This is an All Ears English podcast, episode 60, how to meet American same-sex friends.
Welcome to the All Ears English podcast where you'll finally get real native English conversation and fluency for business and life.
We believe in connection, not perfection, when it comes to learning English.
Now here are your hosts Lindsay McMahon, the English adventurer, and Michelle Kaplan, the New York radio girl, coming to you from Boston and New York City, USA.
Do you want to avoid romance when you practice English?
Today, get three suggestions about how you can strike up platonic friendships for English practice with native speakers.
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Hey, Michelle, how's everything today?
Hey, Lindsay.
Good, good.
How are you?
Awesome.
I'm excited to talk about today's topic because I feel like sometimes you know, maybe you're living in another country.
You're trying to learn a new language, right?
For our listeners, it's English.
But maybe they're not interested in dating.
I feel like there's often a lot of dating that goes on in this language learning world.
Yeah.
Right.
It's cool because I a lot of my guy friends who were in Japan with me ended up meeting women in Japan and some of them they ended up getting married in some cases, which is so cool.
So I want to say that can be really amazing.
But not everyone is always interested in that.
Right, Michelle?
Exactly.
Exactly.
Yeah.
Sometimes you just want to make friends.
You're not interested in dating.
Exactly.
And so today we're talking about how you can practice your English, get better in English, in a way that kind of avoids those romantic traps where people think that you're trying to date, but you're actually just trying to practice your English and make friends.
Right.
And you you are.
If your sexual orientation is straight, then that's you're looking to talk to people of the same gender.
And of course, not everyone is straight.
And we totally recognize that and respect that.
So this is really whatever this means for you guys.
So interpret this in your own way.
Right, Michelle?
Awesome.
Yes, exactly.
So let's talk about it.
What are some tips to meet friends who are native English speakers when you're not interested in dating?
Yeah.
So I think joining a fitness class is a good way to do it.
I know in the past, CrossFit was really popular.
I'm not sure if that's as popular anymore.
What do you think?
I have no idea.
Oh, you never heard about CrossFit?
No, no, no.
Of course I've heard of CrossFit, but I don't know if it's popular now or not.
All I know is I used to live across the street from a CrossFit place and now it's not a CrossFit place.
Okay.
I've actually never tried a CrossFit class.
Me either.
I've heard they're pretty interesting.
But that was a thing.
So let's talk about gender specifically.
So if you're a woman and you just want to hang out with other women in the US, let's say and just speak English.
Right.
There's no other agenda going on than maybe a yoga class.
Right.
Because there I mean, there's no doubt about it.
You go into a yoga class.
Not everyone is female, but it's probably majority female.
Right.
Michelle, would you would you say so?
Probably.
Yeah.
In a yoga class.
Oh, in a yoga class, yeah.
Yeah, or maybe like 80-20, 80% women, something like that.
Or Pilates is also a place where I feel like it would be heavily female.
Right, right, right, right.
There are definitely, yeah, I would say like the whole 80-20 thing is fair.
Yeah.
I used to go to a dance, like a dance cardio class and that was all women.
Yes, me too.
Yeah yeah, and like I always wanted Dan to, I was like, was like Dan would probably have fun with this, but then, like I would show him some of the moves and he's like I don't know.
Okay, I see.
So it's very.
Oh, Zumba is it.
Was it Zumba?
It wasn't Zumba, but yeah Zumba yeah Zumba, that too.
But there I mean there are a lot of men too, but um, But not in that class I took.
Okay.
I like it.
I like it.
So that is if you're a woman who just wants to meet women just to have friends, right?
And if you're a guy and you're looking to do the same thing, maybe it's like, I don't know, a boxing class or a weightlifting class or something like that.
Again, these are stereotypes that these would just be men or women, but it's probably true.
Yeah.
I mean, the other thing you could do is take a cooking class.
Now, I think cooking classes tend to be couples a lot of times, actually.
Interesting.
Well yeah, I've taken some with Dan, but I've also one of my actually, like when I met.
So at the time she was the girlfriend of one of Dan's friends and we were both just dating our now husband's.
Oh, okay.
And I met her like, you know, and I, you know, so she was like a girlfriend of his friend.
Cool.
And we.
She told me about this cooking class and I contacted her and like It's been probably like nine years.
And she's like, I talk to her every single day.
Oh, that's amazing.
That is so cool.
I mean, so it's good.
It's kind of cool.
The idea here is kind of meeting couples or pieces like one person in a couple.
Right.
Where it's totally platonic.
It's obviously platonic because you already know they're in a couple.
Right.
So that's kind of cool.
I like that idea.
So attending events where you might meet someone who's in a couple or meet the couple themselves, that could be a great way to get different voices to practice with right.
Right, right, right.
Exactly.
That is fun.
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Another thing you could do is volunteer.
This is a great idea.
Yeah.
So it's about choosing where you want.
You know you could try a few different locations, a few different types of situations to volunteer and see what the gender breakdown is and then try another one if it's not the right breakdown that you want.
Right.
Right, right, right.
Exactly, exactly.
So I mean, you could like go to a food bank, work for a food bank, go to a soup kitchen, you could volunteer teaching.
I'm trying to think of like other things that I've done.
Yeah.
I mean, I know a lot of people have done over the years, like Habitat for Humanity, building houses.
I think that would be a mix of genders.
So you know if you you know if you're in a situation like building houses and you don't want to deal with the opposite sex or the same sex if you're not straight, right.
And you just want to be platonic in your English practice.
Just think about who you're talking to, who you're starting side conversations with, right?
I think, yeah, we can make that choice, right?
Right.
Oh, yeah.
Absolutely.
Absolutely.
And I think the best way, Michelle, is create your own situation.
Right?
Yes.
Have you done a lot of potluck dinners where you just choose who's there?
You email your friends.
Right.
Well, I mean yeah, I think this is different for, like you know, because I do a lot of you know stuff with my built-in friends,
But if you're making friends in another language yeah, there can You know.
I guess that's a little bit.
You know different how you would do it.
But what you can do is...
You know, you be the leader.
You be the one to say, like, I'm here.
I'm going to email five friends who live in your city and just invite them over for a potluck.
Right.
So even if they don't necessarily know each other.
Well, you know, you can even ask them to bring people like three of their friends, and then you share a dinner, right?
Totally.
And do that.
And then coming back to the recommendation, which is invite couples, you know, I think that's really good, because then there's not going to be any miscommunication or confusion.
And then you have like a number of people to talk to.
You have different, like I said, different. voices, different backgrounds, different experiences.
It's kind of like you automatically have a bigger friend group when you have people bring their partners.
That's kind of cool.
Yeah.
Right, right, right.
Exactly.
Yeah.
Yeah.
So there are so many ways that you can just you know have platonic friendships when working on your English.
And, you know, these are just a few, but, you know, let us know if you think of more.
Exactly, guys.
And go ahead and hit follow on this podcast because in the next episode...
We are going to talk about what to do if people tell you that your English is not good, right?
What should you do?
I'm excited for that one, Michelle.
Definitely.
That'll be a good one.
Oh, my gosh.
Lindsay, this was fun.
Yeah, good stuff.
I'll talk to you later.
All right.
Bye.
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See you next time.
