Seeking a woman's opinion (for a subway harassment scene)

Houston, Dallas, San Antonio, El Paso, Fort Worth and Oklahoma City (amongst others) are all larger than Boston and people don't look askance at you for saying hello, or won't be pleasant in an elevator, so I don't think you can chalk it up to "big city" either.
Not big-city: "Crowded city."

The places you named are all very spacious in contrast to New York, Boston or London, despite being very populated. The offices are more spacious, the streets are more spacious, the dwellings are much more spacious, the airports are more spacious, the restaurants are more spacious, etc etc etc.
 
I grew up in a place with no subways, but spent some of my young adult time in an urban setting with subways. I recall being somewhat taken aback by what I perceived as the rudeness of people in the "big cities," but I also quickly got used to it, especially because I knew many people from the region who were as warm and friendly as anybody else anywhere when you got to know them.

People just have different customs in different places, and when you are new to an area you have to get used to them and adapt. If you are in an area where people are not so chummy with each other in public then you cannot force your customs on them and complain when they don't react the way you want them to.
I grew up in and around Boston and remember being taken aback when I moved to San Francisco and Oakland.

In the Northeast they might be blunt in a way they don't even really consider rude. Even your friends - if you want to go to the movies, and your friend doesn't want to, they'll just tell you "No."

In California, they're genuinely rude because they can't bring themselves to appear the least bit rude. If your friend doesn't want to go to the movie with you, they'll say "yes" and then just flake out.
 
Yes, find that person who calls Kentucky "Appalachia" and South Carolina "Carolina" instead of referring to both as "the south".

Good try though.
So that's a map from some trucking game, itemizing the different maps you load for different areas of the US, but now I'm also learning that you don't know that Appalachia and the Carolinas are regions too.

I was wrong before. Please continue participating in this conversation. This is fantastic.
 
I'm baffled by this notion that one interaction is considered harassment. Harassment is a persistent pattern of... well, unwanted attention in the particular case of this story, but this supposedly global universal consideration which was alleged doesn't even refer to what we usually mean when we say "unwanted attention."

An exception can be made for a single instance of absolutely inexcusable interaction, we can call that harassment, sure, but, a regular old greeting of normal severity doesn't rise to that level.

I think that that allegation says more about the conditioning of the one who alleged it than it says about all the people on all of the many many global subway systems they have ridden.

Amen. It also assumed that both the involved parties are familiar with the supposed social etiquette of the subway.
 
So that's a map from some trucking game, itemizing the different maps you load for different areas of the US, but now I'm also learning that you don't know that Appalachia and the Carolinas are regions too.

I was wrong before. Please continue participating in this conversation. This is fantastic.

Darling, this was a pleasant thread until you decided to start being a bitch. Do better.
 
In California, they're genuinely rude because they can't bring themselves to appear the least bit rude. If your friend doesn't want to go to the movie with you, they'll say "yes" and then just flake out.

There's something to this.

In the Northeast, people seem rude to a person who's not from the Northeast, but there's something real and genuine about it. They're not bullshitting you.

In the South and in Midwestern places like Minnesota, people are more courteous, sometimes strangely so to someone unfamiliar with the customs, but it can be superficial and insincere. A Minnesotan might say to you "Well, isn't that interesting" and really mean "You are a fucking moron." A New Yorker or a Bostonian won't talk to you that way.

In California there's an attitude of constant pleasantness, but not exactly courteousness. It's more of a minimalist courteousness, and it doesn't mean much. Customs are more laissez-faire.

But when you cut through the customs and get to know people, they're equally good and bad everywhere.
 
There's something to this.

In the Northeast, people seem rude to a person who's not from the Northeast, but there's something real and genuine about it. They're not bullshitting you.

In the South and in Midwestern places like Minnesota, people are more courteous, sometimes strangely so to someone unfamiliar with the customs, but it can be superficial and insincere. A Minnesotan might say to you "Well, isn't that interesting" and really mean "You are a fucking moron." A New Yorker or a Bostonian won't talk to you that way.

In California there's an attitude of constant pleasantness, but not exactly courteousness. It's more of a minimalist courteousness, and it doesn't mean much. Customs are more laissez-faire.

But when you cut through the customs and get to know people, they're equally good and bad everywhere.
In Philly, we boo'd Santa Claus. Sometimes a spade really just is a spade.

EDIT: I'm conflating sports fan behavior and general city dweller demeanor, but sometimes Philly really is just like that.
 
There's something to this.

In the Northeast, people seem rude to a person who's not from the Northeast, but there's something real and genuine about it. They're not bullshitting you.

In the South and in Midwestern places like Minnesota, people are more courteous, sometimes strangely so to someone unfamiliar with the customs, but it can be superficial and insincere. A Minnesotan might say to you "Well, isn't that interesting" and really mean "You are a fucking moron." A New Yorker or a Bostonian won't talk to you that way.

In California there's an attitude of constant pleasantness, but not exactly courteousness. It's more of a minimalist courteousness, and it doesn't mean much. Customs are more laissez-faire.

But when you cut through the customs and get to know people, they're equally good and bad everywhere.

Well, as we say to people like @AwkwardMD , Bless your heart!
 
In Philly, we boo'd Santa Claus. Sometimes a spade really just is a spade.

EDIT: I'm conflating sports fan behavior and general city dweller demeanor, but sometimes Philly really is just like that.

Philly is in its own special category. I think they share a common genetic heritage with British soccer fans.
 
Yes, find that person who calls Kentucky "Appalachia" and South Carolina "Carolina" instead of referring to both as "the south".

Good try though.
KY/TN east of a line from Lexington - Chattanooga is absolutely Appalachia. There can be no dispute about that.

NC/SC are often referred to as 'The Carolinas'.

That map ain't far off a'tall.
 
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