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I'm from Kentucky. I'm in my mid twenties and have lived in Boston for nearly 8 years. Keep in mind as you read this that I absolutely love many aspects of Boston, and I've stayed because the place offers me much in the way of social experience and work.
I spent the first year in complete culture shock. It began in my first days here, after the novelty of my first big move wore off. I would say hello to people on the street only to get blank stares. I would smile or make eye contact and people's reactions made me feel more like I had just gave them the finger. People don't see each other as people, but obstacles. No one imagines the thoughts and feelings of others. As a result of this daily practice, people who live for a long time here become inhibited even in their closest relationships. I became depressed for many years, only staying because the academic opportunities I found here far outclassed anything I could find in my home state.
Where I am from community is a flexible thing. Someone near you is part of your community, even if you've not met them before. Provided they are just being themselves, and encounter you with a relaxed perspective, you say small things to get to know them, to make them feel happy and comfortable in the space you share. "Hello" is often enough. Or you can try the deeply personal query, "How are you?" Just a smile is often enough to give both parties a small dose of happy.
Despite all the prejudices latent in the history and culture of the south, in my hometown we supported a surprisingly liberal and, honestly, humanist stance toward each other. As a result of this open culture, everyone is perpetually happy to be alive. What bliss! After navigating the social environment of Boston for nearly a decade I can only conclude that much of the anger people experience here is a result of the distance between people and the incredibly inhuman attitude with which people regard strangers. This holdover from the culture of England and Ireland circa 1800 has no place in a 21st century America city in which virtually everyone is a stranger. Clan mentality rules the city, from neighborhoods to the only thing which brings everyone together: sports.
In Boston, you have to see someone upwards of twenty times before you can say hello without shocking them. Alternatively, a mutual friend can introduce you. But as you can imagine, this habit makes the social networks of the city remarkably non-porous. I guess this is why I simultaneously feel like I live in a small town and in a huge, impossibly distant city. I am surrounded by faces I know whose personalities are completely hidden. People only talk to strangers when they have been drinking, want money, or want sex. Not being a peddler or a drunk, people mostly assume I am hitting on them when I strike up a conversation. I am practically hypersocial, comfortable engaging in conversation for my 8 free hours a day, but here I struggle to make new friends who aren't immediately connected to my existing circles.
It is true that many people in Boston are from elsewhere. We come here to attend and work in the incredible academic environments offered by the city, and often stay because, on balance the benefits of being here outweigh the difficulties in social life. Despite where we are from, eventually it is impossible to avoid the basal culture of the place. It permeates everything and everyone. You cannot overcome it and "just be yourself." You will be shunned for doing so.
Transit and movement in the city are difficult, and are perhaps the place in which people's interpersonal habits become most marked and dangerous. Drivers, further removed of personality and humanity by their steel enclosures, drive as if they are personally superior to everyone else on the road. Pedestrians struggle to make headway in the gnarled streets. Jaywalking is both normal and required in order to get anywhere. Bicyclists face even worse treatment, and break stoppage laws as readily as drivers break the speed limits in order to obtain small reprieves in which they are not squeezed between opening car doors and psychopathic drivers. They suffer constant hit-and-runs and must be immensely aggressive and physically fit in order to maintain their legal space on the road. Following the cultural habits of the city, the streets are laid out in a way that suggests that no two urban planners were capable of communicating. The city's public transport infrastructure suffers from serious repair and upkeep problems caused by perpetual funding shortfalls; the majority of people drive, and seem just as incapable of considering the environmental and social problems that doing so causes as they are incapable of saying hello to their neighbors.
Many people falsely conclude that Bostonians are cold because the weather is cold. I can't disagree more. Boston is simply not that cold! The climate of Boston is nearly identical to Cincinnati. If you want to investigate the effects of climate on social relationships, I suggest you visit Montreal in midwinter. I have done so several times and have met the nicest and most open people even when the temperature hasn't risen above freezing for months and there are 2 meters of snow on the ground. Boston's social problems have nothing to do with the weather.
Boston is not a bad place. It is just insanely socially conservative in a deep way that makes the people from my hometown who would handle snakes and append every sentence with "amen" and "God bless" seem like futuristic liberal revolutionary hippies from planet Q. At least they know how to make friends
Anyway, it is not so bad. You will learn a lot from Boston
I really don't know what you're talking about. We've been gone from Boston for 13 years and we miss the basic honesty that our Boston friends exhibit. We live for 5 years in the Chicago burbs and grew tired of the ear-to-ear grins, and the howdies, and the plates of brownies when we moved in so they could come in and take a look around and then recruit us for their church. Bostonians simply give people space. It's a live and let live society, and sure, some of them are though nuts to crack, but once you've gotten through, you'll have a true friend for life. I found Midwestern people (and these are really generalities here) to be shallow, ready to say hello and talk about their dog or the weather, but if I started a sentence with "I" or got into feelings, they'd back away. I have friends from Boston that are more like family than family and even with the time I've spent living elsewhere they always make time for me when I visit north. Stop grinning like a jack-o-lantern when you're out on the street and maybe someone will take you seriously.
I appreciate the thoughtfulness of your post and respect your perspective, but I'm not sure I can agree with a lot of the statements.
