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Hello, as someone who is going to be relocating to Buffalo, how easy is it to meet people and make new friends? Any suggestions on where and how easy it has been for you greatly appreciated.
I'd say it is easier than the other places I've been in the USA(CO, NYC, CA) but I suppose it all depends. Do you have trouble making friends? What part of the city will you be moving to soon? Is there a certain social circle or scene you associate with and befriend?
I have heard friends say that some areas (not Buffalo) the people are not as open to "outsiders" and have a hard time infiltrating the social scene, as many people have been friends since high school and don't usually welcome new people. I have lived in DC and the Boston area and have found specifically the Boston people (outside of the friends I met from work and in my neighborhood--who were also not from Boston) to not be particularly warm to "outsiders". I have heard that Buffalo is known as city of good neighbors or something like that and wanted to know from those who transplanted or relocated there for jobs how they find the social aspect as far as making friends. We will not know anyone there and wonder how easy will it be to make friends.
I've never found people from here to be hostile at all to outsiders... It's not like we don't want people moving in due to uncontrollable growth. I think that's where people start getting hostile. I definitely found that when I lived in Pikeville, KY.
I have heard friends say that some areas (not Buffalo) the people are not as open to "outsiders" and have a hard time infiltrating the social scene, as many people have been friends since high school and don't usually welcome new people. I have lived in DC and the Boston area and have found specifically the Boston people (outside of the friends I met from work and in my neighborhood--who were also not from Boston) to not be particularly warm to "outsiders". I have heard that Buffalo is known as city of good neighbors or something like that and wanted to know from those who transplanted or relocated there for jobs how they find the social aspect as far as making friends. We will not know anyone there and wonder how easy will it be to make friends.
Have no fear people here couldn't be more different from Bostonians. Buffalo is more of a warm & friendly midwestern vibe than the get the hell out of my way east coast pace.
Thanks everyone! I am glad to hear that Buffalo has friendly people. I find here in the DC area they are also on a whole friendly. my experience in Boston was the opposite (no offense to anyone from Boston). We are just so excited to be moving to Buffalo!
Buffalo is known as "The City of Good Neighbors". I came over 40 years ago and have always found it friendly here... much nicer than where I came from downstate, even though I was born and raised there.
Given that, if you are moving into a snobby suburb, it will be harder that if you are in a small community or in a vibrant city neighborhood.
If you have kids, get them into activities and meet people. if you don't, find something of a special interest to get involved in. Join a church if you desire.... This is a nice place to live and the people are not snobs.
Take this with a grain of salt. I've lived around the country, and found it was easier to meet other people and make friends when a larger percentage of the population were not natives, but transplants.
For me, it was disturbingly easy to make friends in Las Cruces, and not that difficult in Denver. In Cleveland, though, it was quite challenging; not many newcomers, and many ran in social circles that were unchanged since elementary or high school. If you're Jewish and a newcomer to Cleveland, forget it; it's impossible to break in when everybody else has known each other since Hebrew school.
Buffalo isn't a city with a lot of transplants, but there is a large student and tenured faculty population with roots outside of the region. Most transplants I've met in Buffalo are either immigrants, college and university faculty, Canadian spouses of locals, and those who were born and raised elsewhere in Upstate New York or nearby; Cleveland, Erie, and the like.
As a Buffalo native, I found that Buffalonians seem to embrace newcomers, since they're such a novelty, and since natives really want to make a good impression and put their hometown in a good light. It may be difficult to meet people if a newcomer settles down in a close-knit ethnoburb (Cheektowaga, Sloan, etc), compared to a neighborhood like Elmwood Village or a more diverse, professional-oriented suburb like Amherst/Williamsville.
When I first moved to Buffalo years back, I found it depended on what neighborhood. I was white and I first moved in a mainly black/ puerto rican neighborhood. It was difficult. For the first year, I often would get funny looks when I would drive down the street. The first year I had some fears that I would get my apartment robbed when I went to work. No one ever robbed my apartment, those fears were unfounded. However, at work where there were more white people I found it very easy. I was surprised. In fact, I thought people went out of their way to befriend me and still to this day although I no longer reside in Buffalo I still keep in contact with a few good friends. The truth is, there is some racial issues in Buffalo that no one really wants to talk about. I was not welcomed with open arms when I lived on Bush, Parkdale or Fargo. But given time, when they saw that I wasn't a cop or narc they eventually eased up. I think in general Buffalo is very friendly, yet also very segregated. It's sad but true. When I moved out of Riverside (that was Bush st. -although many consider that street black rock it is riverside) and out of the upper west side, etc things improved. It was never so bad that people would want to fight me. Although I am not exactly wimpy looking and have some partial cauliflower ear from all of my years of wrestling. But some areas of Buffalo are pretty rough and you don't exactly bring fists to a gun fight. If you know what I mean. Sometimes if there were a group of thugs looking like they were up to no good, I wouldn't cross the street. That shows fear. I wouldn't say hello either. That also shows fear. I would just step around them, ignore eye contact and mind my own business. It seemed to work for me. Overall, especially compared to many other places that I have lived I thought Buffalo was a pretty friendly place to live and very easy to make friends. I lived in Virginia beach and that area was very hard to make friends. The same with Pittsburgh. Actually I thought LA was pretty easy, but many would probably disagree.
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