Dessie Zehireva is fighting the good friendship fight

On picking up old hobbies and the cultural differences in friend-making

Dessie Zehireva represents an incredibly fun New in Town milestone - she’s the first expat reader to reach out to me directly! Born in Bulgaria, she’s spent the last several years living, studying and working in the UK. Our life circumstances are incredibly similar in that she recently moved countries to Timisoara, Romania for a romantic relationship. It was very exciting to talk to her about how the move has been, and how she’s settling in - there’s something so comforting about hearing from people in similar phases of life as you. Also, Dessie is incredibly wise about making and keeping friendships, something everybody can benefit from expat or no.

I’ll be taking off next week for the holidays, so expect to see this newsletter back in your inbox in early 2023. I hope you enjoy this conversation as much as I did!

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Christine: Can you start by introducing yourself?

Dessie: That question is always difficult - who are you, what do you like. (Laughs) My name is Dessie, and I currently live in Romania. I moved here in March of this year. Before that, I lived in England for seven years - and I’m originally from Bulgaria. So there’s been a bit of moving.

Christine: What initially brought you from Bulgaria to the UK? 

Dessie: I don’t ever remember a specific point where I was really debating whether or not I was going. It was always - I’m going to go. Which is odd, and really privileged, as well. But I always knew I would go there for university. And also, funnily, I think it started with Harry Potter. I just really wanted to experience that atmosphere. 

After I finished uni, I stayed for a few years to work, and then moved here because of my boyfriend, who is Romanian. And I wanted to be closer to Bulgaria, to my parents, and to some of my friends as well. 

All photos c/o Dessie unless otherwise noted!

Christine: What do you do for work? 

Dessie: I’m a project manager at a company here in Romania. I’m hoping to move into something a bit more meaningful now that I’ve had a few months to settle in. I worked for three years at a charity in the UK, and that’s what I really want to be doing.

Basically as soon as I finished my job in the UK, I had this job lined up with a big chunk of holiday in between. So that was great. Before I started applying, I was stressing out so much - I wasn’t sure if I would find anything, because I didn’t speak the language very well.

Christine: That was going to be my next question. Did you and your partner already have a shared language? 

Dessie: I can now speak Romanian, and I understand it well, but the language of our relationship is English. In terms of work, I don’t yet have the level of Romanian that I need. But just living here, meeting people, having chit-chat - it’s been absolutely fine.

Romanian is a romance language, but I was actually quite surprised that it does share a lot with Bulgarian in terms of the grammatical structure. And I also speak Spanish, so that made it easier from the perspective of the vocabulary. 

Christine: So you speak four languages at this point?!

Dessie: Yeah, well. (Laughs)

Christine: That’s incredible. How did you meet your partner?

Dessie: We met online, actually. It was on a random Discord server - not a dating thing. Then we were friends for about a year and a half. I’d had feelings for him for a long time, and then meeting in person, we realized that we both had feelings for each other. We started dating long distance in 2019.

We managed to be together quarantining for extended periods of time that wouldn’t have been possible if the world had carried on as normal. So actually, that was a positive thing that came out of the pandemic for us. At some point we started talking about, what are we going to do next? Where do we want to live? I knew that I didn’t want to stay in the UK, and I knew that I wanted to be closer to Bulgaria. So it made sense to move to Romania. 

Christine: What made you know you didn’t want to be in the UK long-term?

Dessie: So - hmm. I know this is a bit of a sensitive topic for people, and I hope I don’t sound judgmental. But I found it hard to connect to British people. In social relationships and all that, I’m forever going to be an Eastern European. We have really strong interpersonal connections, and we make friendships really easily. I didn’t find that to be the case in the UK, for me at least. 

In Bulgaria, you might meet someone at like, a board game cafe or something. Start chatting, and suddenly you’re delving into the deepest secrets of your soul. And it’s great - you get to satisfy that feeling of connection.

The river Bega in Timisoara in spring.

Christine: What were other cultural differences that you felt between the UK and Bulgaria? 

Dessie: Just how structured everything is. Eastern Europe is still kind of developing in certain ways. It was quite a surprise to see how many things that were available to people. Let’s take online shopping: I moved to the UK in 2015, and in Bulgaria at that time, I don’t think you could even find one big site for online shopping. But the UK was overflowing with companies.

Cuisine as well. We eat with a lot of herbs and spices, things like that. The typical British pub food is very bland to my taste. But I did get used to it over time, and actually ended up liking it.

