I’ve read quite a few expat blogs lately – not something I usually do because, hello, I have a mirror already – as I have quite a few friends who are soon to begin their next posting. They post blogs and links to people who write wittily and thoughtfully about the stresses of leaving, settling to a new place, feeling lost and struggling with everything new. I’ve been there, and it is hard. But this post is my rejoinder to them. This post is for the people who are left behind.

In the words of my favourite Texan, this ain’t my first rodeo. I’ve lived outside of the UK for almost ten years, and so I’ve had friends that have moved on pretty much ever since. But just because you’re used to it happening, it doesn’t make it any easier.

It always begins the same way. A couple of months before the contract is up the job hunting begins. Breathy conversations with friends of potential locations: will there be a job in the Holy Expat Grail of Singapore? Will I have to pretend to be interested in the wildlife of Brunei/Gabon/Siberia when really I know all you want is a decent coffee and fresh pasta? Will you have to battle the it’s-horrible-I-hate-it ex-Houston brigade if the right job appears there? Nothing we can do except talk about what options there might be, then what options there are, and then which option it will be. Once the job is decided the friendship shifts a little in anticipation of the huge change that is going to happen.

Expat friendships are different. They’re made faster, share more unspoken experiences and survive a lot more pressures than a friendship forged over months at a school gate on familiar, local turf. If you see someone in Expatland who looks a bit like you, doing things a bit like you, and possibly with a child similar in age to yours, you practically hunt them down with smiles and hellos and introductory conversations. I’ve done this and it works. Friendships made like this can be transitory – sometimes just conversing with an adult who isn’t your partner or a teacher or an estate agent tops up your strength enough to keep on going – but sometimes they can be the foundation to the kind of friendship that is woven into the fabric of your day.

And then, this person leaves.

Of course, I can try and join in the moving talk. Where could we go when our contract is up, which would be best out of your options and so on. But it breaks down to this: my friend is leaving, and I will miss my friend. So I join in discussions of schools, and furniture sales, and leaving parties, but all the time I am sad and wistful. My friend is leaving, and I will miss my friend.

It’s very easy, in the midst of moving, to forget the people you are leaving behind. You are thinking about packing, and selling things, and finding schools and accommodation, plus supporting the whole family about the new job and move (and no doubt reassuring the family back home that you’re really chuffed and excited to be moving to Nightmarola and it’s going to be great, totally, and you aren’t freaking out one bit). Your friend has been through this, and knows it, and gives you support with no pressure, to vent and rant and panic. You’re already looking ahead.

But we are still here. And whatever level of the friendship, it will be missed. It might be the person in the gym who is always there at the same time as you, but you never see them elsewhere. It might be the regular play date that moves on, leaving you with an empty afternoon, a sad child and no one to rant with over a glass of wine. It might be a shopping buddy, someone who shares the school run, or even someone that you’ve known for years, over several locations and multiple children. The friendship will be missed – but the expat secret is that you can never, ever, moan about this, because you’re still here and they have all that heartwrenching, heartbreaking stress of moving on. Never mind the phone numbers that no longer work, the bargain you’ve spotted that they would love, the regular coffee date that sometimes got you through the week. They’ve gone.

I am lucky, in that I really enjoy my own company (especially if I’m sharing it with Thor or Jon Hamm) but I have friends that I bump into and organise things with. This is important. Remember that these people – even if they aren’t and won’t be your BFF – willl have been through this and will remember the sudden gaps in the schedule and how hard it can be. They will step up, if you let them know.

Keep in touch with the friends that move on. Make sure you get their new phone number. Facebook message them. Remind them that in the maelstrom of moving, you are still there and still their friend. They will know how hard it is to be left behind, and will appreciate someone who really knows them as they plough through the inevitable small talk and politeness that comes with making new friends and starting over again.

I recently met up with two friends I used to live with, in a former posting. I really like and admire both these women, and probably didn’t get to know them as well as I should have done while I lived close by. But meeting up with them showed me that the effort you make when starting in a location should be sustained when one or all of you have moved on, even though the contact is less frequent. Conversely, I met two different expat women a few months ago, not long after I’d moved to KL. They’d lived in the same locations together for years, ran a business together, and were incredibly rude to anyone else. Their expat experience and friendship experience was, essentially, each other. That’s no way to be – there is so much that you miss when you focus all your energy on just one person.

The expat life forces friendships upon you, and takes them away. Keep making new friends, and don’t forget the old ones.

So for all the people who are moving on: good luck. It’s going to be hard and amazing and fantastic and exhausting (and that’s just one day). And to the people left behind? Organise fun stuff for yourself. Ask that new friend for a coffee. Smile at the new arrival and plan different play dates for your child. Beginning again never stops, after all.

My friend is leaving. I will miss my friend. But she is still my friend, and in this small world, only a call or a flight away. I have Sunday afternoons free now, who wants to meet for some cake?

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