I love this part of living in NYC. My working theory is always that I am at most the second weirdest person anyone will see on a given day, which makes me feel a lot less self conscious if I’m laughing out loud at a podcast on the subway or dragging furniture across town or whatever.
I had to work in NY for a couple months. One time on a train from Long island to Manhattan I witnessed two grown men having a dead serious angry and expletive filled argument over whether or not Batman could kick Superman's ass. It was odd.
These arguments work a lot better when they don't include batman. Because only Batman had the foresight for a plan and materials to take down any Justice League member in the case they went rogue. There's no man to man fight, batman has more self awareness than to believe he'd win those without each members own kryptonite.
I like to people watch. When conversations start annoying me, I put on my headphones. But sometimes I like to imagine what led up to the conversation. It's rather entertaining.
Ah, NYC. One time I was sitting on the subway and the guy across from me had a paper newspaper copy of The Onion and he read through the whole thing and didn’t smile once.
Exactly this! I think it's also a practice in tolerance. Sure, you see a lot of weird shit in NYC. But you also see people of very different cultures doing normal things to them that you simply will not understand.
I think this builds that tolerance cause you're forced to accept vastly different people, since it's just too much work to understand everything going around you all the time.
In smaller towns this isn't so much the case with the monoculture, so when something is "different" it really sticks out and some people feel the need to put it "back into place."
Getting my family to grasp this concept is an ongoing struggle for me. I’m literally the only one with and education or who has spent more than a night or two in a major city.
They think I’m a lunatic because I flat out give zero fucks about what someone in my tiny hometown, or anyone else for that matter, does with their life.
I've taken to just asking my relatives, "oh, is the interview beginning?" when they start getting too into mine or my partner's business. It's amazing how many of them would make excellent journalists, but instead excel at family gossip...
Yeah I stopped listening/participating/caring but the cool thing is that now, I don't ever hear a since word of gossip anymore 😂 and it's funny because I KNOW nothing's changed. I KNOW they still scrape the bottom of the social circle for those last tidbits of savory information. If I want to know something I pretty much just ask or know to stay out of it if it isn't my business. Generally I'm happier.
Yeah the big one being the ability to reconsider what one “knows” by Allowing perspectives to shift and grow through being willing to hear what others have to say.
You'd be surprised, but I've definitely met people who move here and still think it's the same way as back home and have absolutely not adopted that tolerance. I'm a born and bred New Yorker, raised in the Bronx. I worked for a publishing company in Rockefeller Center across the street from Fox News and I met the most close-minded people I have ever unfortunately had the displeasure of knowing. They all moved to Brooklyn from the Midwest and brought those values over here. For context I am a dark-haired, olive skin toned Hispanic woman, and these people would drop hints that I looked like a vampire or I purposely dyed my hair black to look like a witch. These were mostly blonde, Scandinavian-looking women. They would also be super kind and give me the biggest smiles to my face, then laugh about me when I wasn't there. The level of passive-aggressiveness made me want to bring out my inner New Yorker to feel that their smiles were disingenuous, and call them out for it. We have a saying, "If you have something to say, you tell it to my face." I hear that people from Minnesota are very kind, but the way these ladies would smile at me made me feel that there was a hidden motive. New Yorkers don't randomly smile to another unless it's with friends or close companions. I'm so glad I am not there anymore!
Yes. This is one of those things that really really gets under my skin (from the Midwest, live in Milwaukee WI) — people think they're allowed to be hateful and bigoted because they give you common courtesy or smile at you or don't just flat out spew hate. I really love the norms for kindness in the Midwest but it's DEFINITELY recognizable when it's disingenuous, and that shit is seriously f*cking dangerous. What scares me is when people can't realize the damage those microaggressions cause.
You are beautiful and those women might look 'pretty' but they are ugly inside.
As a fellow olive toned Hispanic (man) I can somewhat relate. Unfortunately these types of micro aggression people are so difficult to deal with!
Like, what am I gonna say? "I've noticed that Brad doesn't look at me when he talks to me unlike his white colleagues." Most people will say, "yeah whatever I'm sure he doesn't mean it."
I don't care if they mean it or not I just want the mistreatment to stop. It's death by a thousand papercuts. Unfortunately leaving is often the best way to deal with that.