Christine: What is the food like in Romania? Is it similar to what you grew up with?

Dessie: It’s quite similar, actually. Both countries were under the rule of the Ottoman Empire - all of those influences spread over this whole region, so we have a lot of the same recipes, but with variations. 

Christine: You’ve been in Romania for six months. How is it going for you so far, meeting people? Obviously you’re closer to home, and to your old friends - but have you started finding community in Romania?

Dessie: I think if we had spoken a few weeks ago, I would have given a vastly different answer to this. Things have started clicking into place in the last couple of weeks. I feel a pressure to make a community, you know? Because, technically, this should be the last country where I’m moving. So I’m feeling a pressure that I didn’t feel in the UK to make friends.

Christine: Well, also, at first in the UK you had that nice built-in atmosphere of university. And that’s so helpful.

Dessie: Oh, definitely. That’s been the hardest thing, because I’m sure you can relate as well - working remotely, you don’t really get to meet colleagues. And outside of work, local people already have their established friendships, communities. But I’ve met a few people from different places. One girl is Romanian-American, and now she’s living here again, and we became friends. I’ve been making more connections, and trying to hang out with people, just seeing how it goes. And trying not to put too much pressure on it, as well, because that scares people. 

I think a few weeks ago I was in a state of just wanting to give up. I’d meet people, but they were all expats, and they kept leaving. Maybe they’re here for a year, half a year. And then I started going to a dance class as well - so I know that once a week I’ll be with people, we’re going to chat, and it’s very nice. That’s definitely lifted my spirits. 

Christine: I’ve been here a shorter time than you, and I don’t feel like I’ve hit that groove yet. 

Dessie: We’ve got to keep fighting the good fight. (Laughs)

A picture that brings Dessie warmth - her hand on her boyfriend's arm in the sun. 

Christine: Also, some people just aren’t looking to make new friends. And it can be hard when you’re in the position where you’re like, but wait, I need new friends.

Dessie: I think it’s also easy to forget that - regardless of the fact that some people have enough friends - there are also a lot of people who are lonely nowadays, or who want a friend, or who want closer friends than what they’ve got. So I’ve just decided that I’m not giving up until I have some friends. And I’ve just got to not appear too desperate. If it’s going to work out, it’s going to work out. It’s kind of like a relationship, isn’t it?

Christine: There’s something that feels so vulnerable about it for friendships. With dating, you can just be like, oh, there was no attraction. But with friendship it’s like, I am either deciding yes or no on your personality. (Laughs)

Does your partner have an established social group?

Dessie: He used to have a close group of friends in university, but most of them ended up moving away. He wants to make more friends as well, but I think for guys it’s harder. They don’t want to reveal that they need anything. For him, it’s been hard to be like, okay, I need friends. So, yeah, it’s a friend-making time for us both. 

Christine: Peter is the first person I’ve ever been with romantically who - he’s a mega-extrovert. It’s been nice to have his social circle here, but it does make me feel self-conscious sometimes. He has so many people he can hang out with at any given time, and I just don’t have the same yet. So in some ways, maybe it’s nice that you and your partner are on the same page with that.

Dessie: You definitely shouldn’t compare yourself - but you know that. You have a point, because if my boyfriend already had a lot of friends here, and he wanted to hang out with them without me, it might have made me feel more lonely. Obviously that wouldn't have been what he intended nor would I have been mad at him, but I would have felt slightly more lonely due to the difference in our friendship situations if it were the case.

Christine: I’ve had to navigate that. Peter is also the type of person who could go out every night, which is wild to me. (Laughs)

Was it hard for you to leave the UK? 

Dessie: It was definitely hard. I think there were a lot of emotions involved because I moved for someone. If it hadn’t been for my boyfriend, I would have just moved back to Bulgaria. So I did have doubts - am I doing the right thing? Should I be leaving my job? I really liked my job.

And as I was saying, the ease of life in the UK - I knew that things would not be as accessible here. I had a few friends as well who lived in different parts of the UK. We used to see each other a few times a year, and now, obviously, it’s not as easy. Those are the kind of things that made it difficult to move. And I also feel this clash within myself. I am Bulgarian - I identify more with the culture, the social interactions here. But then, I also much prefer the ease of things in the UK. 

