Non-Coffee Shop Friends

In the few months I’ve been in Korea, only managed to make 2 non-coffee shop friends, but today one of them left, Maxi went traveling for a few months, so now only Okkeun’s left. And he will also go traveling next month :((((

A non-coffee shop friend is a friend I can meet outside the coffee shop. Meaning there is no need to meet at a loud and crowded location, like a coffee shop, bar, restaurant.

Non-coffee shop friends are the ones that can come over to my place or I can go to theirs, we can cook together, watch a movie, have a cup of tea, play some games or just talk.

With the coffee shop friends, you always need to spend money, because they don’t hang out at free places, like parks or libraries or each other’s places. So I usually try to avoid them. Not because I’m cheap or anything, but because the less money I spend, the more time I get to live without working and doing things I like, if I go to the coffee shop or dine out every day I’ll probably go bankrupt in a few weeks.
And I don’t even like coffee, why do I have to pay 5 or 7 dollars for something I can get for free at home?

In Europe, Australia and South America 95% of my friends were non-coffee shop friends (maybe not 95%, I just really really like statistics) but in Asia, that percentage drops down to less than 5% of my friends. For example in Japan, I was there for almost 6 months and managed to make only 1 non-coffee shop friend, only one! (referring to the locals, western friends are usually non-coffee shop)

But.. Joint consumption doesn’t bring intimacy… joint creativity does!!

I hate living in the past, but actually I really really miss Argentina, where my friends would come over at least few times a week for a game of Tekken and they’d bring pizza and we would stay up playing until 5 in the morning and then go to sleep all together in some joint mattresses on the floor, maybe 10 people in 3 mattresses, those were good times!

Or in Germany where Patryk or Jurgen would drop by for a cup of tea every time they were around and then went play frisbee in the park, and then cooking everyone together and playing UNO and for a bike ride. Those were awesome times!

In Korea or Japan, is just meeting at the entrance of the subway, walking 10mts and sitting at the coffee shop.. for 2 hours…

 

 

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