Sarah Siegert moved to London in 2019 for love.
She left Hamburg, left her job (with a safety net to return), left her apartment, and moved to a new country to be with her fiancé. And unlike many people who move abroad, she wasn’t starting from scratch. Her partner had grown up in London. He had an amazing network of family and friends who welcomed her with open arms.
They always had people to hang out with. Birthday parties to attend. Weekend plans. Social events.
And yet, two years in, Sarah had zero friends of her own.
She was surrounded by people but desperately lonely.
Here’s what she told me: “I was walking through the streets to the bus stop, and I just thought… no one knows me here. No one cares about me. I felt like an alien walking on a different planet.”
If you’ve ever moved somewhere new (or even just gone through a major life transition)… You know that feeling. That weird disconnect between being physically around people and feeling completely, utterly alone.
But here’s what Sarah discovered that changed everything: Her loneliness wasn’t actually about being new to London. It wasn’t about being an introvert. It wasn’t even about not knowing where to meet people.
It was about the stories she was telling herself.
And those stories? They were running wild in her brain, sabotaging every potential friendship before it even had a chance to start.
The Stories We Tell Ourselves About Friendship
Let me tell you what was actually going through Sarah’s head during those two years of loneliness:
People don’t really like me.
I can’t connect with anyone here; we’re too different.
I’m not good at making friends.
Even if I met someone, they wouldn’t want to hang out with me.
Sound familiar?
Maybe your version sounds a little different. Maybe yours is:
- ▪️ “I’m awkward at small talk.”
- ▪️ “I’m a bad friend.”
- ▪️ “I never show up for people the way they need me to”
- ▪️ “I’m too busy/too introverted/too anxious to make new friends.”
These are what Sarah (who’s now a friendship coach for expats) calls your friendship beliefs. And here’s the thing that’s going to blow your mind:
Your brain is actively looking for evidence to prove these beliefs true.
It’s called confirmation bias. Your brain sees what it expects to see. If you believe you’re unlikable, your brain will notice every time someone’s eyes dart to the side during a conversation (even though they’re probably just looking at a dog running by). If you believe you can’t connect with people, your brain will focus on all the differences between you and potential friends while completely ignoring the similarities.
As Sarah put it: “Whatever we believe, your brain tries to prove you right. It doesn’t just see and interpret everything to fit that belief; it actually blocks out contrary evidence.”
So when Sarah was meeting all these lovely people through her partner (people who were genuinely trying to connect with her) her brain was too busy proving she didn’t belong to actually notice the moments of connection happening right in front of her.
Why Being Surrounded by People Doesn’t Always Help
Here’s something I don’t think we talk about enough: You can be around people constantly and still feel completely alone.
Sarah spent two years going to events with her partner’s friends and family. She was never physically isolated. But she didn’t feel like they were her friends. They were her partner’s people who were kind enough to include her.
And I see this happen in so many scenarios beyond moving to a new place:
- ▪️ You get into a new relationship, and suddenly you’re absorbed into your partner’s super active friend group, but you don’t actually feel connected to them
- ▪️ You move to a city where you already have one close friend, and they keep inviting you to things with their established friend group, but you feel like the perpetual “plus one.”
- ▪️ You become a new parent, and everyone tells you to join mom groups, but you show up and feel like an outsider watching everyone else’s existing friendships
In all these situations, people will tell you: “But you’re not alone! You have people around you! You should just be grateful.”
And here’s what I want you to hear: You can be grateful AND want something that’s your own.
It’s not either/or. You don’t have to choose between appreciating the people who’ve welcomed you and wanting to develop your own authentic friendships.
But here’s the catch (and this is what Sarah discovered the hard way): even when you decide you want to make your own friends, if you haven’t dealt with those stories running through your head, you’re going to struggle.
She could have gone on 100 friendship dates. She could have joined every meetup group in London. But if she still believed deep down that people wouldn’t like her, that she couldn’t connect, that she was somehow fundamentally bad at friendship?
None of it would have worked.
The Turning Point: When Sarah Decided to Rewrite Her Story
About a year into the pandemic (so two years into living in London), something shifted for Sarah.
She couldn’t see her partner’s friends and family as much anymore because of lockdowns. And suddenly, the reality became crystal clear: She didn’t actually have anyone in London who was hers.
