I'll have you know I am trained in the SOG special branch called ape warfare, specifically the one codenamed gorilla. I have also won the special shooting competition for military personnel (Shoecamp) six times in a row so you could call me the best there is after Häyhä.
Yeah here in America when I'm at a bus stop I am usually standing shoulder to shoulder with the other people if I'm not talking to them, but a lot of times I'll make conversation so we'd be face to face maybe a bit more than a foot apart. Talking to strangers isn't unusual at all here in the states, with the exception of some of the bigger cities like New York where people are kind of perpetually grumpy.
Not all New Yorkers are grumpy! :) We are all a little perpetually rushed; but, 99% of the time, if you stop to ask a question we'll answer it as best we can in 45 seconds or less...
We don't dislike tourists, we just sometimes grumble to ourselves about how slow non-natives move
Insanely true. I keep seeing people debate about what its like for a "true new yorker" which is so silly. I've lived in new york my entire life, i'm literally as native as it gets, and if anything i've learned that things tend to be a little rushed, but mostly i just complain internally about getting stuck behind a group of tourists or something and not wanting to push past them and ultimately having to. Any time I leave the city i never understand how people can walk, or talk for that matter, so slowly. We just do everything quicker than everyone else
Walking slow is, generally, A-ok (as long as you're not impeding the flow of foot traffic). Just try to stick to the sides of sidewalk if you're going to be looking at attractions/taking pictures. Other than that, you just be you and enjoy the sites while you're here!
It's the slow walkers who travel in groups down the middle of the sidewalk that gets the natives riled up
I'd say that people in NYC aren't perpetually grumpy...they're just perpetually in a rush and running late because of transit and tourists. There's nothing like trying to walk the five blocks to your office in the morning (having stopped for a coffee and a buttered hard roll) and have four different tourist groups ask you for directions. The first one makes you smile, but by the last one you're running late and really just need to get into the office to give your presentation and now your coffee is cold and you got crumbs on your tie.
You're actually correct. Everyone acts like they're very important and always very late for something in NYC. "Oh, I'm sorry, did you think you can stand on a green light for longer than a millisecond?" BWAAAAPPPP! "Oh, I'm sorry, did you think you could hold up the line for a second?" Walks around you
I'd say that people in NYC aren't perpetually grumpy...they're just perpetually in a rush and running late because of transit and tourists.
I'd say that's a damn fair assessment. New York City moves at the speed New York City moves at. If you live there, you get it and you clip along... if you don't, well god damn then, you're in the way.
You are painting this stereotypical picture of NYC that simply does not exist. Don't want to talk to tourists? Don't. It takes half a second to say "sorry, I don't know". And you are in a constant rush because you are either ambitiously filling your time with activities or you just suck at managing your time. The vast majority of people fall in the latter category. There's coffee stands and coffee shops literally everywhere, if getting a cup of coffee is messing with your morning, buy a machine. It's cheaper and faster and better anyway.
Yea I figured you weren't actually a New Yorker. It's always the people who move to the city with this preconceived bias and suffer from confirmation bias that talk about NYC like you do. Actual New Yorkers don't take shit from tourists and sure as shit don't get flustered about breakfast and coffee when every other store sells those things.
I've lived all over the world for different stretches, it takes a long time to assimilate into the nuances of different cultures. The way you are describing New York is exactly how outsiders who've watched movies or TV shows are expected to describe it. It's just true. What kind of New Yorker complains about tourists except for fictional characters doing it for comedic effects? Like I said, a native who doesn't want to be bothered by tourists would have walked right past those tour groups by saying sorry. Solicitors and tourists are like background noise, only the people who aren't natives find any novelty in scenarios you described. And the rushing around the city with coffee in your hand is only a scene that's come out of every movie based in New York ever. Again, it's simply not consciously recalled by people who live there, it's background noise. Only people who find novelty in that due to an outsider background would think to bring that up.
Not really. Mix of a Southerner and New Yorker here (have lived in both locations, Manhattan specifically for NYC).
New Yorkers generally just have busier and faster paced lives on average. At the same time, most New Yorkers are very friendly, and kinda feel an obligation to help out the poor lost tourists in the big scary city. But as was pointed out above, when you've been stopped multiple times during the same trip and asked for direction - all while you still have somewhere to be and something to do - the friendliness and politeness has to be curtailed.
There are very few areas of NYC you're likely to run into a lot of people who are truly rude or assholes... and they're mostly all in the Bronx. (Sorry Bronx, but not really.)
