6 ms·

I'm in my mid-20s and moved to Boston about two years ago. It's a fantastic city, but it absolutely is difficult to maintain friendships, despite everyone being

I'm in my mid-20s and moved to Boston about two years ago. It's a fantastic city, but it absolutely is difficult to maintain friendships, despite everyone being incredibly nice. There was a HackerNews meetup several months ago; Reddit has a decent mix of impromptu, planned, and recurring meetups; and Meetup.com usually has atleast a couple good options every week. It's easy to meet people here, but there aren't many venues for seeing them often enough to turn it into a friendship. Essentially, if you and someone you get along with go to the same meetup monthly, and you can't make it one month, and they can't make it the next month, you end up with a 90 day gap between seeing eachother. I don't know if this is any different in NYC or SF though? All said, if anyone wants to plan a meetup or just wants to grab a beer, my email's in my profile.

api 13y ago
I think it ultimately comes from three things: (1) Boston has an undeserved liberal reputation. Boston is extremely conservative, but in its own way. It's NPR-liberal, not fun loving socially open liberal, and definitely not San Francisco liberal. It's ideologically liberal but not culturally so. It took me a year or two to wrap my mind around it as it's a sort of conservatism you just don't find elsewhere in the U.S. much. It took me aback. I had no conceptual framework to place it in. Eventually I realized it was an upper-crust blue blooded Ivy League thing, a bizarre hybrid where people are intellectually open minded but socially unbelievably reserved. (2) Boston is a huge college town, and thus has a very transient population. People move there for school or work for a while, but they often do not settle there. Why make lasting friendships when everyone's just going to leave? Also: the social scene tends to revolve around the schools to a great extent. If you're a student you have those social networks, but there is less of a social scene for non-students. (3) It's expensive and inconvenient to drive in Boston, and the public transit is unfriendly to socialization. The T stops running at 12:30AM, and cabs are insanely expensive-- far more costly than New York. So people don't want to go out further than they can walk or commute in a short cab ride. Go out to some place like North Cambridge or Quincy and you're looking at a $40+ cab ride home. I think this is a huge reason there is no quality club/music scene to speak of outside a few tiny islands here and there. All that being said, people are very polite and friendly. It's not that people are hostile or mean, just that they don't socialize much and keep to themselves. I think it's a vicious cycle too-- it drives people away who would otherwise really like to live there. Boston is a wonderful city in many, many ways.
- whichdan 13y ago
  Is SF any better with regards to transportation? The T stopping at 12:30 is definitely an issue. Boston has always felt strange to me in that you can walk from Forest Hills to Alewife in an afternoon, but like you said, if you want a cab or a ride at 2am, you're SOL. Most of the people I've met tend to be 20s and 30s with jobs downtown. The college culture is pervasive, but I wonder how much it really affects those of us who aren't planning to leave any time soon.
  - mjn 13y ago
    The regular service in SF isn't much better. The regular Muni trains, streetcars, and buses shut down at 1am. BART starts shutting down around 12:30-1am, and the last Caltrain leaves SF at midnight. SF does have some 24-hour bus service, though. It's not great service, but it'll get you around the main parts of the city ok. PDF map here: http://transit.511.org/accessible/providers/allnighter.pdf http://transit.511.org/accessible/providers/allnighter.pdf
- sabat 13y ago
  What the hell is "San Francisco liberal?" If you actually live in the bay area (which != "San Francisco") you know this is just bullshit made up by conservative outsiders.
- pivo 13y ago
  > Eventually I realized it was an upper-crust blue blooded Ivy League thing, a bizarre hybrid where people are intellectually open minded but socially unbelievably reserved Huh, I'd always thought Boston was widely known to be an intellectually liberal, upper-crust, blue-blooded, Ivy League city. My guess is that this isn't news to a lot of people in the US. I really have to disagree with your characterization that people don't socialize much & keep to themselves. People may seem cold here at first, but once you make friends here they'll often be great friends for life and see each other often. I've heard just the opposite from friends of mine that have moved to the west cost, i.e. that it's easy to make friends there but it's often not a long term thing.
  - 13y ago

api 13y ago

I think it ultimately comes from three things: (1) Boston has an undeserved liberal reputation. Boston is extremely conservative, but in its own way. It's NPR-liberal, not fun loving socially open liberal, and definitely not San Francisco liberal. It's ideologically liberal but not culturally so. It took me a year or two to wrap my mind around it as it's a sort of conservatism you just don't find elsewhere in the U.S. much. It took me aback. I had no conceptual framework to place it in. Eventually I realized it was an upper-crust blue blooded Ivy League thing, a bizarre hybrid where people are intellectually open minded but socially unbelievably reserved. (2) Boston is a huge college town, and thus has a very transient population. People move there for school or work for a while, but they often do not settle there. Why make lasting friendships when everyone's just going to leave? Also: the social scene tends to revolve around the schools to a great extent. If you're a student you have those social networks, but there is less of a social scene for non-students. (3) It's expensive and inconvenient to drive in Boston, and the public transit is unfriendly to socialization. The T stops running at 12:30AM, and cabs are insanely expensive-- far more costly than New York. So people don't want to go out further than they can walk or commute in a short cab ride. Go out to some place like North Cambridge or Quincy and you're looking at a $40+ cab ride home. I think this is a huge reason there is no quality club/music scene to speak of outside a few tiny islands here and there. All that being said, people are very polite and friendly. It's not that people are hostile or mean, just that they don't socialize much and keep to themselves. I think it's a vicious cycle too-- it drives people away who would otherwise really like to live there. Boston is a wonderful city in many, many ways.

whichdan 13y ago
Is SF any better with regards to transportation? The T stopping at 12:30 is definitely an issue. Boston has always felt strange to me in that you can walk from Forest Hills to Alewife in an afternoon, but like you said, if you want a cab or a ride at 2am, you're SOL. Most of the people I've met tend to be 20s and 30s with jobs downtown. The college culture is pervasive, but I wonder how much it really affects those of us who aren't planning to leave any time soon.
- mjn 13y ago
  The regular service in SF isn't much better. The regular Muni trains, streetcars, and buses shut down at 1am. BART starts shutting down around 12:30-1am, and the last Caltrain leaves SF at midnight. SF does have some 24-hour bus service, though. It's not great service, but it'll get you around the main parts of the city ok. PDF map here: http://transit.511.org/accessible/providers/allnighter.pdf http://transit.511.org/accessible/providers/allnighter.pdf
sabat 13y ago
What the hell is "San Francisco liberal?" If you actually live in the bay area (which != "San Francisco") you know this is just bullshit made up by conservative outsiders.
pivo 13y ago
> Eventually I realized it was an upper-crust blue blooded Ivy League thing, a bizarre hybrid where people are intellectually open minded but socially unbelievably reserved Huh, I'd always thought Boston was widely known to be an intellectually liberal, upper-crust, blue-blooded, Ivy League city. My guess is that this isn't news to a lot of people in the US. I really have to disagree with your characterization that people don't socialize much & keep to themselves. People may seem cold here at first, but once you make friends here they'll often be great friends for life and see each other often. I've heard just the opposite from friends of mine that have moved to the west cost, i.e. that it's easy to make friends there but it's often not a long term thing.
- 13y ago