If you have spent any time in a hostel you will have experienced cliquey groups that have been there for awhile and who won’t give you the time of the day. What sucks about this is that often they seem to be having a lot of fun and you want to be part of it too. Having lived in several hostels myself, and definitely having been effected by the long term cliques and their ways, I have a few suggestions how to first get along with them.
Take them with a grain of salt
The long term hostel person does not want to get involved spending time with newbies to the hostel – that is unless they are attractive of the opposite sex – because they don’t see the investment as worthwhile if the person isn’t going to stay. Meeting people and establishing a relationship takes time and effort and they just start to become jaded towards this process when it is usually just fleeting. So that is an explanation for why they will ignore you and a way for you take it all with a grain of salt. There is nothing really personal towards you when they do this that is unless you are really annoying.
Chip away at them, but don’t try to hard to fast
So if the long term hostel people are going to act aloof towards you how can you change that? The answer is slowly but surely. Maybe you find yourself in the hostel with a long term person when their friends aren’t around. This is the perfect opportunity to engage them in some one on one conversation. Now the trick to doing this is not to push it over board and feeling your now pals and can walk right up to their group. No, just keep working away at it little by little befriending them one on one. Before long you’ll get invited out to a group of event.
If you stay long enough they leave
The last tactic is a bit of a war of attrition – if you actually stay in the hostel long enough they will start to leave and you will take their place as a long term person. Sometimes this is the greatest feeling, you’re no longer the new person and now you will have a group of other like minded people that have stuck around too. The key to ending this whole ugly circle is once you are there longer befriend new people… and at minimum be nice to them. So what if they leave after two days, it can make a new person to a hostel feel really comfortable to be befriended by people who have been there awhile.
What do you think?