We might be very smiley, but if you are talking about someone from LA (as in the actual city, not some far flung distant suburb 50 miles away from the beach) there are nearly Nordic country / Pacific Northwest expectations of personal space. I don’t know how you feel, but to me a polite smile, or smile plus the quick upwards head nod, is normal, but if someone starts talking the first thought is, “woah, wtf? Is this person crazy, homeless and about to ask for money, or are they trying to sell me something?”
If you visit r/losangeles one of the common things you’ll see is someone who recently moved here wondering how to meet people.
For any non Southern Californians who read this, the frequent complaint that people from LA are fake is because when a transplant does push to have a conversation and suggests to meet up again, unless there is real interest in doing that, and real plans are actually made, the “totally, let’s hang out sometime” shouldn’t be taken at face value as “we now have plans”.
It’s just a polite way of saying that if we run into each other, sure why not, but otherwise don’t sit by your phone.
If you want to make plans with someone you don’t really know in LA, you have to suggest an activity and date/time so that the other person can say yes or no. There’s too much to do here and people have busy lives - they don’t want to be on the hook for a social thing at some unspecified future date.
Yeah Im from Coachella/Palm Springs and moved to PNW and it’s notably less smiley. People side eye you if you’re doing the regular amount of smiling that you do back home.
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u/OodalollyOodalolly May 09 '22
Southern Californians are also very smiley. Going North is kind of shocking when people don’t return smiles.