11.15.25 

Helloooo Joanna!

Your question was about making friends, which I think is so fitting as my cool aunt. You are the person with the most friends, with the largest and most geographically expansive social circle of probably anyone I know––my father, your brother, being your only serious competitor for that title. I could name any location in the world and between the two of you, one of you will likely say, “I have a friend there, I’ll link you guys up.” I’m trying to live into that Morsian extroversion while I’m out here and trusting that it runs through my veins despite having a good amount of Warren-introversion repressing it. Armed with the attitude that I’ll be alone for the next eight months if I wait for someone to come up to me, I’ve taken the initiative to talk to as many strangers as possible in whatever circumstance I find myself in. Here I’ll write you a number of scenes of such interactions, and you’ll be introduced to the ones that have stuck and turned into friendships.

Day one in my small city of Orihuela, I encountered the typical standoffish Spanish attitude that I’ve now grown accustomed to when I walked by the Padel (think European pickleball mixed with squash) courts and asked a group of men how I could integrate into some games. They asked for my ranking, and I said I’ve played other things like tennis and pickle but never padel, so what rank would that make me? They said zero. I was naively hoping they’d just invite me to their next match, if they noticed my earnestness and I emphasized that I was new to the city and looking for friends. They did no such thing. They said if I wanted to play with anyone, I’d have to enroll in a months-long padel course, get a ranking from a real instructor, and then I could sign up for games on the website with other similarly ranked players. But no one was just going to let me in. They warned me not to ruin other people’s games for them by joining at too low of a level. I felt like a nerd in a teen movie being bullied off the baseball field because he didn’t know how to play. I had been in Orihuela about 3 hours. It was going to be much harder than I thought.

Things turned around the next day when I was stuck in the phone store trying to set up a spanish number when another American walked in to do the same thing. I introduced myself and told him if we can figure out this phone-line bullshit, he’ll be my first contact with the new number. Two hours of waiting and translating and starting and restarting sim cards, Ben from Wisconsin was added to my contacts. Ben has since become my closest friend in this country––we hang out regularly, getting beers or taking walks through the plaza. He lives across town and teaches English at a school nearby like I do. 

Two weeks in, my only friends are Ben and a few other Americans we met at a party in the larger-metropolitan area of Alicante. Ben and I were some of the only teachers in the exchange program to choose to live in the tiny town where we teach–– Spanish friends are hard to come by, even if you do speak spanish. They’re very homogenous and cliquey. There’s only one haircut as a man: a high top fade, and only one outfit: tracksuit. My students at school have made fun of me for my shaggy hair and loose fitting So-Cal style. Despite the differences in image between us, it is my goal to make a Spanish friend and I eventually cheat the system and download an app that lets me join Padel games after I self-declare a ranking. Out of 5 I put myself at 2. I think, I can’t be a 1 since I’m young, athletic and coordinated, with experience in net sports. But, I’m not going to get cocky and put 3, thinking I’m middle-of-the-road talented at something I’ve never played before, even though that’s what I want to do. In my first few games, I realize everything those old men said to me on day one was true, and maybe even understated. I regularly embarrass myself on the Padel court, and I’ve lost every match I’ve played except one, only because my partner was amazing. The app won’t let me lower my ranking but if I could I’d put myself between 0 and 1. Instead, I’m stuck at level 2, playing with other level 2s, who tend to be experts who just aren’t as young or as fast as other players. Most of my games are me and 3 sixty-five year olds who graciously say things to me like, it’s okay, you’re learning, good try, we’re here to have fun. In the 1 out of 100 shots I take that happens to be winner, my partner will shout for me in shock and elation. Padel was my main strategy to make friends in this country with locals, but needless to say, none of my partners have invited me out for a beer after any of our matches.

What has been very good, though, is a network of group chats between expats for local meetups and hangouts and activities. I joined a group that plays weekly beach volleyball and so I get to meet people from all over the world, some spanish, some french, american, dutch and so many others. It’s a very lighthearted and fun environment, and those people do get beers afterwards. Likewise, there’s a pickup soccer group chat with much of the same mix of foreigners and locals.

The most shocking difference has been the European drinking culture. I’ve learned to expect that a ‘few beers’ after some volleyball actually means eventually ending up on a full night out to the discotecas and getting wasted until 4am. It’s customary for parties to start at midnight and end when the sun is literally rising. A few weeks ago, I was invited by a British girl to what was described to me as a relaxed Monday afternoon lunch with a group of Spaniards she had met, and while that was the case at first, the lunch spanned three bars, two different apartments, a walk around the city center, and a discoteca after nightfall. I now know to expect that when a European invites me for a drink, they are asking if I’m willing to stay up until six in the morning and I now know to plan accordingly. I can’t miss the last train or I’ll be trapped in the club until sunrise.

For two straight months, Ben and I assumed that we were the only Americans in our small town, until through a series of random connections and word of mouth, we discovered another group of 5 or so teachers also living in Orihuela. They too assumed there were no others, all of us like castaways on a deserted island finding out one by one that there are more survivors. Our first hangout as a group of seven or so was a friendsgiving and since then we’ve created a pretty tight-knit squad to survive the cultural isolation all of us feel at our jobs and in our apartments. It’s like we’ve collectively built a small american raft, adrift in Spanish seas but clinging to each other for comfort and community. Shortly after thanksgiving, I even left my apartment to move in with two of them, and now we hang out all the time, playing board games and making dinners. I couldn’t ask for more.

There’s so much more I could write about, so many other mini episodes that I could outline of interactions both positive and negative––going out with my chilean roommate from the hostel in Manchester and meeting a group of 15 other chileans who took me to Manchester’s only latin discoteca (in the basement of a very british speakeasy). Then there were the irish girls from the hostel in Madrid who funnelled me so much alcohol in one night they called paramedics to carry me out of their friends’ apartment (I was fine, and that’s another story). And I can’t forget walking around Orihuela with Ben at midnight and seeing my 15 and 16 year old students dancing in the town’s only club, and them rushing out to ask me if I had any euros they could borrow for cigarettes. There’s no shame in this damn country. It’s a place made for extroverts. It’s a place for a Morse.

Love,

Luke