#kmgtow

[neurosismancer]

There's a stereotype that city dwellers, especially East Coast city dwellers, and especially Northeastern Megalopolis City Dwellers are rude. I'd like to dispute that. We're not rude, it's that we have a different set of social and behavioral norms and how we enforce them.

For example, cities are dense and have a lot of people walking around—often on narrow sidewalks. And they have places to be, and often not a lot of time. If you're coming from a place that doesn't have a pedestrian culture, you might not think anything about stopping on the sidewalk to check your phone, or look at some art, or just get your bearings.

To us city folk, this is rude, because you're in the way.

And we enforce the social norm of not stopping on the sidewalk either by going "Hey! Get out of the way!", or by shoulder-checking as we push by. Or both. Because, again, to us, you're the obstacle, and we've got enough obstacles. So many of us are trying to keep moving and get where we're going, the person slowing everyone down is the rude one. That's why our cashiers don't make small-talk unless the store is empty. That's why we don't stop to talk on the sidewalk. We got shit to do, and places to be.

There's three things you need to know about city life to understand why we are as we are:

1. We're crammed in pretty tight, so even minor social violations have an outsize impact.

2. We're all busy and have to get somewhere, often on a tight schedule. Anything we can do to keep things moving is a net benefit.

3. The jerk you had to deal with today? You might never interact with them again. And next time you do, it might be positive.

A good city dweller has a short memory for individual bad social behaviors, but a long memory for aggregate bad social behaviors. Today, that guy is the jerk. Tomorrow, you might be the jerk. That's life. You learn to deal and to forget individual instances of jerkitude.

I will wrap up this post with one piece of advice for anyone new to city living: Keep Moving and Get Out of the Way. That's not two different pieces of advice. It's one. Keep Moving and Get Out of the Way. If you Keep Moving and Get Out of the Way, and I Keep Moving and Get Out of the Way, we'll both be a hell of a lot happier and make life in the city a lot more tolerable. And people won't be rude to you.

As much.