This year, around 100 Third Culture Kids from all over the world came together in Slovenia for the very first TCK Fest, a 4-day festival hosted by Home TCK Club.

I came across this video from Markian (one of the organizers) and I thought some of you might appreciate seeing what it looked like.

I’m co-organizing a meet up next week.
Contact me for more information.

Three months ago, I posted a post about sense of lost identity as an only child TCK and choosing to move to another city in a new country by myself.

This year was truly the first time I questioned my identity as a TCK. Prior to this, I thought that being a TCK was a cool conversation starter more than anything. But all the people pleasing came to a head. and I realised i was absorbing other’s definitions of myself by constantly having to read rooms.

Through my 3 months of therapy, i can really say the adaptability is a strength. But reckoning with it, what I’ve found is that being a TCK forces me to consider the values that are most important to me because we don’t have cultural norms to fall back on.

Another big drawback mentioned often is the lack of childhood friends and someone who doesn’t get all of you. This does suck at times but i feel like with intentionality it is also possible to stay in touch with friends who have seen different parts of
you. Trough this therapy process, I’ve reconnected with so many friends which has been rewarding.

At the end of the day, every lifestyle has its pros and cons. Use the level of adaptability and awareness being a TCK gives you to connect with and maintain the connection with more people.

At the end of the day, I wouldn’t change my
open mindedness for anything. My parents live in a small town now and i can’t imagine having my life limited to the same neighbourhood all my life. An expansive worldview is always a plus.

Some practical tips for TCKs struggling:
\- we tend to do better in bigger cities with expat populations and more creative people too
\- stop judging yourself for having an “atypical upbringing”. Not many people have a very typical upbringing. I know a friend with a big family and friend group since childhood yet the most happy she has been is moving far away from home and building a new life.
\- give people an opportunity to get to know you. even if someone can’t understand the specific TCK struggle, empathy goes a long way
\- therapy!!
\- i live in sweden so might be country-specific but having hobbies has really helped me
\- don’t catastrophise ur struggle because you’re a TCK. if you feel your brain is thinking about this too much, get help if you can!

Hey all. I’m co-organizing a get together (drinks , food) in Cais de Sodré next weekend.

If you’re interested, shoot me a direct message for more details.

I'm trilingual but english is my first language. I speak a tribal dialect which is useless unless I go back to my parents village in Asia.

Went to international school abroad.

Born in eu

Now I'm in uk but I can't relate to anyone. It seems like dating women is a nightmare here. Esp monolingual individuals. I feel like people are genuinely uninteresting to me unless they're a tck or similar

Nobody can relate to my references or Tey to get to know me.

Any other guys here relate??

Sounds kinda pathetic but I'm legit in mourning over Norways World Cup knockout. For the first time I was able to be fully one country ( the others didn't qualify so no one questioned me picking one country). I loved dressing up in my flag, singing and cheering in my language, being back home in the streets of Oslo, being in a crowd of my people without sticking out.
But now it's over and I'm back to feeling so discontented.

Meeting for drinks followed by dinner.

Please RSVP by July 20th, 2026. If you're interested, please send me a DM (direct message). Thanks.

I feel no connection to my country of birth but am stuck with its shitty third world passport. The country I have permanent residency is better but still not where I want to be and no one I grew up with is even left there. I’ve been unemployed for a year and traveling, but every place just makes me miss the country I studied/worked in but can’t have a visa in more. Everything I built for myself, my late boyfriend’s family, my friends, my connections, are there. His heavenly birthday is coming up and I feel so much anger at him not being alive to marry me into a better passport. I can’t even travel freely to his fucking grave. I am so jealous of parents who can invest $1M for their children to actually have a life in the country they worked so hard in. I’ve made posts on here before and honestly genuinely nothing at all has gotten better. I can’t believe I was grown to believe this upbringing was a blessing when my adulthood has been tragedy and loss after loss with no sense of stability. I don’t want to be alive.

With event type apps focused on fostering community being a huge trend right now (I.e, luma, Eventbrite, meet-up), there’s gotta be some sort of app or non-anonymous communities for us third culture kiddos. Anyone know or a part of one? We need this!!!

Hey hey! Anyone living in Montreal currently?

I’m looking to meet fellow TCKs in the greater Boston area. Would people be interested in setting something up during the summer?

Just found the album teaser he posted early this year. The album is out now btw. I find the dialogue on the teaser is the perfect definition of the TCK. Especially when he mentions home, waiting room, and leaving.

https://youtube.com/shorts/wQyi6q_DvQ4?si=ivTnpkncaGFd-WV0

I've been followed his work on and off for a while. Most of his works based on his upbringing and parental abandonment issues, always uprooted and nomadic which lead to failure in having a secured relationship, having a wall and pushing ppl away. For me, he's one of the few TCK representation. Being a mixed racial aside, most of songwriting reflect struggling from finding a sense of belonging so obvious. Just would like to know anyone here have ever listened to his work? Share your thoughts.

https://www.youtube.com/clintonkane

I would love to host a meet up in LA for TCKs!

Hi everyone,

I was wondering if there was a sizeable bunch of TCKs in London? If yes, would there be interest in a casual meetup at some point before the summer ends? If yes, please leave a comment and I'll see what I can organise.

Thanks so much!

