Throughout my eight years here in Lisbon, I have seen how the composition of the expat population has changed. Six years ago, I shared here how one may overcome loneliness when starting a new life abroad – and how, while many people speak of loneliness in expat groups, feeling lonely or alienated remains something most people are not willing to admit.
Six years later, a sequel felt important to this article, as I began to think that complaints about difficulties creating “social life” or “loneliness” which many expats refer to may partly stem from who comes to Lisbon, rather than from Lisbon itself.
Portuguese culture: Family first, middle and last
Let’s agree that Portugal has a role to play in making it difficult to integrate (by the standards of Southern European cultures).
The Portuguese, warm as they are, tend to stick to being super close with family, and way less attached to friends, especially the ones they made in adulthood. It is great to be close to your family. But to be so close to them that you barely make time for friends is a bit strange for me, even as an Arab! The Portuguese boyfriend of a Slavic friend of mine did high school in Luxembourg and university in Lisbon. He has been in Lisbon for years now, yet still finds it hard to make friends with other Portuguese people, so he hangs out with us, the international bunch.
The rise of individualism
Let’s also agree that hyper-individualism is on the rise, globally.
Coming from a collectivist culture, I never understood the prevalence of the concept of “I don’t owe anyone anything,” when, in fact, we do owe each other many things.
As someone who is very mindful of the dichotomy between collectivism and individualism, I noticed how the issue surged, even within the already hyper-individualist European cultures, and also began to take over the collectivist ones.
The issue is that the surface-layer, carefree façade of hyper-individualism masks so much loneliness and depression behind it.
And even though scientists have already discussed that the disparity in the handling of COVID-19 between collectivist and individualistic cultures produced a better COVID situation in more collectivist communities than individualist ones. A major best-selling Harvard Professor Arthur C. Brooks tells us that even though a main pillar of happiness is friendship, hyper-individualism remains on the rise.
While one side of the story of loneliness lies in global changes, the other side of the changes in social life in Lisbon has to do with the different groups of expats who have been re-locating to Lisbon since the end of the Pandemic.
The new Lisbon expats
To explain this better, we need to divide the waves of moving to Lisbon into two phases: a pre-pandemic phase and a post-pandemic phase. Before the pandemic, there were still many young professionals who would relocate from Italy, Eastern Europe or Germany, and who had regular 9-to-5 jobs in the Portuguese labour market. Therefore, prices were relatively reasonable, and the fabric of the international community felt different. Music and cultural events used to be free or available for a small fee in bars, as venues made their revenue and paid artists from the drinks they sold.
Now, things have become more exclusive, more geared towards “digital nomads” and “entrepreneurs” who are happy to overpay for services and events, far more than they should. And no one is feeling any less lonely, wealthy expats included. So, why is that?
More expats relocating doesn’t necessarily create a more open environment
After the pandemic, people re-locating to Lisbon, in particular – and to Portugal in general – tended to be on the wealthier side. People who can afford to advance six months on rent to get the apartment they want amid several applications for the same apartment, or those who would have no problem paying 12 euros for avocados on toast in a brunch place.
Were wealthy digital nomads absent from Lisbon before the pandemic? Not at all.
However, the “entrepreneurial” quality of many new expats—and obviously not all of them—comes with pragmatism about other things in life, including human relations. Therefore, an expat group I liked when I initially moved to Lisbon, called “Lisbon: Girl Gone International,” which helped women expats create small communities and sisterhoods, now has “picnics” to meet “other business-owning friends.” You still get people who want to meet over a walk in the park, but this shift gives us a taste of other forms of social interaction present today.
There is a new layer of people who don’t want to “waste” time socializing or interacting with others just for the sake of it.
Social life has to have a business-oriented element. You may argue that this is a common social/business hybrid. But it can affect social life in the long run. For example, my Maltese friend, who is a jazz singer and who lived in Lisbon before and after the pandemic, told me that the art and cultural scenes used to take place in affordable venues. Now, it is more exclusive. Wealthy international artists have taken over existing spaces and turned artists’ gatherings or networking events into an expensive form of socializing.
The changing fabric of social life in Lisbon is only partly connected to Lisbon itself, along with the global changes and challenges facing all of us. The other part is about the expats themselves, who shifted from being mostly younger, salaried professionals, to older, wealthier business owners or entrepreneurs from mostly very individualist cultures.
Which, ironically, may compromise their own ability to create the social lives they moved to Portugal for.
So maybe the real question isn’t why some Lisbon expats complain of loneliness, but instead what happens to a city’s social fabric once friendship itself becomes another asset class—and whether, once that shift takes hold, anyone still remembers how to socialize for free.
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Read more about Lisbon here in Dispatches’ archives.
See more from Sarah here.
Sarah Nagaty has a PhD in cultural studies, She’s lived in Portugal for six years.
As a student of cultural studies, Sarah is drawn to what connects people from different backgrounds to new cultures and places, how they relate to their new surroundings and what kind of activities they could engage with in their new hometowns.
