Homophily the notion that people connect with others who are similar to themselves is a basic principle of social relationships (McPherson et al. 2001). Research has dem- onstrated that friendships reflect homophily where individuals choose friends who are similar to themselves on the basis of gender, age, race, social economic status, and sexual orientation
Personally I think that my friendships are very diverse. Being a kid from Hawaii, I have had the pleasure in experiencing a very wide and diverse crowd of people. Id like to say Hawaii has almost every race and social economic status. Having to adapt to the many different cultures and languages and slang to really understand and bond with people were very important to survive in Hawaii. One thing about living here in Hawaii was respect of cultures took you a long way.
I think a experience that benefited me the most was when living in Bahrain. One night I had decided to explore the city named Juffair. I had no idea where I was, and at 18 years old in a foreign country all I cared about was drinking at a bar. I found myself getting pretty drunk in a local bar near the gold souq market. One of the taxi cab drivers noticed that I wasnt from the area and saw that I should probably go home. Luckily I was able to comprehend and understand he was asking me if I wanted a ride home. After that time he took me home I used him as my primary means of getting around and teaching me more about his culture and the Arabic language and culture. I found myself struggling alot with speaking to the women there . This taxi cab driver taught me different phrases and saying they use in the arabic language. I ended up dating an arabic woman there because of him .
So shout out to my Habibi for allowing my experience of Bahrain to be completely different than most people.
Reference
Galupo, M., & Gonzalez, K. (2013). Friendship Values and Cross-Category Friendships: Understanding Adult Friendship Patterns Across Gender, Sexual Orientation and Race. Sex Roles, 68(1112), 779790. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11199-012-0211-x