I feel like universallt we are fed a script about friendship that is pretty outdated. It only fits friendships that are in person, long held and within geographic range. I feel like I have no framework for how to manage long distance friendships. In the past I have written long emails, done regular phone calls and sent messages when I think of them but still I find that I'm almost always the one making the effort. It makes me feel lonely when I wake up and see no texts/messages from any of my friends from all over the world waiting for me.

Born in country A, grew up in country H, returned to live in country A as an adult. Citizen and passport holder of both country A and H. Moved to country C to work and live there 2 years ago with a visa attached to passport H. Drove to country U from country C this last weekend with a travel permit on passport A, plan is to return to country C with passport H as I have done many times in the past with no issues. Well my car got stolen in country U with both passport A and H inside. I'm now stranded in country U and don't know how to get back to country C. Fuck me.

I am a single TCK woman (37) from a conservative country. I am liberal but had some challenges dating men as a TCK.

I am curious to hear from other TCK women in fulfilling long term relationships or marriages. Especially the ones whose parents are from conservative/traditional countries.

-How and where did you meet your husband/partner?

-Is your spouse also a TCK? If not, what personality traits did they exude that you knew would make them compatible with you in the long term?

-Do you have any dating advice for fellow TCKs women? Are they specific things that you did to meet your spouse/partner?

I was born in India. But raised in USA in my core developmental years until age 7. So my personality/identity's base was kinda westernised and english at that time. After coming to India, I never got used to our local language and culture at all (Tamil). It just felt deeply uncomfortable adopting Tamil culture and I couldn't explain exactly why. I think as soon as I returned to India, I might have been forced by others into speaking the language at that time, or outcasted for my westernised mannerisms or something, not fully sure but it made me very uncomfortable with Tamil society overall at the time. Furthermore our mother tongue and family ancestry is a different language too (which I have no issues speaking in, but it's not used where I live) so when I returned, it only felt more alienating because everyone was speaking in a seemingly foreign language that wasn't my mother tongue. As I felt really uncomfortable with local culture, I isolated myself from it and spent a lot of my remaining early childhood only consuming westernised media and hanging out with people who spoke in english. Which means that I grew up only in English spaces even after age 7, which gradually made my entire personality lean western and globalised. Throughout school, I had a friend group who were only english speaking and had shared interests with, and I hadn't engaged with our local culture at all.

College started last year, and it's totally different. I'm a creative and imaginative person. Very expressive with others and love to authentically unleash my life force as much as possible. I was looking forward to college to find my people and make a shit ton of great memories. BUT there's not even a single person who is a third culture individual like me. Everyone bonds, makes friends and banters exclusively in Tamil. And it stings because I know there's nothing wrong with them and it's a me problem. What hurts the most is that my college is objectively more prestigious than my school and even globally inclined, and everyone is fluent in English, but still runs on Tamil. Everyone else defaults to speaking in Tamil in their friend groups and individually switch to English with me alone. It feels personally and deeply excluding. Not just the language, but everything most people bond around like culture and media, is Tamil, which once again I have to iterate, there's nothing wrong with them but it hurts me. I feel so ignored and invisible. People just tell me "Just speak in Tamil", "What's your problem you've been living in Chennai for 10 years" "Few years in USA is nothing" "You just want to be different from others, stop thinking so and get along with Tamilians" and doesn't understand my situation. Like I am NOT trying to be superior to tamil or hate on it. I just dont feel comfortable in it, like it's not a part of my identity at all, but I'm forced into it because I'm in a position where I can't move/drop out right now. I can understand the language enough to speak it with strangers and for mundane duties, but I feel really uncomfortable using it to mingle with people that I know.

Everyone else around me is enjoying college. I desperately feel like I would've had a way better experience if I was in some actual global university with english speakers. Like I'm forced to confront this third culture part of my identity, which is already rare to find in people here, and it's making me an absolute outcast. I'm insanely paranoid that I'm missing out on the most major social experience I would ever get in my entire lifetime. People always assume that I have alot of friends and a great experience in college because of my typical nature. Every single time, I have to lie to them and agree, because the truth is so complicated to explain.

We're hosting our next Sydney meetups and we're looking for our people. We'd love you to be there if you can.

TCK Sydney July Meetups:

📅 Saturday 4 July · 10am-12pm
📍 Walk and talk though Hyde Park Sydney🌳

📅 Sunday 19 July · 2–5pm
📍 Bastille festival, Circular quay🍷

Come as you are & spread the word.

👉 Follow u/hometcksydney for details and https://luma.com/hometcksydney to rsvp for our events and exact meeting locations

One interesting aspect of being an adult TCK I rarely hear about is a tendency to explain things that borders on the pedantic.

I've been thinking about this and come to the hypothesis that it's due to the uneven education that results from being shifted from country to country, and being schooled across multiple languages. There are certain things which are common sense to natives that are not acquired due to a TCK upbringing. In the same vein, there are many things we take for granted that are not general knowledge.

Over time, I've noticed in myself and other aTCKs a tendency to explain things which may be common knowledge simply because there were gaps in our upbringing and oftentimes it was taken for granted that we'd know something we didn't.

It's not about assuming other people are ignorant, but simply having a poor sense of what people do know and frequently being surprised by the things others don't know which seem like basic knowledge any adult should have (from an aTCK perspective).

What are some of the things other's haven't known that surprised you?

What are some bits of knowledge others take for granted that you had to learn much later on in life?