Checking-in with Nic - Part 3: the Personal side

REMINDER OF THE PREVIOUS INTRO:  

If you know Nic at all, you probably understand that he's a walking encyclopedia for both relevant and irrelevant information spanning all sorts of subjects.  It's been just about a year since I spoke with him for this blog and there have been quite a few developments relating to his field(s) of expertise (particularly international relations) which I wanted to get his feedback on since people on both sides of the world have been asking.  

I also wanted to give him an opportunity to check-in on a personal level, but he is far less analytical on that topic.

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Alex:  Okay, so is there anything else you want to say?

Nic:  Various little things.  I'm finishing my Dutch class with my test on Wednesday.  I think I'm going to pass, but learning Dutch is slow.  I can speak with more people, but not to the point where I can go hang out with a Dutch person and just chat without switching to English.  Then, that requires the whole room to switch to English and that's less comfortable.

I am busier than I want to be, and that sucks because it means I'm not doing the social things that I thought I would be doing.  I'm still not fencing, for example.  I'm working more for my job in the US in order to make my business successful.  It's very helpful that you're working less, but I am a little envious of that.  I wish I could do that instead.

Umm... I like my bike.  I like my bike a lot.  Anytime I'm gone for more than a day or two, I miss my bike.  I'm going to not like being without my bike when I go visit the States for work, or especially when we're there in August for longer.  It is very much an extension of yourself here, like putting on a pair of pants in the morning.  I feel pantsless without it.

Alex:  You leave for the States in a little more than a week, is there anything else that's making you nervous or that you're anticipating?

Nic:  Not nervous, no.  I'm looking forward to seeing my dad, to seeing my best friend and his new kid.  I'm sad that I missed Catherine.  I'd been hoping to see her before she passed away last week and I'm sad that I missed her funeral.  I missed all of that.  These births and deaths and relationship changes were very much priced in when we left, one of the only two reservations I had and the other was the mountain.  

Alex:  Do you feel like your US relationships have progressed in the way you were expecting them to from here?

Nic:  For the most part.  I was never great at keeping in touch.  There are a few people who I would have liked to see in-person by now, and I'm a little bummed that that hasn't penciled out.  I'll see them soon.  If my job was here rather than remote, I might feel more lonely.  But I'm interacting with people in the US every day, I'm still spending hours on the phone or in video calls just like I was 5 years ago.  It's hard to feel isolated when this is the nature of my work.  I don't feel like I lack any kind of social connection.

Alex:  Do you feel like building new relationships here as gone as you expected?  Did you have any expectations?

Nic:  It's gone less well than expected.  Part of that is not engaging in the level of social activity that I wanted to because I don't have enough free time, like going fencing.  I joined a political party here only to find that political parties are not as active as they are in the States.  We meet and then see each other 6 months later, it's not an hour long meeting every month.  Most people who participate in the Democratic Party in Tacoma are there for the purpose of building social relationships, whether they know it or not.  Social relationships here are not substantially tied to their political views.  It didn't always used to be this way in the US, this is one of the big theses of Putnam's book Bowling Alone - that our non-political social networks have all deteriorated, so we're not meeting people with opposing viewpoints at church and book clubs and bowling leagues anymore.  We're living in such ideologically homogeneous groups now.

Anyway, I joined a political party but since they don't exist as social clubs here I'm not making the kinds of connections I expected.  Maybe that's a good thing for Europe, but it's not so great for me.

The other thing is Dutch.  It's not hard to learn enough to order bread and get around, to ask your neighbor a question or to answer a question of theirs.  But it's often difficult to converse fluently with someone whose native language is not English, which makes it a bit harder to meet and make friends.