to places and because I unfortunately couldn’t build a rapport with them my husband didn’t hang out with them as much either, if he did it would be on an individual basis with just the guys.
Fast forward 5-6 years and I do now have a handful of desi friends where we hang out as couples/families. In reality though I can’t say that I have an amazingly close connection with any of them. The friends I’m still closest to are still non desi, my arab friends from primary and secondary school and Canadian friends from University.
The truth is I do find it very hard to build a connection with people in general. It takes me years to sort of build a relationship and feel comfortable with people. And I think I do tend to be choosy in that I look for people similar to me in interests, and apparently my interests are not that common, hehe.
Again I think part of it has to do with personality too, I’ve seen a lot of girls just meet each other once and it’s like they’re best friends already, they’ll be facebooking each other and complimenting each other, and honestly I just don’t have that kind of effusive personality. I’m a lot more logical and reserved and it takes me more time to open up to people. Once I do though, I’m very talkative and friendly and people usually have a hard time believing I’m the same person.
Since having a kid, I try even harder to make friends. My parents were not very social, and we grew up without any social network other than our own friends. I can’t say that I have a huge problem with that because it also meant that we got to avoid some of the pitfalls of desi community like ‘what will people say’ and do our own thing without having to worry about much interference. But when time came for us all to get married, we literally knew no one in the Pakistani community and it continues to be a struggle to meet people.
All research points to the importance of having a large social support system so I don’t want my son to miss out on that aspect of his life because I just couldn’t push past my own flaws. My goal now is to be open to meeting all sorts of people, even if we don’t have any common interests really, I still try to be friendly and engage people. The one good thing about being an introvert is that I’m a pretty good listener and a lot of people like that about me. There are times when I do wish amongst these friends I had someone who I could really share everything with but maybe that’s just part of my personality. I’m lucky that I have my sister who lives nearby and my husband, so I do a lot of sharing with them.
Hopefully you’re not a lost cause like me. Keep in mind that it takes work to maintain friendships. The people I find who do really well with making friends are those who are open, they don’t mind setting their egos aside and always being the one to make the initial effort to keep in touch, they don’t expect the same level of reciprocity and they’re ok with that. Try to meet as many different kinds of people as you can, you never know, maybe the most unexpected person can lead you to someone who get along with really well. And even in general having a diverse group of friends is important for a person’s overall growth.
