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Location: northern Vermont - previously NM, WA, & MA
10,749 posts, read 23,819,647 times
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I would recommend anywhere on the North Shore/Essex County. People there are tollerant, plenty of gay and liberal minded folk but it's not flamboyant like P-Town. Lots of nice suburban communities which would be a good environment for your kids. Good highway and train access to Boston, and great waterfront communities with good beach access. Ipswich is a very pretty town, very community orientated and pretty friendly. Salem would be the most liberal town. Gloucester is very scenic but full of natives that might make you feel like an outsider. Newburyport has a great downtown with and the the beaches of Plum Island are nearby (some of the nicest beaches in the state). Swampscott & Marblehead are nice but pretty pricey. Beverly is middle of the road, good community, you would do well with $500,000 there. All of these towns and cities have a lot of character, not cookie cutter at all, and a lot of history.
South Shore you may find some of what is described above too, particularly in Plymouth. Metro West is not very friendly and its pretty vanilla with cookie cutter suburban type areas and I would say a bit more conservative.
You want ME to elaborate? I believe I have in other posts. I'm not from here but have lived here for almost seven years. I find people here "odd". I suppose if you're really young and going to college, or you stay after college because you have a group of friends who have stayed or you grew-up here you might not have/have had the same experiences that I have. I'm a very direct, emotionally open, friendly person who did GREAT friend-wise in the years I lived in California, D.C., VA and even in NYC. But I haven't found people here to be friendly. There are exceptions, of course, but for the most part I find them to be easily offended, touchy, defensive, ready to start a verbal argument and either elitiest "pseudo-intellectual" humorless or working class. Seems as if there's very little in the middle! Also, I've found the city of Boston to be INCREDIBLY "ageistic". I never even found L.A. to be so incredibly slanted towards the very young. I suppose it has to do with all the colleges. I don't know. But I do know being in the 40's or 50's here and being single isn't fun and have felt left-out even in the churches I've tried here. And, of course, being a Christian and a Conservative makes one feel like a leper here, too. I find it amusing that "the tolerant" are often so "intolerant."
Any other questions? I'm VERY MUCH looking forward to leaving here soon. I thought I would like it here; I did the times I visited. But of all the cities I've lived in THIS place (Boston) is my least favorite.
I do know that the western part of the State of Massachusetts is a little different; once you get around the Berkshires. But I wouldn't recommend living in the State of Massachusetts to anyone. Over-priced and over-rated.
Well, being direct and emotionally open and friendly is def not the way to make friends here. That's a red flag that makes people run away from you. Crazy person, Crazy person!
I've made the best quality friends here through being in the same place at the same time over and over again and slowly getting to know each other. It takes about three years (that's my Crazy Person Test--if they can hold it together without without losing it they pass), but maintenance is minimal. I've had dismal, painful experiences with three new friends who wanted things to happen quickly--they were way too demanding and in the end proved themselves to be Crazy People (see above).
And, yes, I've met many more Crazy People here in Mass. than where I'm from, but that might just be a function of being new in town.
Not that I'm any social success story.... But I've been here for eight years and can use two hands to count my friends. But I was lucky in that my kids were in school here from nursery school on and that's where you meet a lot of people.
I think making friends gets more difficult as we get older. We've got problems we've never had before with aging parents or health issues of our own, money problems, kid problems.... We lack patience with other people's foibles, where when we were younger we might have laughed or asked a question and not gotten upset....
On my first trip to Boston a man in a business suit on a weekday asked me if he could help me find the building I was looking for as he could clearly see I was a tourist. That kind of friendliness never happened to me in Eastern and Upstate New York, however was common in Central NY when I lived there. But friendliness like that in the Boston area seems the norm. I've been in line at stores and people would just strike up a conversation with me while waiting for the line to move and that has happened on more than one occasion here! I was at a local hospital in Burlington and a woman from Concord chatted with me while we waited to be seen and the same happened with a guy waiting with me in a doctor's waiting room in Woburn. I've been in parking lots/roads where the pedestrians insist on giving me the right of way even though they have it. And they're really nice about it. People were just as kind in Western Massachusetts although I've only been there for the symphony and shopping. I say Massachusetts is pretty friendly and one of the friendliest places I've ever lived.
However, it seems like when the people are bad here they're very bad. I live in Wilmington. I'm part black and have been given the finger or had the n-word screamed out at me when I walk the dog or am in front of the house. It's happened on several occasions all by different people. That's never happened to me in Missouri, New York state or Europe (other places I've lived). It was pretty shocking and dismaying but I've come to expect certain outbursts like that from random people despite how nice I think the people are. There is the "being followed around the store like I'm a shoplifter" bit that happens here but black people experience that no matter where they live and shop so I don't consider that as a huge factor in deciding whether to move here if your daughter's girlfriend comes along too.
