Protip: talk to people, ask for help, ask for directions
I rode the subway and bus from Logan Airport to Worcester, heading back to college after winter break. I had trouble understanding the announcers on the T so asked strangers to help me know my stop. I think they knew the story because I had my luggage with me. They felt like… I don’t know. Tolerant indulgence of my inexperience?
Boston bustin’ balls is the best initiation you can experience.
We’ll give you shit unless we realize you’re actually “in the shit”. Then we’ll square you away and nod goodbye.
My friend once said that East Coast is not polite but kind, and West Coast is polite but not kind
Bostonites will give you the shirt of their back but will berate you the entire time for being so fucking stupid that now I gotta give you my shirt you fucking idiot, don’t you think at all?
I think it’s far more north south than east west. The PNW is definitely kind, though they’re neither nice nor mean, more just uncomfortable you’re talking to them. Meanwhile the southeast gives California a run for their money in polite cruelty.
People are aware that without a culture built around it places like Alaska with 22+ hours of light/dark a day can make people a little crazy, but I think the inverse also can cause problems without a culture built around it. Winter is good for you even if it sucks
It’s a very accurate description of the Northeast. People will help you dig your car out of the snow while passively aggressively exhaling very loudly to emphasize how much of a pain it is. But then they’ll just walk away not even expecting a thank you.
Canadian here, I’ve absolutely helped push multiple bozos cars out of snowbanks, silently cursing them the entire time for being such idiot bad drivers.
When they thank me at the end I always say “it’s no problem”
I’m shocked you don’t apologize to them for their bad driving.
Sorry
Thats cause you’re canadian
Seems likely
Sounds like my kind of people.
You know, as someone that’s live on both coasts for extended periods of time, that’s exactly right. I’ve never been able to explain it but that’s spot on. Thanks!!
Which option do you prefer?
Well, deep down the east coast. But I live in the Salish Sea now and I’m not moving back to Maryland anytime soon, so I make do. It’s beautiful out here and I’m a hermit, it’s not so bad haha.
The South is kind and polite… to your face.
^results may vary by race^
The US south often fits the west coast definition here as well
I dunno, I found people on the West Coast would go out of their way to accommodate my wife when she was unable to walk.
Yeah people here are scared of making friends with their neighbors for some reason, but as a disabled person people look out for me.
Californians are angry in traffic.
Oh in traffic all that new England kindness goes away rapidly. If you impede them without needing help well they won’t ram you or wave a gun, so it’s better than Midwestern drivers, but they will honk their hearts out and cut you off
It’s def aggro driving but usually not stupid or insane. I never saw someone wildly cut across 3 highway lanes to make an exit til I moved to the midwest
As a Californian, I can confirm half the drivers here get their habits from playing too much GTA V.
Good thing VI is coming soon, hope the driving updated
(That takes place in florida tho so the joke doesn’t work as well)
No wonder I feel at home in the north east, but here I am in Texas where people will gladly vote against their best interrest.
2pac/biggie in a nutshell.
Nah my sister’s a cunt but she makes friends everywhere she goes.
Yup
Par for the course in Boston and southern New England generally speaking. You can have my firstborn if you really need it, but I reserve the right to break your balls forever.
We’re not nice but we are kind. It’s how we keep each other sane when the fuckin sun goes away at 4:30, and the plow just un-shoveled what we just finished shoveling (cue the ice storm to make that snow extra wet and heavy only to later freeze into a foot thick block of ice).
I feel the need to do a Texas one as a Texan
Tex: you must be lost
Person: yes I was traveling…. Looking for… do you know
Long silence
Tex: yep… see I knew you were probably lost. When I saw your car I told my buddy bubba over bubba tips his hat “hey bubba I think he’s lost. Probably looking for the highway.” Are ya… looking for the highway that is.
Person: yes
Tex: ya. That’s what I figured. (Long silence but right before you say something else) you’re probably gonna want to take that road there. It’ll get you to Edna.
Person: is the highway in Edna?
