AdamConover.net

Joan Acocella suggests that New Yorkers aren’t rude, so much as familiar — that our lives are so public, the city so overstimulating, the sense of being “in this together” so strong that we tend to treat each other as peers, rather than strangers for whom we have to put on a polite, public face. You’re honest with your peers — you can be short with them, and tell them when they’re pissing you off. By the same token, though, that exposure of New Yorker’s unvarnished, private selves allows us to consider each other as people to be respected, rather than as social obstacles to maneuver around. This is an idealistic theory, perhaps, but it fits my experience of the city. (And anyway, we all know that Bostonians are far worse. via Brian)