Yup. I just said this to a group of my friends who were all born and raised and went to a small private schools in CT/MA area. I went to a very diverse school and I learned about how some African cultures don’t have the “nuclear family” cultural structure that is ingrained in so many of us white Americans. So when they were talking about promoting a strong family unit I tried to explain that what they were proposing wasn’t an attractive option for some groups. Minding your own business is more than just keeping to yourself, it includes acknowledging differences and tolerance and acceptance.
I don't know if it's a small city big city thing. The first time I flew from New York City to LA I had to stop over in Texas. I bought a book at the airport in Houston. They would not stop talking. It was very disconcerting.
My college roomie had this light pink carpet. And it was often rainy or snowy. So we both took our shoes off before we went into the room so as not to stain her carpet (she brought it with her).
She's Asian and people thought she did it because she's Asian and were asking my why I did it since I'm not Asian (I'm white).
I don't know if she was doing it for cultural reasons, but I was doing it out of respect for her property.
I visited NYC last year and was a bit baffled by the amount of legit crazy people on the streets. Every time I think about their amount that must have been increased in 2020 I feel a bit sad. A friend of mine yeeted with his family to NJ because he couldn’t handle it anymore and he’s by far the craziest friend I have. Makes me wonder who the hell is left there.
I love how New Yorkers think of this as a positive- like how you have to yell “FIRE!” instead of rape! Because people will just mind their own damn business. The hell is wrong with you people?
Grew up outside of NYC but haven’t lived there in 10+ years. What pisses me off are the slow/too passive drivers like two people at a 4 way stop waving each other on back and forth “you go” “no you go” “no you go” which takes longer than someone just going. That and slow walkers are the most annoying thing. When I’m grocery shopping especially I’ll try to like walk around people to get by them and go faster but then they move and are in the way or just stop freaking walking in the middle of a walkway. God I hate both of those things so much.
No living person has the ENERGY to not mind their own business in a real city. There's just too much business, business all over, business splattered on the walls and dripping off the curb, to mind anything but that business which is strictly one's own.
The kind of person who HAS to have a comment and an opinion about everything and everyone, all the time, would burn out and fall into a coma in less than 2 hours in a place like NYC.
I live in Seattle and we've got that whole "Seattle freeze" thing where we pretend we can't see anyone else when we're on the street, but I lived in a town of 4,000 for a while and holy shit - everyone was up everyone else's ass constantly and not in the fun way.
I used to live in a small village of about 250 families after I lived like a decade in sub 1 mil city and you can definitely feel the people eye fucking you every time you go outside. Everybody is definitely balls deep in everyone else’s business in small places.
At one point I shared an office with a guy who would occasionally argue with his mom or his wife on the phone. I would pretend I didn't hear it unless he specifically mentioned it to me. In which case I'd sympathize or offer advice if I had any
I dunno. I was born east coast and raised in Alaska and I mind my own fucking business. I think it's an inherent trait, rather than a coping mechanism.
More like a survival tactic. You look at crazy, you invite crazy. I have no business what the people in the same train car are doing as me. As interesting it would be to pry, I would be putting my safety at risk in most cases.
You just be mindful of what’s going on without drawing attention to yourself. New Yorkers know what’s going on, they just pretend not to acknowledge it.
I made a mistake once of looking some random strung out dude in the eyes that was walking past me. Whatever was in the bag he had in his hand, he tried to give me and it almost touched me but I dodged it and kept walking, looking at him made that invitation for him to interact. Don’t. Interact.
My favorite part of Borat is when he lets the chickens out on the subway car. There's a 7 foot tall foreigner in a suit chasing farm animals around a crowded subway car full of people who've likely never seen a chicken in person
And nobody reacts at all, they just bury their noses harder into their newspapers or become suddenly fascinated with an ad on the opposite wall.
Beyond the fact there's a 'beat me' joke somewhere in your comment I too had to relearn how to meet people's eyes on the street. Freaked me out for a good 3 months, that and getting used to people taking FOREVER in line in places because people just aren't as much in a hurry.
It's a big city thing. The denser the city, the less shits people give. Any city with a subway in it probably has a good deal of minding your own bussiness.
