چگونه با یک دوست آمریکایی ملاقات کنیم

This is an All Ears English Podcast, Episode 60: Wisdom Wednesday “How to Meet American Same-S@x Friends.”

Welcome to the All Ears English Podcast, where you’ll finally get real, native English conversation. Now here are your hosts, Lindsay McMahon,the ‘English Adventurer’ and Gabby Wallace, the ‘Language Angel,’ coming to you from Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

In this episode, you’ll learn four great tips for making good friends who speak English.

Hey Lindsay. How’s it going?

Hey Gabby. I’m doing very well. Thank you.

Awesome, So you were telling me you had a conversation with a student of yours, one of our listeners and, (um), she was asking about how to make friends?

Yeah, so, (you know), one of the things that we always recommend is to have students go out and practice right?

And meet up and go out and speak, speak, speak, speak, speak.

But part of the problem there, especially for, for women, for female language learners who are here from other countries, (uh) English learners, it – sometimes you might go to one of these meet-ups and it might feel like a bit of a meat market.

Yeah, Meat market, meaning (like) people interested in dating, dating more than being friends. Yeah.

Yeah, so the problem that my– that the particular person I was speaking with was experiencing was that all these men were approaching her and she wasn’t looking for a date, she was just looking to make some friends and practice her English. So she asked me how she could actually meet (uh) women in the US.

Yeah, (I mean) it’s funny, and, and this is a great topic for this week, because, (you know), Valentine’s day, (um), (you know), we’ve been talking about dating, (you know), in that context, this time of year. But what if you don’t want to date? What if you’re not interested in dating someone, you just want to make more friends, especially, (you know), friends of the same sex. But, (you know), maybe you just want to have friends of the opposite S@x as well.

So how do you go out and meet people in the context of friendship, nothing more. Well that’s the question we’re gonna (going to) answer today. So we have a few great suggestions. I think they’re great anyway. We hope they’re practical for you guys. (Um) the first one has to do with selecting a specific class or group. Lindsay tell us more about that.

Yeah, so this whole idea of, (you know) – and be selective about what kind of class or group you join.

Right, So one great idea that you had Gabby was to actually join a fitness class.

Yeah, So this is funny because last summer, I found out about this free cross-fit class (um) that was outdoors here in Boston. I thought “Oh my gosh. Cross-fit. There’s gonna (going to) be so many good looking, fit men. I’m just going to go meet them in this free class,” and I showed up and there were like 50 people and 49 of them were women. Which is, (you know), that’s, that’s great, that’s awesome. I’m glad there’s so many women that are into cross-fit.

I was totally surprised. And (you know) I was actually happy because I met some very nice women, and very friendly, and it was fun, but it just wasn’t what I expected, but it’s actually a good way to make friends. (Um), (you know) if you’re female, I think a lot of women are into being fit. So I would definitely recommend checking out a fitness class.

And especially in the summer there’s (there are) a lot of free fitness classes outdoors, but there’s also, (you know), throughout the year, there are free classes, like a trial class, (um), if you, say you’re interested in joining a class (um) or a gym, you could pop in and check that out.

Yeah, Another kind of class you could take is a cooking class.

Yeah, a lot of grocery stores, especially (like) specialty grocery stores, or health food stores, or adult education will have cooking classes.

Yeah, it’s always a great idea to learn to cook in English. And (um a student of mine in New York actually tried this and she met some really nice people in her class.

Very cool, Not only how to cook in English, but how do you cook American dishes?

With (um) food that you can easily find here in the US.

It might be different from the grocery store, (you know), where you’re from.

Right. And that kind of class, the fitness or the cooking classes, is not likely to be a meat market as you say.

And typically, typically more women – although It’s, it doesn’t really matter. There could be men and women, but the context is not really about looking for someone to date.

That’s the point.

It’s about friendship and just getting to know people in your community.

Was there another idea?

Yeah. (Um) volunteering is also a great way to make friends. So there are a number of organizations that need volunteers and just look around and think about who you might want to volunteer with, whether you’re interested in working for a food bank, a soup kitchen, working with children, (uh) working to teach. There are just a lot of different organizations that need your help. So it’s a great way to make friends (um) through volunteering.

Yeah. And the last thing that you could do is if you can’t find – if none of these options are working out for you, you can create your own situation, right?

Yeah, I love this. I love this idea.

It’s like, (you know), when all else fails, well, take action!

Take action.

That’s what we talk about on this podcast all the time. So go on to Facebook or whatever medium you use, whatever social media (um) tool – email. And email five of your friends here in the US or, international friends even and say “Hey, I’m gonna (going to) have a potluck dinner at my house so please bring three of your friends,” and all of a sudden, you’ll have a lot of people in your home brand new people to meet and to practice English with and it won’t be a dating scene.

Very cool tip. I love it.

Excellent.

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