Sometimes after meetings or syncs I go down to get lunch with colleagues. Often times folks I don’t know very well, given our need to interact with a large variety of engineering teams. And that leads to, well, a lot of small talk. Between professionals the topics are your typical where do you live, weather, vacation plans etc.

But there’s one topic that tends to draw out more genuine conversation: relocating to the Bay Area for work. It comes up often because almost everyone at the table, whether immigrant or American, moved here from somewhere else. America alone is a huge country.

Then the tones shifts and we’re usually thinking the same thing, reminiscing about the lives, friends, and relatives we left behind, especially our parents. All agree it’s only years and years after that you notice the high price you paid. We sort of laugh and say how envious of our friends back where we grew up, how they stay connected and are still close to their families(though curiously they largely seem to meet up among themselves only when we visit).

Thus, pretty much everyone here is rebuilding their friends and support groups. Or as often is the case, we aren’t. And it’s so easy to let time slip by while not making that investment, not knowing it gets ever so harder to build new relationships and become isolated.

But the silver lining is that it’s actually not that hard to develop relatively deep friendships. It just requires consistent meeting for whatever reason, for around 18 months. You don’t have to do anything fancy or expensive at all, each others presence is good enough. Obviously even faster if the group has common interests or has the characteristics of a support group no matter how big or mundane.

In the end, talking about this does help at work. We get to connect with our colleagues a bit better, which is critical when inevitable tricky situations at work arise.