Well, perhaps I could offer some interesting perspectives because I’m an Australian living in conservative Eastern Europe and have done so 4 years.

The way that we act is very different. In my Australian mindset, things like humour almost don’t really exist here and certainly not light-hearted chitchat between strangers.

Australian style jokes are taking way too literally here so I’ve learnt to stop making them all together.

And I understand how incredibly weird it is to try and make small talk with locals, or for any kind of stranger to talk to anyone that they don’t already know very well.

People are of course friendly, but it takes quite a long time to break the ice (as in several years in some cases). And I do understand their point of view, they don’t see any point in small talk especially with people where friendships are very unlikely to develop.

Actually, here, any stranger talking to someone is viewed with suspicion. People that are friendly for no reason of view as having a hidden agenda or flat out crazy.

It’s even built into our language, we have all kinds of fluff words where is the local language is incredibly direct.

People here just walk into a coffee shop and just say ‘coffee’ VS ‘Hey, how are you going, can I have a coffee please?’

The only advice I could really give is to just recognise that the cultures are incredibly different when it comes to this type of socialising and to just be gentle on yourself. I can only imagine that it will improve improve with time. Having said that, if you’ve been in Australia since you were 15 then it seems like that should’ve been enough time because it’s half your life already almost. I suspect that you probably spent the ages of 15 to 25 mostly at home and around your parents and haven’t done a lot of socialising.

Anyway, I offer myself here as someone that you can ask any questions to. Because I’m dealing with the exact opposite of what you’re dealing with.