I’m writing this from a small plaza in Kaş, drinking tea from a tulip-shaped glass while the boys get their hair cut nearby. I’m listening to a Turkish folk band play harmonies that remind me of the Middle East, led by a zurna and a few deep drums. And people are dancing. Strangers, holding hands, clapping hands, getting out of hand.
The band was part of a bachelor’s party, I believe. They grabbed the guy when he was mid-haircut—still draped in the barber’s cape—when his mates pulled him into the street. They showered him with notes of money and music.
People here are joyfully unbothered. Actually, that’s one thing I’ve noticed about Turkish people: they never need an excuse to hang out, and they’re always having fun doing it.
The bachelors party in question
We’ve had beautiful interactions with locals here. One shopkeeper insisted on giving us fresh cucumbers for free; another man personally drove us to the tram station when we got lost. While there’s definitely a lot of kindness involved, I think it also comes down to a natural instinct to connect with others in a positive way. The Turks value human connection over efficiency—they’re not afraid to slow things down if it means they can have a positive interaction.
To me, this is how they “prioritise” or “make time for” social connections: by going all in when an opportunity naturally presents itself, rather than relying on creating artificial occasions of connection.
I’ve got to quickly add here that I don’t like the Western discourse about “making time” for friends and things. For me, this idea aligns friendship with scheduling, time management, and prioritisation skills. If you have to “make time” for someone, does it even count as something you want to do in the first place? It also insinuates that if you can “make time”, then you always ought to be making more time for things—otherwise, do you really even care that much?
The beautiful beach town of Kaş, my favourite spot in Turkiye
So while Turkish people take a very relaxed approach to hanging out, for me at home, it’s more of an event. One that tends to involve many steps, like (i) thinking of an activity, (ii) making contact with said friend, (iii) negotiating a time and place, (iv) maybe booking in advance… etc etc… Hanging out becomes homework before it gets fun.
Turkish culture, however, seems to foster spontaneous social interaction in ways that feel freeing and more human than my over-planned social norms back home. For them, catching up with friends is a non-event—in the sense that it’s so casual and frequent that it’s not really a big deal. Just like it was at school or uni, they hang out on a whim. By taking a relaxed and spontaneous approach, Turkish people don’t have the same organisational barriers to in-person socialising. So it just seems to happen a lot more.
So how do we remove this barrier? By lowering our expectations and being as flexible as possible. For example, I’ve seen shop owners call out to a friend walking across the street and literally close their shop for an hour just to have spontaneous çay (tea). They don’t bother finding a nice-looking café or a scenic park bench—they just hang out wherever they are, often huddling on a random doorstep. Neither friend holds any expectation about how the hangout “should” function. They’ll often make personal sacrifices, like comfort or income, to make hanging out easier for both parties. For Turkish people, the only prerequisite to hanging out is another person. Heck, it doesn’t even have to be someone they know yet—they’re masters of a good yarn.
A snap from our boat tour
So anyway, I think I’ll take this sentiment into my own life. I want to value spontaneous moments more—to find ways to make interactions casual, simple, and frequent. And maybe I ought to place less importance on the details, and rid myself of those artificial standards that get in the way of spending time with people I like. It’s not the fun that results from a planned activity that’s most important—it’s the joy of simply being together. As Dad always dismisses, “Ah, details, details”—they’ll always work themselves out in the end.
So while a shopkeeper sips tea on a doorstep and a groom gets dragged into the street mid-haircut, the bigger picture is this: Türkiye has a culture of carefree serendipity that brings people together. I’m going to start leaning into the casual—swinging by someone’s house on a whim, texting a friend just to say hi, or just saying yes to a random cup of tea, wherever it happens.
Turns out, you don’t always need a plan to have a good time. Sometimes you just need a friend and a tulip-shaped glass.
Catch you soon (or not—depends if I’m feeling spontaneous 😉)
Signing off,
Milly