Quote:
Originally Posted by edible
I spent the first year in complete culture shock. It began in my first days here, after the novelty of my first big move wore off. I would say hello to people on the street only to get blank stares. I would smile or make eye contact and people's reactions made me feel more like I had just gave them the finger. People don't see each other as people, but obstacles. No one imagines the thoughts and feelings of others. As a result of this daily practice, people who live for a long time here become inhibited even in their closest relationships.
I think the term "culture shock" is apt, but I think you still don't have the Boston culture down. I'm native and don't say hello to anyone on the street. But I don't think of other people simply as obstacles. I am also not inhibited in my closest relationships. Maybe that's just me, but I think not.
Quote:
Originally Posted by edible
Where I am from community is a flexible thing. Someone near you is part of your community, even if you've not met them before. Provided they are just being themselves, and encounter you with a relaxed perspective, you say small things to get to know them, to make them feel happy and comfortable in the space you share.
Here someone you've met before (and know well) is part of your community, whether they're near you or not. That's the flip side. I gather from your words that you don't entirely feel comfortable in the space you share with Bostonians. But it's wrong to assume that, where you come from, everyone is comfortable with each other. In my travels to Kentucky and all over the South and Midwest regions on either side of it, I felt quite uncomfortable by people I'd never seen before blabbing at me. Couldn't wait to get away. It's just what you're used to.
Quote:
Originally Posted by edible
Despite all the prejudices latent in the history and culture of the south, in my hometown we supported a surprisingly liberal and, honestly, humanist stance toward each other. As a result of this open culture, everyone is perpetually happy to be alive. What bliss!
You will forgive me if I have a hard time believing this for a second, in an objective sense. I don't doubt you feel this way, but it's home to you.
Quote:
Originally Posted by edible
After navigating the social environment of Boston for nearly a decade I can only conclude that much of the anger people experience here is a result of the distance between people and the incredibly inhuman attitude with which people regard strangers. This holdover from the culture of England and Ireland circa 1800 has no place in a 21st century America city in which virtually everyone is a stranger. Clan mentality rules the city, from neighborhoods to the only thing which brings everyone together: sports.
Some parts of Boston are clannish, but I think you're really overstating this. Anger? Incredibly inhuman attitude?
It seems to me that many people in Boston with established social circles, family and friends, are perfectly happy. People who come from somewhere else and have to start from scratch are more likely to experience isolation and to perceive Boston as inhospitable. In your case, the first impressions you formed during that first year of culture shock may be dying hard.
I think I'd be the same way. I once spent about 3 weeks in Texas with some people who were very good at overt displays of religiosity. I am profoundly uncomfortable with overt displays of religiosity. I created a construct in my mind that people in Texas behave this way. And many do. But I have no doubt that, whenever I'm in Texas, I'm unconsciously looking for it and more sensitive to it when it occurs.
Quote:
Originally Posted by edible
Transit and movement in the city are difficult, and are perhaps the place in which people's interpersonal habits become most marked and dangerous. Drivers, further removed of personality and humanity by their steel enclosures, drive as if they are personally superior to everyone else on the road. Pedestrians struggle to make headway in the gnarled streets. Jaywalking is both normal and required in order to get anywhere. Bicyclists face even worse treatment, and break stoppage laws as readily as drivers break the speed limits in order to obtain small reprieves in which they are not squeezed between opening car doors and psychopathic drivers. They suffer constant hit-and-runs and must be immensely aggressive and physically fit in order to maintain their legal space on the road. Following the cultural habits of the city, the streets are laid out in a way that suggests that no two urban planners were capable of communicating. The city's public transport infrastructure suffers from serious repair and upkeep problems caused by perpetual funding shortfalls; the majority of people drive, and seem just as incapable of considering the environmental and social problems that doing so causes as they are incapable of saying hello to their neighbors.
This is true pretty much only for the core of Greater Boston, whereas the thread is about Mass. as a whole. But it also seems like the complaint anyone not from an older, denser city would have about an older, denser city.
There are, however, certainly a lot more non-drivers in Boston than in most other places in the U.S. Public transport here, for all its flaws, surpasses that of all but 4 or 5 U.S. cities.
Hey!! you in the left lane doing 78... move over %$##^^$!!! I'm late for work because of this everlasting traffic and I haven't had my Dunkins yet.
Damn!!! if you weren't in front of me, I would've seen that 6 inch deep pothole that just killed my alignment... thanks buddy
(walking to work on the street, I think to myself)
What's he looking at? Do I owe him money?
Joking aside, everything's faster in the Northeast urban areas. We drive faster, walk faster, talk faster, and work faster (not including govt workers) than the rest of the country.
As far as the "what are you looking at" mentality with people in the Boston area, sadly it's true. We don't interact with strangers like folks down south. I remember being in GA and having a cop go out of his way to hold the door for me at a convenience store with a "mornin".. I couldn't believe it. Up here it's "license and registration"
I grew up just outside Boston and went to school in western MA.. totally different out there west of Worcester. No Boston accent, and aside from the Springfield area and the city of Pittsfield it's a more rural setting.
Regarding the way we drive....lol.. I'm surprised there aren't more (or any?) NASCAR drivers from MA
I lived in Springfield MA for about a year. I found people in Western Mass are incredibly rude. Just today, an over-60-year-old guy was swearing and yelling at me while driving. I can only imagine young people doing this. Certainly people in Western Mass are constantly upset, over what? I don't know, maybe in their genes.
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