There are several regularly held language exchange events in my area. When I first started socializing as an adult, I went to these events and made a lot of positive connections. At the time, it was nice to have a mix of people that I knew would want to speak with me: I spoke English and Japanese, so I was an easy conversation partner for people in either language. Typically, the language exchange events were held at bars, and there was usually a good mix of Japanese and foreign people. Since everyone was so friendly, I found it easy to make connections and develop friendships with different regulars who also attended these events. Some of them even invited me to other things they were doing, and my social life flourished. While the organizers tried to enforce some structure about splitting English and Japanese speaking time, it usually devolved into people talking in whichever language they wanted. When I was first entering the scene, I wasn’t very confident in my Japanese speaking abilities. However, by getting practice from speaking with many different people, I managed to become a lot smoother and improved my fluency significantly.

I have a lot of positive memories of the language exchange events and the people that I met at them, but I no longer go to these events. While they were a good environment for me when I was younger, I’ve found that I don’t have the same energy that I used to have. Instead of wanting to stand around talking to people for several hours, I would rather do a more specific activity with them: camping, D&D, dancing, etc. This is not to say I wouldn’t have fun at these events, but I feel almost as if I’ve grown out of them. Most new people I meet there, I rarely connect with outside of the events, and the social circle started to feel somewhat stagnant after several years of attending and seeing the same familiar faces. Now, I look for social groups where I feel like I’m able to connect through something we have more in common than our desire to have friends. Especially since I am now confident in my Japanese, I don’t feel as though I truly share much in common with the people at these events as much. The language exchange events are great, and I would recommend them to anyone looking to form a peer group. That being said, maybe I’ve already found mine.