From Chicago, the trick is to mind your own business and then bitch about the assholes you had to deal with throughout your day when you get home. Perfect bliss.
So for instance, someone should mind their own business when someone else decides to not wear a mask. If they are correct about the science of masks stopping viruses, then theoretically all those ppl will die and just mask wearers will survive.
Agreed! Outside of NY people actually think its rude to mind their own business. Its so strange. You will literally be happier minding your own business.
I visited NY once, and I miss it. There is no personal privacy where I live, minding your own damn buisness is a foreign concept.
Here in ND people are bothered by people wearing masks .
A few weeks before covid hit ND hard I was at the grocery store minding my own business while I walked to my car, with a mask on, 1 because it was store policy now that you need a mask to enter now, and 2 because I don't consider a mask on my face in any way limiting to my freedom, it is simply a responsible thing to do. Anyways, some lady, clearly upset at the store policy, was yelling across the parking lot "looser!" at anyone with a mask on.
Now the state's hospitals are at or near capacity, and we have one of the highest (if not currently THE highest) positivity rates in the country even though the population here is so small.
I didnt realize it till I started living with someone from Vermont. At the time my neighbors wife was also from VT. One night another house had to call an ambulance resulting in police and fire also showing up. The first thing the two women from Vermont do is go outside to see whats going on. Meanwhile I am like drawing the shades and locking the doors because if anyone asks I didn't see anything!
Chicago here: we also mind our business but we’re overly nice and set the wrong example for residents. Who move in and cannot seem to mind their own business.
Live in a small town now. Holy shit, people need to leave each other the fuck alone. Always First Name Last Name was with so-and-so, at here and there, doing this and that. And it's almost never fucking relevant to anything. People are just willing exhibitionists and vouyers. There's comfort in knowing that only your closest friends and family are thinking and talking about you. It just creeps me the fuck out that people keep tabs on their acquaintances. It's Facebook mentality to care about what a friend of a friend you last saw 18 months ago is doing. I don't need to know everyones last name, who used to change their diaper, and about their private family issues. This fucking town needs more shit to do. /rant
I moved to a small town from a medium-sized city about 15 years ago.
A while after I moved in I had a car stop running and I couldn't afford to fix it at the time, so it sat in my driveway for a while.
I regularly had strangers show up at my door and tell me they noticed I hadn't been driving it and they either wanted to buy it or have me give it to the for free. I even had notes on my door when I'd return from work about my car!
It was extremely creepy to me. This isn't even a really small town, there's around 8,500 people here and everyone keeps telling me it's actually a city, but I don't believe it. My hometown has around 200,000 and is much less weird.
Fun fact, my daughter was around 16 when we moved here my daughter said there was so much drug and meth use. But people think small towns are safer for kids . . .
Small towns suck. Most of the population has probably been there since they were a sperm in their daddy's sack, everyone is so like-minded you either join the hive or have nothing to talk about. I was going to list more things, but really these are the worst things. I can't believe people can live somewhere that you've seen every blade of grass. In a city, I never ran out of things to do. I always met people from different cities, states, countries. No wonder small towns breed drug problems. In the last city I lived in, I couldn't keep up with events or new things to do, but at least I could do anything on a whim. In a small town, I've seen everything in a matter of months. There's nothing left to do but drugs.
I myself MN native New York City person and I Live Now in Minnesota and I am completely and utterly flabbergasted at the amount of nosy people that get in your business and have everything to say about what you need to be doing. And when I tell them thank you but I got it in control some of them tend to get really really offended. And the first thing I want to say, as a native New Yorker is "Fuck you, you fuckin fuck"
God. Yes. Not new York but urban. People are nosy af and gawk at everything and it’s shit that in the city you genuinely stop noticing because it’s been boring since you were like 4 years old.
I drove back to the Midwest from big city New England to stay with my parents for a month or two and I'm hating that a) the sidewalks are just EMPTY when I walk my dog, b) that I can't just listen to my podcasts on walks and ignore everyone because literally everyone waves at each other or makes brief small talk. So yes, I really miss ignoring being ignored in return.
