Why are English people so cold and unfriendly?

Nice enough, polite except when drunk or a problem arises (and most lose the politeness pretty quickly and their heads with it), drink too much all the time to deal with the sense of loneliness people talk about in this thread. It is very sad that as foreigners go, even when we have lived here for decades, most of us cannot say we have a friend from England. The only time I have made friends is when we had a common interest in (like childcare share, baby-sitting and so). When that interest is over, there is hardly anything left. English people move based on fulfilling their needs, take happily from others and generally give very little back. You matter as far as you provide for something they want or need. Once that is over you are nothing, nobody. You are dispensable. No sense of friendship.
In my experience of having lived in 3 different countries, they make the worse, low-quality, uncommitted, unloyal friends of all. They are often too complicated and come up with an array of excuses to not mingle, help, etc. (the very best friend they haven't seen for years - but never talked to you about... because it doesn't even exist!; the family visit and the very tight deadline are some of their favourite excuses - but you know they are lying most of the time). I once asked a "friend" a favour as I had to rush off to hospital, and they came out with the "tight deadline" lie. I knew they were lying. At least in this occasion they had the decency to confess to me a few days later that they were lying.
I shudder to think how they are told this behaviour when they are kids within the privacy of the family ("if abc asks you for a favour, just lie and here are your options: the deadline thingy, the very best friend and so on"). Their selfishness is unique and high contrast with how much they are always ready to take from others, as they did during empire.

It it weren't for family ties, I would have left a long time ago. I miss my uncomplicated, straight-forward friends from my home country. Wanna go out for a bit? Yes or no, that's it. With English people is a whole, exhausting, debilitating palavva and I have had enough and given up. I resent the dishonesty and the eternal drama, the selfishness, the lack of seriousness, the hardly ever arriving in time, the frequent cancelling or, worse, the not even turning up and not even telling you. Never ever in my life I have met people so disrespectful to others.

WORSE FRIENDS EVER, indeed, most don't qualify for the word "Friend".

But of course, they will turn it around to make themselves feel good.
Examples: They don't turn up in time to do something agreed by a group of people? They will say something like "Oh, you haven't left me any work". It's brilliant, their capacity to let others down and still blame you for it. It was your fault! You didn't leave them any work to do! Unbearable dishonesty.

I understood long ago and joined the 100,000 foreigners who've given up and just accept things as they are. I take the smile in the street together with the neighbour who would never say hello even after 10 years, the chat at the corner shop together with those who would never greet you in the street althogh you've been working with them for years organising, discussing, putting projects together and so on... but look down or just stare blankly at you when they see you in the streets.
Oh well, let's enjoy their great music, the occasional fish&chips too and rid with it! Nothing much we foreigners can do to change an emotionally stunt nation to scared to open up and delve into the, yes sometimes scary, regions of friendship. It's their tragedy too and probs explain the high levels of suicide in their country.

I overwhelmingly agree with most of the comments here. Having lived in the UK all my life, I find many English people to be judgmental, two-faced, self-obsessed, and coldly distant—and that’s just my immediate neighbors!

I am English and have lived here all of 64 years, and I still cannot make a friend with another English person. As it happens the friendliest people gave been foreigners. I have always found the Irish and Welsh to be approachable as well. Englishmen are useless at getting to know. They will never speak to a strange woman. They are terrified of us.

What's funny is your all slagging us English down, yet your all more than happy to move here? If we're all so bad why not move to another country? We didn't ask for you all to move here? You may not be accepted here because your not English. Same as when Brits go to other countries were not all accepted in other countries and we would be the foreigners. The Brits may be more hostile given the fact our resources are tight, yet our government continues to give constant hand outs, housing and free schooling, NHS etc to people who have never put into the system or done anything for for our country.. I don't think it's fair to say we're all so cold and cruel. When if it wasn't for us you would still be in your own countries fearing for your life or whatever your reasons. I don't see your own countries bending over backwards for its own people? Yet taking everything from the British and slandering us because we're cold?? Is acceptable? Maybe this is why Alot of Brits don't like you?

The English are very cold people am sorry to say, from an Irishman

I think post Brexit this coldness has increased. I am English and find the levels of ignorancy with so many people astonishing. Brexit has also encouraged racism to resurface.

Well, I was married to an English guy I had not friends I was told I have to be accepted it took 4 years to be accepted. Being accepted meant for people to recognised me as one of them and period not invitations for tea of coffee. I think they are afraid, fear is what stop them I know that for a fact, is easy to identify in a cruise who are British or English, they will always form tiny groups looking around wondering a bit scared LOL ... they are just afraid to be out of their comfort zone, so when they come to America they stay pretty much the same and they become lonely and live a sad life. I have friends in UK and they hardly socialise with English people in I think guys are much more friendly to foreigners than woman. I moved to America a different kind of fish for good, return to England people look sad, miserable, unsociable living in their tiny little houses uncapable to smile correctly.
Not wonder when English people reach old age they tend to be lonely painfully lonely well is the price to pay for being so so unfriendly.

I actually pity the English. Their mentality is hard-wired and ingrained to the max. Many of them live extremely unhappy and isolated lives even if in theory they have lots of friends. So their coldness rebounds on them to an absolutely pitiless degree.
I have witnessed this.
They're hard to read. A good English person is solid gold. They are honest . will help you and look after you because they are tough and resourceful. But they are still English and I refer to what I said before - hard wired in their mentality.

I'm 55, English (Scots ancestry) and I now feel like an alien here as I believe in good manners decency and fairness. England has become a cruel , truly hideous , hateful place. I understand that many resent how multicultural it has become but I do not buy that as an excuse. Many English do not particularly hate foreigners they hate everyone including their own neighbours and families in many instances. I don't know what the answer is but I think people should think very carefully before having children especially if they are not comfortably off.
The world itself has become pretty awful for many so I don't think it's just an "English thing" but if you find England unfriendly it's not just you.

