Making new friends in Doha

Leaving family and friends back home to live and work in another country can be a difficult process, and many expats often find themselves alone, or mixing exclusively with fellow expats, making little or no effort to befriend locals in their adopted country.

Loneliness, unsociability and a failure to integrate with the local community are common, and can often lead to expats leaving their adopted country prematurely, or worse still, losing interest in their jobs. Living in a strange country alone has become a new trend, especially among young professionals, made more difficult for single people to get used to life in a new country without a partner or close friend to share the whole experience with.

Luckily, there are many different ways in which life in a strange country can be made more rewarding. Here are a few key tips to make your time abroad more rewarding and enable you to meet and make new friends. 

Firstly, as far as Qatar is concerned, the good news is that you can kick start your social life as an expat even before you move by researching ways to get involved in your new communities. There are many well-organized, well-supported forums that can lend a hand to help you make friends.

For example, qatarliving.com which is the Qatar's Biggest Online Community Forum- everything you need to know about living in Qatar—from classifieds, events and news to community and much more. It’s a great online place to ask for suggestions, to get to know Qatar better and learn about its people from different cultures and backgrounds.

And once you do arrive in Qatar with your new knowledge, you can translate it into reality, as many forums lead to clubs, organizations and communities that you can actually join and meet people in the real, not the virtual world.  Just like at home, many organizations based around common interests exist wherever you go. Be it cookery, children, bicycling, photography, food, fashion or just about anything else, joining others with your shared interest is the greatest way of all to make friends in Qatar!