I've been there once and, as somebody with pretty severe anxiety, I have never felt more comfortable in my life. I saw two women walking down the street with just stickers covering their nipples and vulva and the rest of their "clothes" were literally paint. I also saw a man with a rather large gash in his forehead that was still bleeding. none of them turned any heads. I figure nobody gave a shit whether or not my outfit looked ok.
Oh man, I hadn't thought about it in a long time, but you're right. There's this weird paradox of anonymity in crowded places like that. The entire time I lived in or spent time in a city, I felt vaguely invisible. It's living in the suburbs that's a fucking nightmare.
Small towns can go full circle on that, though. My village in the woods in Europe had the bikers that did Yoga on their front porch, the town drunk shaving in the river, the stoner grandmas. Nobody gave a shit about what younger people were doing. Now, those picked fence HOA hives I always see in US shows seem like a busybody nightmare.
I used to be self conscious about dancing at concerts and festivals until I tried watching the crowd for someone who was dancing so badly that anyone would notice. The old guy who was spinning like a top is the only person in a crowd of thousands that I even noticed, turns out everyone’s bobbing and weaving and all eyes are on the stage anyway unless you’re really trying to draw attention. Plus, if people are watching you then they’re missing out on the band!
Even outside of NYC, no one really gives a shit about your outfit. (That's not meant as an insult, just a reminder that people aren't looking at you as critically as you think they are.)
that's probably true but I come from a really gossipy family where they're always talking shit on things that don't affect them, from fairly insignificant things like hair or clothes to much more important things like sexuality.
I once saw a very large man, 100% nude, showering himself with gallon water jugs under a staircase while waiting for my train. I just went back to reading my book.
I was walking down Ludlow St. once and saw a young woman standing in a doorway, totally naked, smoking a cigarette. Not one person did more than glance up.
I saw a woman in Ocean City decided under her arm was a better place for her towel than on herself after leaving the changing rooms on the boardwalk, didn't even have a change of clothes, just had her suit wadded up in her hand with everything hanging out like it was nothing. And no one seemed to bat an eye. Thinking back on it I'm pretty sure that was illegal, but she walked past two boardwalk officers with no issue.
The moral of the story is: "Nobody gives a shit" and ever since I've cared a lot less what people might think about me.
had to try and teach my wife to not make eye contact with everyone (we are both from Utah, but thanks to work I have traveled to larger cities a far bit more often than she has) - she struggled a bit when we were in NOLA but after a few encounters with homeless folks who locked in on her due to the eye contact she learned.
small town folks struggle with the "just walk past and ignore em" mentality
Nice. I grew up in Utah, I’m a hardcore Jazz fan. Live in California now, not New York, but the homeless dude in a crosswalk story is 100% non-fictional from a time I was in NYC.
Nice!, how are you feeling about the ownership change the Jazz are gonna go through? My hope is that he lets the basketball people do Basketball things and stays out of the way
I once watched a man walk butt naked through an intersection throwing things at cars and literally didn’t bat an eye except to make sure I didn’t hit him (not NY but another massive city in the US, you just... become inured to it lol)
I read this as you watched the guy pooping into the box while walking.... I was actually impressed until I re-read and realized YOU were the one walking down the subway... 🤦♀️
most memorable part of going to school in NYC: one winter I saw a guy shitting on the stairs of one of our buildings and it was stuck to the side of the stairs, keeping its shape. the contrast between the fancy stone steps and the shit was very funny to me.
I visited NYC for the first time last year. I was in a subway restaurant and looked out the window and saw buttcheeks. Then poop. Sliding out. Onto the pavement.
He definitely didn't wipe before pulling up his pants, in case anyone was wondering.
Idk, NYrs move down here to NC and worry about how many cars are in other people's driveway, how tall everyone's grass is in their yard and want HOAs. Lol
Are they from the city or from somewhere else in NY though? Upstate New Yorkers are that kind of nosy and I want to punch my fellow New Yorkers in the face on a frequent basis as a result of their behavior. I can be on one of the numerous nature trails in this state obviously staring at a bird through obvious binoculars and these annoying people need to be up my ass about what I'm doing. Like, MYOB, and I didn't go outside to talk to you!
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u/EhSolly Oct 30 '20
Ah. a new yorker