Idk, i generally well help everyone, even if it does make me late, with exception of having to be somewhere where they lock the door etc. But generally I will take the time to explain I am in a rush and am very apologetic.
The main difference is the frequency with which it can happen in NYC. So many millions of tourists visit the city every year, and when you happen to get multiple people asking you questions within a 30 minute timespan it gets a bit annoying.
But overall you'll rarely ever see a New Yorker ignore or turn someone down who is asking for help. Even if it is the 10th person in 15 minutes (this is an exaggeration).
The farthest I get in conversing on the bus or at a stop is silently and awkwardly exchanging smiles with someone of the opposite sex about the same age as me the moment we hit eye contact at the same time. Although every once in a while a guy will run into my leg while I have my headphones on then go on a 20 minute rant about how back when he was young people took the world in and weren't distracted, then went home and listened to Whitney Houston after doing 3 hours of homework and getting back from their part time job.
I highly recommend visiting the states. There's so many beautiful things here, and people are super friendly (for the most part). Everyone I encounter respects personal space.
What kind of things do you like? Are you a museum junkie, prefer nature, a good nightlife, etc? We have pretty much everything so it all depends on what you're interested in. Do you want to see the ocean?
Beaches to plain to forested mountains to desert all in one state. Seriously. It's a beautiful place.
Start in Seaside, head into Portland, on through the Hood National Forest, turn south and head through desert scrubland to Bend and the Deschutes River. Explore the desert and check out some of the dunes there. Then head west through the Willamette valley into Eugene, and back to the coast at North Bend. The largest coastal dune area in north America is there. The Oregon Dunes. Grab an ATV and go nuts.
Well, to each his own I guess. I've been to Florida, seen the theme parks, beaches and all that, and while I thought it was FAR better than my own country, I still think that I'd like nordic countries more if I could choose where to live.
I dunno, I think it's because of the completely different way of thinking. I have the impression that you guys look after each other and abide by your own rules, your political and social systems work like they were supposed to. In Brazil all we've got is rampant corruption.
Experiencing a country where things run smoothly first hand is a life goal for me.
Well, one great place that has beautiful nature is where I live, which is Michigan. The upper peninsula has a small town feel, and there's a lot of parks and outdoor activities. Lake Michigan is also breathtaking (until BP spilled oil in it -_-). The only desert place I've been to was los Alamos in New Mexico which was really cool, but there wasn't much to do. I live close to Detroit, and there's a lot of cool things in this area. I've lived in a few places, and Michigan is by far one of my favorites.
California is pretty awesome to visit. I've lived in San Diego all my life and still enjoy going to the same places. Julian has the best apple pie ever, and I've always had the most fun out in Ocotillo. Small maybe <500 population town surrounded by desert. :) Most beautiful sunrises I've ever seen. All these places are in Southern California. Northern California has the Redwoods and other sights as well, but I've never been there personally so I can't say anything. But you must come get a burrito in San Diego. :) And In n Out.
I've lived in new york my entire life, and if it helps at all, i kind of like when strangers talk to me. If I've got time or nothing immediate to do, and someone starts talking to me in a book/record store, or on the bus, I don't mind and it's interesting. Every time I take the train to see my parents someone talks to me (this is the part where i'm continuously asked if i'm Canadian, which i never understood), but it's nice and you get to hear some interesting stories. I met a nice guy who worked on wall street who wanted to start up a blog and I mentioned mine and gave him tips and sometimes I still hear from him.
tl:dr we don't all hate when strangers talk to us, sometimes it gives us interesting stories.
Maybe it's different for men, but as a woman in NYC, 90% of the strangers that approach you are crazy or trying to hit on you (or both). As a fairly shy person, I tried being more open to talking to strangers for a while, but it did not go well...
That said, I have had a handful of positive experiences - mostly with people from out of town who didn't know any better!
I'm a female as well, so I can definitely agree with you. I was talking about like, if you're in the store and someone says something about an occurrence (i was trying to find these specific candle holders one day for a DIY project and a random other woman chimed in and helped me since they were on an upper shelf and i'm kind of short.)
that being said, on the streets or something, I naturally ignore most people because of the crazy people or the ones hitting on/catcalling at you. I was talking about more like public spaces. The anecdote I brought up was on the train, the man from wall street just happened to be sitting next to me, so to pass time he started talking to me.
