"I am running away, but I prefer to call it a strategic retreat," once said Tennessee Williams. While now a thirst for adventure is a cliché phenomenon called wanderlust, a career decision is just working abroad, but a move for financial reasons is immigration, and all these individuals are expatriates.

The word “expat” comes from the Latin prefix ex (out of) and the noun patria (home country, native country, or fatherland). A more classy, perhaps supremacist, version of an immigrant is an expat. The term is used to describe a person who permanently or temporarily lives in a country other than where he/she was born. Just like the difference between emigration and immigration is opaque because one cannot be done without the other, the reasons for leaving a country are scattered just as the nations to which individuals move.

Whether it's an Eat, Pray, Love retreat to Italy or a job opportunity in Tokyo, humans are intrinsically stirred to move. Some expats will move for a few months or years only to return home. Others decide to journey forever, backpacks strapped, feet on the ground, head in the clouds, eyes full of intrigue and feet restless with adventure. These endlessly curious souls will change hemisphere, chase stars and watch their dreams come true as the sun rises before them in a new exotic location. They never even question a return, recklessly following geographical whims.

However, there's a third group of individuals that move to stay for quite a time, but they don't actually live where they move.

"I don't want to be an expat," a certain friend told me as I was listing all the French places I could think of in New York City. Having moved from Paris, he immediately found an American roommate and settled in Williamsburg only to dive into a culture shock.

Expatriates often stay to their own culture even after moving. Think: Little Italy, Chinatown, and Brighton Beach. While these islands of foreign culture are incredibly powerful in transporting one to a distinct atmosphere, they are only so for moments. Living in such areas is just like being back home. Individuals refuse to learn English; they eat only their own food and mingle with people of their own culture. Although, there is a distinction between cultured and simply ignorant of the culture of your adopted country.

Why come to NYC to be a Parisian? The phrase itself is idiosyncratic. While you might love to stray into a French bookstore and eat a buttered baguette for breakfast, completely secluding oneself from surrounding culture cancels out the reason for moving in the first place.

I lived in NYC for at least five years on suitcases, knowing that I would go back to Kiev, to my friends and a lifestyle I knew best. My parents refused to learn English or adopt to America. I flew home every year for months at a time, only to bring back more reasons to go back home. I was a high school student when I realized that I have spent most of my life in NYC. I had been an expat all this time. I made it obvious to my family that now I had no intent of going back home because I was home. And with a heavy heart, my parents, swayed by their kids, settled permanently in a country they never even attempted to grow to like. Even though my parents continue to identify themselves as Ukrainians, they proudly hold an American passport and even celebrate American holidays.

Our life before was a hotel life -- not ours. Somehow, within those years we gave away our own control of direction. We were directionless, yet aiming to go home to nowhere.

Being an expat, of course, carries diverse reasoning. But when does one become a local rather than an expat? (Maybe when they have a coffee shop usual?)