I’m lucky to have made really close connections in Paris having adopted my boyfriend’s friends as my own. The thing is they are wonderful and I haven’t felt the need to reach out and meet that many other people because I feel as though I’ve got a great friend group and, as a bonus, they’re essentially 99% responsible for my having learned French. That said, there are certain references and jokes I just will never understand and worse, the hilarious references I drop often lead to silent stares and looks of confusion. Having cultural differences is great, but every now and then you want to spend some time with someone who understands where your weird quirks come from and won’t judge you for wanting to spend an evening watching Clueless followed by Speed followed by Legally Blonde whilst drinking red wine and chowing down on Cheetos (à la puffy, obviously).

So for those, like me who want to meet more ex-pats let’s get on it. Meetup.com is sometimes okay; Lately I’ve found that ex-pat groups on facebook offer lots of fun and interesting events (not that I’ve yet to go to one). So far I use them primarily to bog everyone down with questions about bureaucracy.

Groups on facebook I follow: