Meeting new people and making friends can sometimes prove to be an overwhelming activity.
However, you can easily make friends with the right effort and zeal to take the lead and step outside your comfort zone.
Getting out there and looking for places to socialize, like a local club or volunteer organization, is a good place to start.
Once you start meeting new people, you should take time to get to know them and hang out together.
People already living in the Canadian town or city where you’ve decided to move to are less likely to need you as a newcomer than how much you will need them.
Making new friends in a new environment will seem to be harder than when you were still in school or enjoying your first job below 30.
Growing older tends to make people remain bound to spend more time at work or taking their relationship seriously, giving them less time for everything like making new friends.
Regardless, it is impossible to say a newcomer won’t enjoy an excellent social life in Canada.
Most newcomers to Canada tend to have their experiences in Canada enriched massively by making friends with locals and other newcomers.
After reading all of this, you may wonder what the simplest way to put yourself out there and create your Canadian social circle is. Here are our four top tips for making friends in Canada.
1. Join a club
Joining an organization or a club to meet new people and make friends is usually an ideal way to find people with common interests.
Having a lot of common interests with people is not necessarily required to become friends with them.
Quite a number of the most rewarding friendships are usually between two people who do not have much in common, at the least.
However, if you are interested in a specific topic, try checking out a location where you’ll meet people with the same interest.
For instance, you may join the science club at a college, the marching band, a knitting group, or another shared interest group.
If you play instruments or sing, try joining a band or choir. Joining a sports team may be ideal if you’re athletic or just looking to try something new and challenging.
If you’re religious, a church, Mosque, temple, or other houses of worship may be an excellent spot to start since you and the people will, at the very least, have a spiritual faith in common.
2. Go for Drinks Together with Your Colleagues or Ask them out for lunch or coffee
Doing this will give you a far better opportunity to chat and get to know one another better.
Invite them to have coffee with you sometime and provide them with your email address or telephone number. This will allow the person to contact you.
They may or may not offer you their information reciprocally, but that’s fine.
An ideal way to extend yourself is to say, “Well, I have to go, but if you ever want to have a conversation over lunch or coffee or anything of the sort, let me give you my number/e-mail address.”
The other person will likely meet you if you suggest a time and place.
For instance, you could say, “Hey, it was fun chatting today! Would you like to have a conversation over a cup of coffee and muffin at the Bagel Palace on Saturday?”
If asking them to a one-on-one get-together is inappropriate, consider asking them to journey to a group event with you, such as a party or movie night.
Also, note that in Canada, it’s perfectly normal for people who don’t drink alcohol to attend an after-work gathering where alcohol is being consumed.
So, there is nothing to worry about if you are not a person who drinks alcohol.
3. Apps for creating friends in Canada
The first thought of an individual looking to meet someone online is optimizing dating apps within their reach.
However, in addition to dating apps like Tinder, Bumble, Grindr, and Hinge, multiple apps are available to meet and make friends.
For instance, Nextdoor, which connects people living near one another, and Bumble BFF, the simplest friend version of the famous dating app of the same name, do exactly that.
Making friends as a newcomer to Canada can be quite challenging, but it is always easier when you’re willing to use the existing technology to assist you.
4. Adopt a dog
First, this tip is merely for those that a) like dogs, b) have space for a dog, and c) have the financial and private capacity to cater for one.
If you don’t fit any of these three criteria, it’s probably best to skip this tip altogether!
However, if you meet all of these requirements, adopting a dog is a superb way of integrating.
Most significantly, thousands of lovely dogs in animal shelters in towns and cities across Canada badly need a good place to be their home.
A dog may be a perfect companion as you integrate into life within a new place and may help provide additional structure as you agree to your new place.
Finally, the dog park is the best place for you and your new furry friend.
They get to run around with their buddies while you get to talk with other dog parents and, who knows, maybe find a friendship during the process.
But remember, a dog is for all times, not only for Christmas.
So, it’s ideal to exercise patience and wait until you’ve obtained permanent residency status in Canada before considering adopting a dog or other pet.
Read: How to bring your pets to Canada
Conclusion
And there you go, our four simple tips for making and meeting new friends in Canada.
Once you have made new friends, be sure to make time to maintain the friendship, be loyal to your friends, make an effort to see that the friendship is going well, and emphasize your good qualities.
