Throughout South Africa I was exploring with my travel buddy; for various reasons we have now moved apart in Australia for a couple of months - all frighfully daunting to start with.
My first night alone was spent in a private room at a backpackers and oh how easy it would have been just to sit and fester in my room feeling lonely and pathetic. It took a lot of forced will power, but I slapped some face on, put some clean clothes on and headed out to the TV lounge to meet the other backapckers. It was a fairly quiet place so I wasn't overly hopeful on the night out, but off I went in the name of making friends! It actually turned out to be a rather good night; playing a bit of pool, doing a bit of dancing and of course having a few drinks to help the evening along. Once that first night was out the way, it was much easier for me to be social and want to chat to random people.
I have since moved to a different backpackers which is busier and has a few people (also travellers) that are almost semi permanent residents a bit like me and luckily they're my kind of people. We've had some excellent and messy nights, mainly in the backpackers to conserve money.
Contrary to what people may say, it's very easy to judge people on appearance without making an effort to get to know them. I try really hard not to, but tend to form any opinions after about 3 days as you get more of a gradual chance to get to know people over a period of time. I have to say that my thoughts on a person have been proved completely incorrect and have more often than not been pleasantly surprised. It just goes to show that by making an effort to talk to people and giving them the benefit of the doubt, friends can be made that are worth having.
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