Tex: no, but… you should probably go thru Edna. Less trouble that way. Then you’ll see where the old windmill used to be. Make a left”
Person: left… to the highway?
Tex: no… but that’ll get you to fire station
Person: do I need the fire station
Bubba laughs
Tex: bubba! No but you’re going to need their help with the tree that fell back in August . You didn’t really think you could move a tree that size with (gestures judgingly at your car. Regardless of the make or model) that… thing…
Bubba laughs
Tex: Bubba!
Person: uhh okay… thank you… I guess I’ll head to that fire station.
That conversation took an hour and a half but they fed you. also you have to come back next season because Mary lost her husband and you gotta do your due to help out. Then you end up just living there because after every time you help someone says “I suppose you’ll be off then won’cha. I can’t say I blame ya”
How can you leave after that?! It’s so passively judgmental!
Edit (might be adding a hat to hat here but I’m trying to reach peak texan): The good news is you can legally wear cowboy boots now and you measure a lot of thing by “heads” for quantity or “hand” for size. Plus if you ever don’t want to answer a question you can just gaze off into the distance and say “I don’t claim to know but if I’ve learned a damn thing in these dusty years is that you’ll find your answer right out there. when those answers want to find you I can’t rightly say… I’d be a damn fool to try”
Used to a know a guy named Mop who had a dog named Filanges on account of his long toes. He called me bud and gave me brisket every chance he could as long as I stayed for a conversation
Totally a tex story.
Guy named mop
Was that his real name a nickname? Who cares. I know the dogs name tho! The brisket was good and if he called on me I guess I’d stand up.
Not his real name but its the only thing anyone called him and I never knew another name for him
I once knew a guy named Irish.
He absolutely wasn’t named Irish and no one else called him Irish…
I’m just easy going and lazy. He said his name Was Irish to me. I memorized Irish. I’m calling him Irish because he told me his name was Irish. Fuck it.
That’s painfully accurate in some places down here. And if you’re ever through that way again there’s some decent fishing in Lake Texana. Got a whole mess of catfish out there a couple of weeks back.
Exactly! It’s helpful it’s just… “you in some kind of hurry?”
As for your fishing spot. I’ll answer in Texan
“Sounds great but I know how people enjoy a good spot once they found it. We’ll head out sometime together. You bring the beer.”
So, sort of like “good, fast, cheap: pick (at most) two”, except “kind, polite, fast: pick (at most) two”.
Oh, man, kind and fast. Hands down. Every time.
I’m saying “I don’t want to get shot… but I’m not afraid of getting shot. Texas is Texas but a stranger is a stranger. Let’s hit this fishing spot together first
Yeah, Lincolnshire can be rough.
God I hate Boston. Unheated bus terminal in the winter and cops kicking you out at night and u have to walk for hours in even colder cold, and when let people back in u all get into fucking bathroom and keep pressing air drier in turns just to get some heat. How is this a fucking country.
Well it’s not a country, it’s a city
Boston is absolutely, hands-down my favourite US city. My daughter just returned from a few days there and can confirm.
*favorite. Not fav our ite.
Why would we need your daughter to confirm that it’s your favorite city?
To confirm I’m not biased…
That fits. I live an hour north of Boston and that is one of the most Bostonian things… esp. the walking away w/o saying a word. It’s just the Northeast flintiness most native New Englanders have.
Are you living free or living the way life should be?
Livin’ Free, in the states most expensive little city by the mouth of the port.
Kill me now.
This is so Boston. We’re assholes. But we’re nice, wholesome assholes.
No, not nice. Nice is saying nice words. Kind is the action. “ya fackin ass, bathroom is 2 doors on the left!”
Massholes.
Miserably kind. I definitely feel that feeling.
Wow, them Bostonians are so kind!
I flew into Boston back in the ‘80s and was driving a rental car to my hotel. I get to an intersection and it’s blocked for a 10K road race. So I ask the cop diverting traffic if there was an alternate route to the hotel. He shrugs his shoulders, says he doesn’t know, and waves me on. I ended up driving around until the roads reopened.
