> I can only speculate, but usually when such phrases come up, it's about things like not being part of the in-group - people they know throwing parties and not inviting them, etc.

Concerning "part of the in-group": It is very usual that in Germany, you don't become a "friend" fast (the German translation of "friend", [der] Freund, has a much deeper meaning than the US-American understanding of the English word). Friendship is much deeper and takes much longer to establish, but is also there to stay.

The same is said about Nordic countries.

If you come from a country where you become a friend much faster, but in a much more shallow sense, you will indeed likely be disappointed.

My advice based on my feelings/observations:

- If you do shallow smalltalk (as it is very common in the USA), you signal that you only want a shallow relationship. If you want a deep friendship, better bring something deep to the table.

- In particular referring to the point "people they know throwing parties and not inviting them": I would really say that life in Germany is much more "live your own life" (which is also what I wrote in my post above: "Otherwise, she should live her life."), i.e. you do much more things on your own. For me, for example, a very common evening is filled with learning (which I do on my own).

I would really say that a lot of life in Germany is organized around "if you don't have anybody to do something specific together (and be it because of different interests), you simply do things alone on your own". There is simply not a feeling of urgency/necessity to socialize if not both sides profit from it.

With this in mind, I think that "people they know throwing parties and not inviting them" is not something that you will commonly experience (and people likely would consider this to be unfair), it's rather "people not throwing parties, so you are not invited to a (non-existing :-) ) party".