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The people who live in the Washington DC area are the best the country has to offer. They are charming, friendly and open. Neighborhoods are full of fun people who like to neighbor. Everyone is so open to friendships with anyone because social standing and career standing has no impact on who people pick as their friends. I have seen alot of people make friends at the bus stop and strike up long meaningful conversations with the man or women sitting next to them on the Metro. There is little of the snobbery found in other large cities. Yes, DC still has that southern hospitality from years ago. Agree Disagree?
Seriously, I think DC is a good mix. You have the good (friendly people), the bad (people who are ok and tend to want their space) and the ugly (people who are arrogant and self absorbed).
Won't try to compare DC to anywhere else, but I think that people here will, in general, tend to respect one another's space. There isn't an assumption that everybody you happen to bump into necessarily wants to get all chatty over anything. A lot of people here are experts on something or other and have those sorts of jobs that tend to keep your brain occupied 24/7 rather than 9 to 5. People on the Metro or in the grocery store may very well be working out some complex issue in their minds. Sometimes I hear stories on C-D about how someone tried to start up a conversation with one of these supposed DC A-types only to be rebuffed, and then complaining about how incredibly rude that person was. I can't help thinking that the actual rudeness might well have arisen in presuming to have the right to interupt someone else's train of thought in the first place.
At the same time, heck, even experts take coffee breaks. Just be a little considerate in trying to start up a conversation. Try making just some eye contact first. What did that tell you? Make some general, open-ended comment. Boy, the Metro is so confusing! Jeez, I guess they just don't make avocadoes the way they used to! If all you get back is Mmmm, then that person has the invisible DND light turned on. Otherwise, once it's established that two people are at the moment available for just general conversation, DC people are a warm and friendly and sometimes astonishly well-informed and well-spoken group. Just try to get in synch with the culture here, and things are likely to go just fine...
Location: Huntersville/Charlotte, NC and Washington, DC
26,700 posts, read 41,733,093 times
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i haven't had experience with many other metro areas but these DC folks are the most arrogant and self-centered i've ever seen. I'm betting people up north are worse but DC is the worse i've experienced. There are a couple of good folks i know who grew up here but most everyone nice I experience is not native to DC.
I won't bore anyone with my thoughts, because I've stated them more than once in other posts. Suffice it to say that I find this area filled with the rudest, most self-absorbed people I've ever had the bad luck to live around.
Maybe it's not the people in the DC Metro area with the attitude. Some of you might be giving off negative vibes. I can usually strike up a conversation with some one just about any where I go. Except on the Metro. I rarely talk to anyone when riding Metro. I say hi, good morning, or good afternoon to people I make eye contact with. Everyone I work with speaks and usually will stop for a conversation unless they are in a hurry. I was at a store today and the cashier went out of his way to let some us know that his line was open. It saved us a lot of time. Yes there are some rude people in service work but most are friendly. I think some people are just unhappy living in this area and see everything through that negative lens.
Yes - How many times will you post the same drivel? Your hatred of DC is so apparent.
It's a very Dinglericious question. In fact, a good number of the OP's posts and threads and their areas of interest (racial issues, the VA/DC and Minnesota boards) are very dinglericious. I'm just sayin'.....
I think YoAdrian could have been talking about Connecticut. I can honestly say that most people in that entire state are the most cold, self-absorbed people you would meet on this planet. I've bounced around this country and Ct is the most unfriendly state by far.
I'm not a chatty Cathy, but I have found myself in conversations with strangers here, even on the Metro. More often it's from just being out and about in the city. I think our common factor of being transplants puts us on a level playing field. There's not a lot of folks snubbing you for being an outsider here. I'd take Manhattan over D.C., but home is here now, and yeah, I'm lovin' it.
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