As far as diversity goes we live next door to a very friendly married lesbian couple and they seem to have a few friends along the street. Across the street from us are people who supported McCain/Palin and they seem friendly enough too. Our other neighbor is a former POW soldier who's proud to fly the American flag and has get-togethers with his other military buddies (He's really friendly too!). So I think our street is a pretty diverse (politically and socially) if not the whole town.
Wilmington also has a lot of family events like a town Easter egg hunt, parades, or concerts on the town common in the summertime. There's also a lake beach nearby where a lot of people like to gather in the summer. I think a lot of family-oriented things happen here but I'm single so I'm not sure of all those activities this town has to offer.
One thing I've noticed about these Massachusetts towns/cities is that people litter A LOT. In Central NY we'd be appalled if someone threw just a cigarette butt out their car window and in Eastern NY there was some littering but not too much to complain about. Here, people pretty much throw all kinds of garbage from their cars. Newspapers, beer and soda cans, fast food rubbish, cardboard boxes, empty packs of cigarettes. It's a big problem but if that's the price one pays for friendliness perhaps the trash is worth it.
Well, being direct and emotionally open and friendly is def not the way to make friends here. That's a red flag that makes people run away from you. Crazy person, Crazy person!
I've made the best quality friends here through being in the same place at the same time over and over again and slowly getting to know each other. It takes about three years (that's my Crazy Person Test--if they can hold it together without without losing it they pass), but maintenance is minimal. I've had dismal, painful experiences with three new friends who wanted things to happen quickly--they were way too demanding and in the end proved themselves to be Crazy People (see above).
And, yes, I've met many more Crazy People here in Mass. than where I'm from, but that might just be a function of being new in town.
Not that I'm any social success story.... But I've been here for eight years and can use two hands to count my friends. But I was lucky in that my kids were in school here from nursery school on and that's where you meet a lot of people.
I think making friends gets more difficult as we get older. We've got problems we've never had before with aging parents or health issues of our own, money problems, kid problems.... We lack patience with other people's foibles, where when we were younger we might have laughed or asked a question and not gotten upset....
I don't understand why anyone should be "tested" by anyone in order to make friends here. I think people here are cold and weird and THEY'RE the "crazy" ones. I don't wish to stick around any longer to figure out their particular neurosis/psychosis/whatever it is. This is NOT a friendly place. PERIOD.
^Massachusetts is different. New England as a whole is. I'm sorry it didn't work out for you, you don't seem to be one of the people who moves in here expecting everyone to show up at your doorstep with an apple pie welcoming you to the neighborhood, so I sympathize a little more than I do with some of the other posters.
I think your demographic puts you in a position where, yeah... you'll likely do better somewhere else. Boston and Massachusetts does have a younger population. The older crowd here tends to have established their contacts and friends and seem to be content. I can understand how it would be difficult to meet people, especially here, in your current situation.
I didn't mean to sound abrasive with my initial post, but too many people make general statements without any support... they just feel like trashing a certain place (happens in every state's forums) with nothing to back it is a waste of everyone's time (you clearly have support for your statement). You seem to be an exception. I agree... I don't feel MA is the best place to come if your 50+, Single, and without kids (being conservative probably doesn't help). I wonder how friendly they'd be to me (at age 22 and as Stephen Colbert would say, "Openly Liberal") in rural Texas if I moved in, didn't attend church (agnostic) and tried to make friends. I'm willing to bet fathers wouldn't be lining up to have me date their daughters.
I guess my point is that it depends on who you are and where you go. I know people should be open-minded, but it does take some adapting to the culture of an area to fit in. I wouldn't expect you to become less conservative (everyone needs to maintain their own values), and it's impossible to get younger; but it's tough to fit right in when you're different from the majority of the people around you. I wouldn't expect to find a vibrant social scene in Naples Florida for someone my age, nor would I expect to make many friends in rural Texas given that I'm 22 and lean a good ways to the left (not too extreme though). On the same token, I wouldn't expect someone who is 50 or older, single, and conservative to have an easy time in Massachusetts making friends. You're literally in one of the youngest, most liberal parts of the country... it's going to be harder to find someone in your demographic.
Your experience may tell you otherwise, but it's not impossible to make friends here. Like I said, don't expect apple pie on the doorstep, but it's not too hard to do. Again, I'm sorry your experience was sub-par (probably and understatement), but I can see how it was difficult for you to make friends even though you put some effort in. I'm not going to claim that this is the friendliest area in the world, but it's not super cold either.
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