Peer networking is sometimes as much as an adventure as it is a business necessity. The entrpreneurs who live, eat and drink global networking and who are on one overseas assignment after another, are adventurers of a certain order - beyond any easily rendered stereotype. Expats particularly have their quota of stories about associates or business referrals that brought them into contact with some colorful individuals.After all, it takes a certain breed to be an expatriate.

The Exnat blog out of Buenos Aires has done a rough portrait of expat types and psychology.

Escaping the past

“Drugs, heartbreaks, failures, deaths? Leave it all behind and don’t look back. If you’re in a rut, a hole, a mire, join this group of expats who escape the black hole that was into the future of never ending possibilities. Careful though, some of those things you thought you were leaving behind just might be you.

Escaping the future

Running from the rat race, fleeing responsibility, and putting tough decisions on hold in a world of sleeping beauty they enter timeless expat-dom, the kingdom of eternal youth and no cares. Here your language skills that everyone had back home guarantee you a living wage. A little extra effort gives you a career. Sure you get paid in “monopoly money” but what this expat really wants is some space to “figure it all out.”

Working on a project

These expats save up enough to live in the former colonies without working so they can use their time to finally write that book, that masterpiece, that itch that they’ve been meaning to scratch.”
(Source)

For more explorations of expat types, click the link above.