“I realized I didn’t have anyone here for myself,” she told me. “And in the beginning, I wasn’t even close to taking action. I was more just being the victim of my story: I should have friends, but I’m not doing anything about it.”
But eventually, she got tired of her own excuses. She got tired of the story she was telling herself about why she couldn’t make friends.
And she made a decision: She was going to do the internal work to change her beliefs about herself as a friend.
Here’s what that actually looked like:
She started noticing her thoughts. Every time her brain said, “they don’t like you” or “you can’t connect with people,” she caught it. She didn’t try to fix it immediately; she just started paying attention to the stories on repeat in her head.
She looked for contrary evidence. When her brain said “no one wants to be friends with you,” she actively searched for moments that proved otherwise. Someone smiled at her. Someone asked her a follow-up question. Someone suggested getting coffee. These tiny moments became her new focus.
She picked controllable markers for success. Instead of waiting for someone to text her twice a week or invite her to their birthday party (things outside her control), she focused on how SHE felt during interactions. Did she enjoy the conversation? Did she feel like herself? Those became her markers.
She gave her brain specific directions. Instead of letting her brain run loose looking for evidence of rejection, she told it exactly what to look for: similarities, shared interests, moments of genuine connection.
The complete episode goes so much deeper into how Sarah actually retrained her brain: the specific practices she used, how long it took, and what it felt like to finally break through those limiting beliefs. If you’ve ever felt stuck in a loop of negative thoughts about your friendship abilities, her process might be exactly what you need to hear.
Your Brain Is Looking for Evidence: So Tell It What to Find
Here’s something Sarah said that stopped me in my tracks:
“Your brain doesn’t have an opinion on what it’s looking for. It doesn’t care. You just have to tell it what to look for.”
Think about that for a second.
Your brain is neutral. It’s just doing its job, which is to confirm whatever belief you’ve given it. If you believe you’re unlikable, it will find evidence of that. If you believe people enjoy your company, it will find evidence of THAT instead.
You get to choose which belief to give your brain.
Now, I know what some of you are thinking: “But isn’t that being unrealistic? Shouldn’t I be honest with myself?”
Here’s the thing: you might already be unrealistic by believing you’re unlikable. That belief isn’t any more “true” than believing people enjoy spending time with you. Neither is an objective fact. They’re both interpretations.
So you might as well choose the interpretation that actually helps you build the friendships you want.
Does this mean you just decide one day, “I’m likable now!” and everything magically changes?
No. Absolutely not.
Sarah described it like learning a new language. Your brain will default to the old belief: “no one likes me,” and every single time that thought pops up, you have to consciously redirect it: “Actually, people DO like me. Here’s the evidence.”
It takes repetition. It takes practice. It takes catching yourself over and over again.
But here’s what’s amazing: Once you build that muscle, it sticks with you.
The Friendship Skills That Stay With You Forever
I had this moment a few years ago that really drove this home for me.
I live in Seattle, and for the longest time, I had this incredible friend group, about 30 of us total, when you included everyone’s partners. College friends, high school friends, friends from early jobs, all living in the same city. It was amazing.
And then, over a six-month period, 10 people moved away. TEN. Out of thirty.
Plus, some of the people who stayed had other big life changes: they moved farther out, had babies, and things shifted dramatically.
I remember sitting with this wave of grief about how everything was changing. But then I had this thought that completely shifted my perspective:
If this is really what I want: this feeling of being able to call people, having a bunch of friends around to go for walks or hang out at the beach. I can rebuild that. I have the skills to do this again.
And that’s what I want you to understand: Once you develop the skills to make friends, once you do the work to rewrite those limiting beliefs about yourself, those skills stay with you through every life transition.
Sarah talks about this, too. She compared it to learning to drive; maybe you don’t drive for a while, and you get rusty, but the skill is still there. You might feel anxious getting back behind the wheel, but it comes back faster than learning from scratch.
Same with friendship. Once you know how to notice your negative thoughts and redirect them, once you’ve proven to yourself that you CAN make friends, that capability doesn’t disappear when your circumstances change.
You might have moments where you fall back into old patterns; that’s totally normal. But you’ll be able to catch yourself faster. You’ll remember: “Oh, right, my brain is just running loose again. Let me rein it back in.”