Like, I don’t want to make Eastern Europe sound bad. But people are more prone to express their emotions here, even to strangers. And sometimes, when you’re in a shop, and you’re buying something, the shop assistant may be grumpy - just for their own reasons. And they might not say hi to you, they’ll just grunt at you. That always really bothered me, even before I moved to the UK. There’s just that kind of politeness, I guess, that they’ve got - and I miss that, I’d grown accustomed to that. So I feel split, because I can never choose which place I prefer.

A canal in Birmingham that Dessie walked often.

Christine: I totally understand. We were back in New York last month, the first time I had gone back since moving. And it was very emotional - I love New York so much. I was strange going back, because all of my friends were asking if I was happy in Dublin, and then they’d be like, but are you really happy in Dublin? 

And it’s hard, because I am happy in Dublin, and I appreciate so many things - how the standard of living is better here, the health insurance is better. But both can be true - you can still really miss the place you came from. It’s hard to feel that split. 

Dessie: I felt so isolated for the first few months because I didn’t feel like I could complain to my friends. Because I felt like, I chose this. I chose to move here, so I don’t have a right to complain. And I shouldn’t feel bad, or sad about what I’ve left behind. So I was fighting with guilt over that. I found it quite hard to share with my closest friends. Because, for them, it was - oh, you’ve moved in with your boyfriend, you should be over the moon.

Christine: That’s what’s nice about chatting with you, or other people in this situation.

Obviously you’re back closer to your original home now, but you’ve still lived in three places that have been important parts of your life. And sometimes I think it’s really strange to hit this point of adulthood where none of my closest friends live in the same cities any more. I’m at a strange point where I couldn’t possibly see all my close friends in a year. It’s so strange to have that dispersement of all your people. 

Dessie: I think about that a lot. Some of my friends are in Bulgaria, some of my friends are in the UK. My brother and his wife live in the States. I can literally never see them all at the same time. I don’t even know if they will all be able to come to our wedding one day. Even at that big event, I will still be missing someone. So it’s bittersweet. On the one hand, it’s great to have those friendships, but on the other hand, you always end up missing people. 

Christine: Friendships are really important for me - so there’s a part of me that does have guilt, even though obviously I know I’m allowed to move for a relationship.

Dessie: I feel it the most with my closest friends. Everyone has to make their own way in life, and that’s where it’s taken us. So I just hope that we’re still going to stay friends.

I have friends who aren’t really texters - like my closest friend. But somehow we’ve managed, through seven years now, to stay as close or even closer than we were. We just have to call a lot.

Architecture in Timisoara (photo c/o Romania Tourism)

Christine: Texting is not my favorite - but I understand it’s the world that we live in. Sometimes I literally have to psych myself up and be like, let me just get through all these texts. But as soon as I start answering them, then I get more texts. (Laughs)

What are your favorite things about living in Romania so far?

Dessie: I live in a really beautiful city, architecturally. Timisoara is a city that is not a capital, but it’s developing a lot - since the first time I came in 2019, it’s changed so much. And people in general are quite nice, and there is a big expat community. I can meet a lot of people, and even if they won’t stay forever, I can still get some social time. And coming back to the food that I’m used to - just in general, food is a lot healthier here. There’s not as much fast food, there’s not as much added sugar, all of that. 

And obviously, being with my boyfriend should have been number one. (Laughs) I’m trying to think of less obvious things, but of course being here with him has been so nice. I was a little worried, but it’s been really good - we’ve adapted really well.

A clipping of a plant from Dessie’s childhood home, gifted by her parents.

Christine: We haven’t talked about your hobbies much. Have you had more free time since making this move? I’ve definitely experienced that. 

Dessie: When I was in the UK, because I was either in uni, or then working and in a long-distance relationship, I just didn’t have time for many things. Like, I would have time to read a book and go to the gym, but apart from that, I didn’t really have anything that I was doing as a hobby. Since moving here I’ve restarted dancing. And I also started taking care of plants, which is something I dreamed of when I was living in the UK. It’s really nice to bring nature into the apartment. And to have a hobby that I can do for myself whenever I want, care for them, water them, prune them. It’s been really good for my mental health, and that’s helped while I’ve been trying to adjust. So I’d definitely recommend something like that.

Christine: Do you have any parting comments for me?

Dessie: It’s been really helpful to read about your story and about other expat’s stories. So I hope that, in a similar way, someone will feel some comfort from reading my story as well.

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Do you know an expat I should chat with for this series? Hit that reply button and connect us! I’d specifically love to interview expats who have moved to/from Asian, African or South American countries.