I’ve always been good at making friends on solo trips. But this time, for a full week I had no mates at all. I was a loner. A loser. A totally Billy. AND IT WAS PROPER GOOD.

Hear me out.

I’ve never really had no friends before. At home I have a million amazing people in my life, and whenever I’ve travelled I’ve easily met people in hostels. But in Mexico I have an apartment, so my usual friendship-making method of just forcing people in my dorm to talk to me wasn’t an option. For the first week I didn’t know anyone here other than my housemate, and that turned out to be a really brilliant thing.

Don’t get me wrong, I love socialising and meeting new people. But, on past trips it got in the way of my work and my all-important alone time. For my first week in Mexico, I had so much glorious time on my hands. I actually got shit done. I felt focused, productive, and like I was finally going to get to the bottom of my ever-expanding to-do list.

But then, I started feeling a little weird for not having friends. I felt like people would pity me for not rolling deep, or that I should be embarrassed by my lone wolf behaviour. So, I succumbed to societal/internal pressure and forced myself to go out and try to meet people.

EVEN THOUGH I DIDN’T BLOODY WANT TO, MIND.

My first attempt was on a trip to swim with whale sharks (it was the best thing I’ve ever done OMG it was totes amaze). Tours are usually great places to meet people, and I was thinking that it would be my chance to develop a super crew of mates. But the group was exclusively Spanish-speaking couples, which wasn’t ideal for me because:

A) Who wants to be a third-wheel? Not this chica.

B) I still can’t speak Spanish FFS.

Most of the people on the boat were also engaging in some extreme vomiting from the motion of the ocean, and I really cannot be friends with people who don’t have sea legs (don’t ask why). All in all, attempt number one was a total fail.

Attempt number two was slightly more successful, but still a bit shit. I tagged along on a road trip with a group of strangers that I met on Facebook, and we hired a car to visit Chichén Itzá together. Again, I was like, “cool, I’ll meet four awesome new people to be pals with”.

Nope.

I mean, half the folk were grand and I loved them deeply. But, the other half weren’t my cup of tea at all. A 13-hour day with people who bugged me was not lols, and it made me give up on being social in favour of ridin’ solo once again.

Now, two weeks into my trip, I’m slowly meeting people and making friends, but I’m trying not to force it. My dad says that friends are like cars, and that having more than one is a bit extravagant. I always thought that was drivel, but I’m kind of inclined to agree with him now. As long as I get a bit of human interaction here and there, I’m actually quite content to be a solo Sally.

I’ve still been hammering Tinder since I arrived in Mexico, though. As I said, I need a little bit of human interaction now and then. More on that next week.