But What About Actually MEETING People?
Okay, so we’ve spent a lot of time talking about the internal work. And I promise you, that’s the most important part.
But yes, you also have to take actual action in the real world.
For Sarah, that looked like:
- ▪️ Using friendship apps (she tried Bumble BFF and Peanut)
- ▪️ Making more effort with existing acquaintances: going deeper in conversations, finding similarities
- ▪️ Being creative about where to meet people: volunteering, Facebook groups, local events
- ▪️ Committing to building friendships once she met someone she clicked with
But here’s what she emphasized over and over: None of those actions would have worked if she hadn’t also done the internal work.
She could have gone on 100 coffee dates with amazing people. But if she still believed deep down that they didn’t really like her? She would have sabotaged every single potential friendship by interpreting everything through that negative lens.
The external actions and the internal work have to happen together.
You can’t just think positive thoughts and expect friends to materialize. But you also can’t just join every meetup group in town and expect that to fix the belief that you’re fundamentally unlikable.
Both. You need both.
In the full episode, Sarah shares so much more about the specific actions she took and how she balanced the internal work with actually putting herself out there. She also talks about how being an introvert doesn’t mean you can’t make friends (despite what so many people believe), and how to pick realistic markers for friendship progress that won’t set you up for failure. If you’re feeling stuck in the “I want friends but nothing I try works” loop, this conversation might completely shift your perspective.
The Myth That’s Keeping You Stuck
Before we wrap up, I need to address something Sarah said that I think is absolutely crucial:
“You cannot have any healthy relationships (whether romantic or friendships) if you haven’t done the work within yourself first.”
Now, when I heard her say that, I had a moment of panic. Because I know for a fact that when I was building my chosen family of friends in my 20s, I had NOT done any internal work. Not even a little bit.
But here’s what I realized: You don’t have to have already done the work. You have to be WILLING to do the work.
When I was desperate for connections and building those friendships, I was constantly failing. I was messing up, having hard conversations where I had to own my mistakes, working hard to change my behavior and prove I wouldn’t do those things again.
That WAS doing the work. Just in real-time, with real people, through real trial and error.
So if you’re sitting here thinking, “Great, so I need to be perfectly healed before I can make friends,” let me stop you right there.
That’s not what this is about.
This is about being willing to:
- ▪️ Notice when your brain is telling you stories that aren’t serving you
- ▪️ Challenge those stories instead of accepting them as truth
- ▪️ Look for evidence that contradicts your negative beliefs
- ▪️ Keep showing up even when it’s uncomfortable
- ▪️ Learn from your mistakes instead of using them as proof that you’re “bad at friendship.”
You don’t have to be perfect. You don’t have to have it all figured out.
You just have to be willing to do the work alongside building the friendships.
Start Here: Notice Your Stories
So if you’re going to take one thing away from this post, let it be this:
Start paying attention to the stories you’re telling yourself about friendship.
Not to fix them yet. Not to immediately change them. Just to notice them.
When you’re walking into a party, what’s running through your head?
When someone doesn’t text back right away, what story do you tell yourself?
When you think about reaching out to make plans, what stops you?
Those thoughts (those automatic stories your brain is telling) they’re running the show right now. And until you notice them, you can’t change them.
Once you start noticing, you can begin to question: Is this actually true? Or is this just my brain looking for evidence to confirm a belief I’ve held for a long time?
And then, slowly through practice and repetition, you can start choosing different beliefs. Beliefs that actually help you build the friendships you want.
Because here’s what both Sarah and I have learned through our own experiences and through working with hundreds of people:
Your circumstances aren’t the problem. Your beliefs about yourself are.
And that’s actually really good news. Because while you can’t always control your circumstances (where you live, whether you just had a baby, if your friends moved away): you CAN control the work you do on your beliefs.
That work? It changes everything.
Want to hear the full conversation about rewriting your friendship beliefs? Listen to the complete episode of Friendship IRL wherever you get your podcasts. Sarah goes deep into her specific practices for catching and redirecting negative thoughts, plus we talk about the surprising ways being an introvert can actually be an advantage in building deep friendships. Subscribe so you don’t miss future conversations about building the friendship life you actually want.
What stories are YOU telling yourself about friendship? I’d genuinely love to know. Drop a comment below.
