The Secret Downsides Of Being A Third-Culture Kid

Looking at people that never travelled and still live in the same country they were born in, can sometimes be a positive thing and a negative thing. First, these people have more stability in their lives, they have more constant friends, and usually a stable community. And the negative side is that they will never experience what I have experienced.

The negative part about being a Third-Culture Kid or in this case a Global citizen is that I will never have that stable life. Travelling can have a big effect on friendships, as people tend to prefer friendship to be stable. I know that there are other negative aspects about being a Third-Culture kid, but this topic is very important to me as it affected me personally.

The problem with being a third culture kid or a global citizen, when I leave a country, I usually lose some friends, even friends that I was very close with, maybe because I’m no longer around, and they have other things to do than remembering that they once knew someone called Mostafa.

For example some of my very close mates back from school in Egypt, after I travelled to Scotland, some never got in contact with me until this day, and the rest used to get in contact with me every once a month, and after a year these “once a month messages” starting to be every 6 months, usually asking me when I’m going to be visiting, and then these 6 months became a year or 2, sad I know. Some of these friends, I still haven’t seen in the past 5 years, but at least we get in contact occasionally.

But the important thing is, you start losing friends from where you left and start making new ones in the country you moved to.