British born here (Welsh), and I'm inclined to agree with many of the native comments here. I moved to Sweden in 2012 to be with a partner I met online. That relationship ended miserably, but I stayed in Sweden as I managed to secure a job and develop my IT career infrastructure forward to 2022, I have a new girlfriend (also Swedish) and am at the top of my game work-wise.

We've since moved to England (Reading) in Oct 2022, asnmt girlfriend always wanted to live in Britain as she had some pleasant holidays here, loves the humour, and on rellflection had some misguided idea that she would find it easier to make friends here and have more parties compared to back home...nothing could have been further from the truth.

Since being here, we've been ripped off by a moving company who couldn't do their job properly and extorted £1300 out of us for their mistake before they would deliver our belongings. We've had UK government advice lines willfully mislead us on how to apply for a visa for my girlfriend, which cost us £1800 in non-refundable visa application fees. Neither of us have been able to use the NHS since we've been here, and to cap it off, I lost my ability to drive because the DVLA couldn't be bothered to check my records when I asked if I would be allowed to drive on my Swedish license (turns out of you have a previous UK license this overrules any foreign license).

All this and far more headaches within less than a year. I've since decided to move back to Sweden as I honestly don't believe people here can be trusted, especially within business or government. I truly believe that this country has managed to construct such an overwhelmingly complex legal system here,never gone feels strangled by it and unable to do anything about it. I think people here have been screwed over so many times by broken, non-sensical laws that they are left with nothing but bitterness, and a need to take out that bitterness on the easiest target they can find (usually nice, honest, soft spoken people).

I'm so relieved that I came across this post. I thought it was just me feeling totally alone and ignored in England. I'm a warm friendly Aussie who after 5 years of living in a hermitage, can't wait to go back to warm, friendly caring people in Australia. I wouldn't recommend anyone move to England unless they are immigrating from third world countries.

I've lived half my life in the U.K. and half abroad, mostly in the U.S.. I have dual citizenship. I am extroverted, educated, polyglot and idealistic. And for this reason and not despite it, no matter how much I bend over backwards to be attractive, kind, generous, witty, and worldly, I cannot make friends here.

People will chat briefly--I have many acquaintances-- but they are genuinely terrified of friendship. It's a lack of confidence, I think. And the way English parents raise their children to fear strangers, which includes most people outside a very tight circle of family and people they've known since childhood.

I understand caution, but the English take it to paranoid extremes. I might get into a friendly conversation with strangers on a local sea walk or in a park, where we talk about shared interests. I might run into this person on several occasions and each time we have a pleasant chat--at the end of which I'll say, "I'm Ani by the way." I can't tell you how many times the other person (or people) just stare at me in shocked silence at my invitation for them to introduce themselves. It reminds me that despite appearances, they are just chatting "to be polite," not because I am worthwhile.

The term that gets touted a lot is "tolerant." "Britain is a tolerant society." That means, in practice, the opposite of what it thinks it's saying. It means the English tolerate you, as someone holds their nose and allows you to exist (lucky you!). Heaven forbid actual appreciation for what outsiders contribute to this often insular society. It's not inclusion.

At this point, I comfort myself with knowing I'll be snubbed no matter what I do. It's freeing, actually!

Let's face it. The Uk is now a cess pit of conflict, hatred, aggression and turmoil. The pot is almost at boiling over point. And here's the real kicker, so is the rest of then world.

The problem is not because you're foreign, but rather you are not mentally ill. People have been poisoned by bullshit like feminism and have been taught to be ashamed of their history, race etc. For years.

I'm miserable here. I am tired of being bullied just because I'm nice, and they perceive me as weak.

I am not a foreigner but certainly feel like it. I can't fit into the dumb as fuck working class society.

Their gripe is at the government and their own poor lifestyle choices. Just look at the sour, unfeminine slags that pass for "women".

Don't like football, not interested in Brexit, and the royal family should be sent back to their ancestral homeland in Germany.

Additionally, there's a horrible psychic noise, bad energy here. Not a calm place. Don't feel sane here.

I've lived in four different countries across three continents. Travelled fairly widely, have many friends from around the world. I've met people from countries where they're not the most polite, may be quite blunt and direct to the point of rudeness but they're sincere. You know where you stand with them. And by and large they're pretty decent and reliable.

I have lived in the UK for awhile now and it used to be British people were polite but insincere. You never knew when you were going to get stabbed in the back. Now they're just rude, even more xenophobic, selfish and still insincere.

I have children here - I think about leaving everyday but my husband is English and he doesn't want to leave for financial reasons. So I'm stuck here commiserating with my expat friends. And I feel sorry for my children having to be raised here. Thankfully they're dual citizens so when they turn 18, I'm going to convince them to get the hell out of here.

I also notice a lot of comments here and elsewhere by some Brits who are in massive denial about the state of their country and the decimation of communities and of the lack of humanity here. Your problems won't be solved by sticking your heads in the sand "ostrich" style. Stop defending your fellow countrymen when they're displaying antisocial behaviours here and abroad. There's a reason certain EU countries are limiting tourists from the UK, there's a reason that the UK does so poorly in the Eurovision Song Contest (yes I know you placed second last year but that was due to exceptional circumstances). A lot of you are NOT liked. For those warm, welcoming Brits this message is not directed at you. I've met some. I just feel tremendously sorry for you and wish I could take you back to my country so you know what a fully functioning society with real communities and warmth and kindness are like.