Embracing the Outsider Within: Self-Confidence as a Foreigner
Reading time: 3 minutes
Written by: Annmarie Borosic
Being alone in a new country requires an elevated level of self-confidence and independence, allowing you to truly find peace in your own company and a deep sense of self-trust. It forces you to sit with yourself, in your thoughts and sometimes face head-on who you really are. Insecurities and all. It’s daunting and uncomfortable. This can also be true no matter where you choose to go alone, however, add going to a new or foreign place, you can absolutely expect all of those feelings to be multiplied.
When I arrived in Split, Croatia last year, I was already comfortable with who I am. I was battling grief, so it would tend to throw me off at the most inopportune times, but at no point did it make me feel less than. I also quickly realized I looked like I wasn’t from Split.
It was a strange feeling. I had spent just under two weeks in Split months earlier and several more in other parts of Croatia. Even throughout my travels last year in Turkey and in Italy, I knew I looked like a foreigner, but I was travelling, so obviously I would look different - like a tourist. However, once I moved here, I quickly became hyper-aware of societal nuances, style, and lifestyle—and it became clear I wasn’t like anyone here.
It played with my mind for a little bit. The people here are gorgeous. Women are extremely beautiful with a huge emphasis on aesthetics, dressing well, and moving with confidence. It’s quite lovely to watch actually. While I am confident in who I am, I suddenly started feeling this type of inadequacy because I would get comments indicating I didn’t look like I was from here. It has never been said in a rude or demeaning way, simply factual. I then found myself wanting to find ways to fit in. To look like I’m one of them.
Then I caught myself. I found myself comparing my style and background to the locals, wondering if I needed to change to feel at home. Perhaps to try to be someone I’m not because for some reason, temporarily, it was as if I felt that being different meant not good enough. But that’s not true at all, is it?
I’ve spent my whole life living through experiences that make me who I am. My professional and personal life have given me varying views of the world and people. I’ve found ways to appreciate the little things and the beauty that can be found in almost anything. I am adaptable because I thrive in uncertainty - I was never given a choice. It’s always sink or swim. I dress in a manner that makes me feel confident in who I am and in clothes I enjoy.
I sit alone because I can. It has allowed me to see how far I have come from being a little girl who was afraid to walk to the bus stop alone to one that has now moved overseas to start a new life. I may never look like a local and that’s ok, but I will now always be the woman moving forward who just goes for it. Who fought against all of the ‘should or shouldn’t’ opinions, the fears of judgment, criticism, fear of the unknown, but I did it. So I am happy to look different because we’re all different in one way or another. Our depth of personal history, our stories, the little quirks that make us who we are, that’s something that makes us each stand out and I love that for all of us.
The moment, I decided I didn’t need to look like a local to acclimate to my new environment and build relationships was when I found my new comfort in being a foreigner in a new place. I’m the woman who uprooted her whole life, not having any family or friends here, but a new life that brings me immense joy nevertheless. That is the person I decided at that moment, that I would continue to be.
“I’m not a tourist, I’m not a local—I’m a woman who chose her peace, her path, and a home that lets her be exactly who she is.”
Am I learning from the women here? Absolutely. Am I learning more about the local men, and as a general society how people think? Yes. It’s what makes me now realize that my life, my look, and my writing at a cafe every morning alone makes me stand out as certainly not being from here, but, if I’m being honest, It also feels kind of great because I’m not a tourist, I’m not a local—I’m a woman who chose her peace, her path, and a home that lets her be exactly who she is.