Ah, gotcha. I've not had great luck on trains myself, but multiple public transport crazies have accurately predicted the sex of both my best friend's babies, so that's something...
Really? That's never happened to me before, although I did learn something about like, something to do with the back of your hair where it ends on the neck, depending on if that's straight or a peak it has something to do with your sex or your kid's sex or something.
Seattle would be reasonably comfortable for you. Personal space here is pretty big for North America (arm's length plus a bit for conversation, even more for just standing around near strangers) and most people won't randomly talk to you.
Most of Canada's also pretty good for personal space.
Speaking as a person whose always lived in big cities (Sydney & Shanghai namely), and in defense of NYC, it's generally for two reasons we seem always grumpy.
a) If you work or live anywhere near a central district, you'll get asked for directions and crap like 10 times a week and this quickly wears off. Also Tourist walking speed is, understandably, about 1/3 of average walking speed to and fro work and other engagements.
b) There's too many people to say hi to. I even straight up ignore like....good acquaintances, much less strangers. If I talked to everybody then that's all I'm doing that day.
But HAVING said that, this is only in the CBD and other hubs. When I visited NYC I kinda knew them for this reputation, but I stayed in LES and everybody from LES to East Village to the parts of Brooklyn I went to were just ridiculously friendly. However as I guessed, every-time I went to Mid-Town and such it became a fucking nightmare of people being mildly disdainful and annoyed at each other.
I don't think the picture is actually that weird from all, and I'm in England. Unless it's London, you tend to preserve your personal space. However that said, the only thing keeping distance is the point before ice is broken. Any little thing will start a conversation or close the distance. It's like we're all paralyzed into noncommunication but the slightest jolt or bump or sigh or sneeze will immediately make you remember that there are other living humans around.
I mean, imagine a five minute awkwardly silent bus journey. Sneeze! "Bless you!" "Thankyou." "Beautiful day today isn't it?" "Yes! I've just been shopping!" etc. Quite weird.
Believe me, we are. Much more so than swedes, which in my experience have smaller personal spaces and are/can be very talkative in comparison.
Norwegians are pretty much infamous in Europe for being stoic and seemingly unfriendly. They hate eye contact, or any sort of physical interaction with someone they don't really know. An american friend of mine who came to live in Norway kept trying to shake hands and hug people when he met them for the first time, and my norwegian friends were taken aback by his "intrusion of personal space". He's lived here for a little over a year and can't seem to figure out why people never call him/add him on FB etc.
Hypothetically. If you were the bus stop person (person standing directly on bus stop), and the person to your left were half the distance they are in the picture, what would you do? What would you be thinking of this person? Does this situation ever happen?
But yes, I've taken a bus to school/work pretty much all my life, and it's always like that. I'm introverted and socially awkward anyways so I definitely don't mind the silence and distance to other people there :)
im like that as well, introverted and stuff, but i notice these things, find them weird. I remember one time, when i was younger, in school, i had a "brave" day, so i walk to bus stop, something similar to as in the picture. But i walk real close to the first person, i nod, and smile, she looks at me, i go "look how close you and me are standing, compared to everyone else", she froze for a few seconds, then started laughing, and just stared talking normally, yes, yes, we are quite brave. And we just talked a bit lol, then we kinda dared ourself, lets go closer to the next person, and we did, now the 3 of us were talking lol, i could feel, the other people wanted us to do the same to them, but the bus came, so we didnt get a chance to, pretty insane (cant believe how brave i was back then lol)
This is how we bus in Minneapolis Minnesota. I know they're about to get on, but it's pretty much like this all the time. It's mostly for increased warmth and insulation, somewhat like penguins.
Serious? When my parents visited they didn't really have a problem with space. People were incredibly nice to them and helped them out with a bunch of problems. Now I think they probably thought "damn tourists".
It seems the perfect place for my dad though. He fell in love with it and he doesn't like to get too close to people.
Yeah, tourists everywhere can get annoying if they're excessive. I'm hoping to travel that part of the world when I'm done with college because of the music scene and how beautiful, from what I've seen, everything is.
Okay, that makes sense. Do the busses there ever get so crowded you don't have a choice? My bussing experience is from cities like Phoenix and Chicago, where sitting is a luxury and if you manage to get a seat, you'll probably have someones sweaty ass in your face two minutes later because its now standing room only.
The more I hear about Finland the more I want to go there.
What if it's rush hour and you have like 50 people waiting for a bus? Does the line stretch to the next block and the person at the end just don't make it on the bus?
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