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[quote=Anonymous]We have had APs who arrived with friends (from AP school or from home or FB "friends" who are local APs), and we have had APs who took a while.  In our experience, you're right that those with good friends tend to be happier, but this doesn't have to mean many friends/social contacts.  2-3 good friends may be enough for someone's comfort.

Current AP needed a real push to go meet people.  I asked LCC to ask the more social APs of the cluster to please call AP, and they did, and this helped.  I stressed to AP how long and dark these winter days are so she needed to meet people right away, to get through them (we have noticed that APs tend to socialize in each others' homes when it's very cold), and she did respond to some of the calls and emails.  Current AP now has maybe 5-6 good friends she can call for coffees and go away with on weekends.  Last year's AP had only 2-3 close friends, but she was very active with them, and this was enough for her.

One word of caution for the AP who finds one best friend and that is it: It can be a problem if that AP friend goes home.  This happened to us a few years ago - AP had one friend from her country, adn that was all she made.  When that friend decided to go home, our AP decided to leave with her even though she had been doing a good job and was happy with us (still sends notes and letters, etc).  She felt it was just too hard to start over making friends after haing been here 7 months.[/quote]

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