Moving to a foreign country means you need to find new amigos. How to make this happen? Well you can search for them online and offline. I decided to try both ways and I must say, that going online was an interesting journey… Chatting with people that you do not know and judging them based on their appearance is a sketchy thing. It made me think about my “who suits my criteria” and then asking myself who am I to judge?
Trying out the dating app Tinder was amusing, because I saw people, that I usually wouldn’t see on the street, just because I wouldn’t pay any attention to this kind of subjects. Seeing photos of men and swiping left or rights sounds easy, but I can reassure you it’s tiring! It was so obscure to see men taking selfies in front of the mirror, making duck faces, showing six-packs… WTF! The shocker for me was, that there were so many of them doing this, so my palm just started to hurt because I was just swiping left. When I saw some photos of mountains in background or a guy in climbing mode, then I swiped right and soon I got a “match”. Then you can make a contact to your match and start chatting.
Chatting was in most cases a waste of time and I soon realized that it just doesn’t work for me, so I deleted my profile after two weeks. It made me wonder, what kind of picture do we create online about us. Is it really real? Or do we create something that we would like to be? I am not looking for perfection and I am not interested in the shell, it is the character that makes people unique! So I decided to rather focus on going offline and try my luck through other online channels like DAV groups (German alpine club).
Going offline means you need to be chatty, so I started to chit chat in the boulder gym. In my opinion it is a better way, because you see the people the way they are and not the way they pretend to be. Getting contacts in the boulder gym was more efficient and soon I could hang around outdoor. The problem is if you are living in a small town, then there won’t be many people to meet… So I went online again, but this time through DAV. Being a member of DAV brings you also some benefits, like getting into groups that organize trips or getting in touch with fellow climbers 🙂 . This way I arranged a four day trip with people I never met before and you know what, it was mega. I had a great holiday with international group in Italy, which comes to show you that the more diverse it is, the more fun it gets 🙂 .
I tried out both ways and I must say, that I still prefer finding people offline, because you can see real people and not an artificial construct that they create online.
Planetina 
Great post and photos! I’m glad some people are able to still get off their phones and meet people the old fashioned way by just chatting face-to-face. I feel like phones and electronics sometimes makes people a bit anti-social. People tend to lose their knack for conversation due to the lack of conversation that comes from apps.
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Indeed, I wish people would rather live a REAL life then a fake one.
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