Seeker wrote:I can't fathom why anyone would recommend anywhere in Southern Europe as a good destination for foreigners, especially when Eastern and Central Europe are right next to it. A foreigner there would have no advantage over local men in competing for local women, and would in fact be at a significant disadvantage if he didn't speak the language and had no social circle. On the other hand Italy is a good destination for foreign women, not men, looking for that Latin lover stereotype. The local economy is awful when it comes to providing decent paying jobs (and in fact any jobs) and I have no idea why someone like eurobrat who was making 75-100k back in America and owned his own home would give that up just to go to Italy to make less than 1000 euros a month while sharing an apartment with someone who isn't even a friend. Surely everyone can see that was a bad decision?
The one thing that surprised me about this report was the extreme cliquishness and unfriendliness of Italians. Imagine living in a new place for an entire year and not making a single friend! Given how quickly he made friends in Germany that shows the problem is not with eurobrat. Having said that, mixed social circles are usually not very welcoming towards unassociated single men. I always thought Southern Europeans were more open, sociable and welcoming to those outside of their group, perhaps this was the case 10 or more years ago but no longer.
Are you really comparing like with like? There are two distinctions I see:
1) countries where the economy and the labour markets are advanced enough to allow a foreigner to find a well-paid job, on a par if not on a higher platform than a local
2) social/dating life in small and medium size towns versus social/dating life in large cities and the occasional medium-sized town with a large student population
On 1), Italy belongs to the first category, albeit "borderline" and limited to specific industry areas. A software developer, a management consultant, a financial maths/statistics specialist
will find a well paid job in Rome or Milan, perhaps not as well paid as the same in London or Frankfurt, but enough to live comfortably and explore his new host country. Finding such job is probably harder than London, Berlin or Amsterdam, but it's doable, with if your skillset is in demand. Happy go lucky types who land in Italy thinking they'll be making 2500 Euros a month teaching English without a rock-solid CV and specialist qualifications are going to be disappointed, especially in today's economic climate.
Eurobrat's report obviously focussed on Italy, but the same observation applies to the first-tier European countries that you bundled under the "Southern Europe" label: Spain, Portugal, and Greece.
Conversely, when you say Eastern Europe is at short distance from Southern Europe, are you accounting for the fact that if you won't find the job you want in Rome or Madrid, you're even less likely to find it in Budapest or Vilnius? Of course there are exceptions, like Wroclaw in Poland which is experiencing a boom of IT and hi-tech job. I do agree with the fact that, if one is relying on a passive income or a highly mobile job (such as running an online gig) to fund their stay, then Easter Europe does provide a cheaper (albeit somewhat colder) alternative.
On 2), I believed this was common sense, but apparently it helps reiterating. Cliquish social circles open by invitation only are not a terrible plague, but a natural trait of small and provincial towns, where everybody knows everybody else and trust is usually only gained via a proxy. Italy has an overwhelming majority of towns under 70K inhabitants, so this is the norm. Trying to trump this simple reality is delusional and slightly arrogant. EB was reminded to "act like a Roman in Rome" a tremendous number of times and always preferred to go solo. No surprise he failed miserably.
Making friends on less than solemn occasions, perhaps from casual chats in bars and clubs, impromptu social events or at public places, is a prerogative of larger cities, where people from the rest of Italy (and beyond) flock to work or study. University students as well as young professionals are very likely to set foot in a place like Rome or Milan knowing very few people, hence finding themselves almost on the same boat as a young foreigner like EB.
EB was unlucky to choose (and then quite stubborn to stay in) Como as his home, a relatively sleepy town without a university, where most of the young - smart, educated and open-minded - people who would have been interested in connecting with him are living in Milan or in neighbouring Italian Switzerland (Chiasso, Lugano, etc). I could not disagree with him when he complained that most people left for him to interact with were baristas, pizzeria owners and immigrants. Probably decent people all, yet with little or no spoken English and too immersed in their fish bowl life to pay attention to a
novelty item like him.
Again, EB was warmly and then hotly recommended to move or at least hang out in Milan and join a much more vibrant student/young pro community. I offered him to hang out with my cousin, a bright and sociable business school student who I guaranteed him has more circles than a hula-hoop act. He had a Facebook single chat with him - to mainly complain about how closed off Italy is - and then he never got back to him, even despite my insistence.
For how much cooler and cheaper it might be, Berlin has the same social life profile of most European large cities: good transport infrastructure, districts lined with bars and clubs, social events aplenty, and a large population of students and young professionals who
will have all interests and incentives to socialise and date in the open, if anything out of necessity.
This is the key distinction. To single out Italy as a hellpit of closed-mindedness and unfriendliness without the obvious distinctions above is not only incorrect and misleading, but denotes a certain intellectual laziness that certainly doesn't honour a true traveller's/expat spirit.