City life is not “anti-social” you are just bad at making friends

r/

I understand this doesn’t absolutely apply to EVERY city on the planet, but, I hear it so often about every city it’s just plain ridiculous at this point.

I’m sorry but if you can not make friends in a place with 1 million+ people in it, then that’s on you for being bad at making friends. I love the city, and I’m so tired of people putting it under a bad light or having these outrageous expectations for how people should act.

“Man I hate the city! people are so mean they don’t even smile or talk to you!”

When I go into the city I talk to people all the time, I see smiles, I have nice conversations, I meet cool people. Of course not EVERYONE is going to walk around all “happy go lucky” and have every passerby treat you like royalty. The joy of the city is that you are just an average Joe, no one gives two shits about you because THATS THE POINT. You are not the main character.

“Making friends in the city is impossible!”

I’ve made so many friends since moving to a large city and frankly it’s so easy. There are a plethora of things to do, many of which are not even expensive, and some even free. You can join a club for almost any interest you have, meet so many different personalities, etc.

I can understand if you are someone who might struggle with social anxiety, then yeah I get it, but again, that has nothing to do with cities sucking.

Comments

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  2. Euphoric_Staff2752 Avatar

    In MY EXPERIENCE, the city is where dumb snooty preppy people with sticks up their asses hang out. You go up to someone and ask someone anything, they look at you as if you committed an offense just for interacting with them. People that graduated in the 2010s thinking they’re still highschool popular kids.

  3. hotviolets Avatar

    I live in the PNW. The Seattle freeze reaches past Seattle.

  4. amazonPrime___ Avatar

    You can make a type of ‘friends’ if you really want it and put yourself out there and have social intelligence. But i think a lot of times people are talking about friends that are beyond surface level. 

    But yeah as a guy I think it’s not so hard. I see stragglers all the time when I’m out (la) and they’re dying to not look like loners. So it’s easy to just talk about shit. Females i’m not so sure 

  5. CorpseDefiled Avatar

    I think I’d honestly rather live in hell. If I know my neighbors exist they’re too close

  6. tahleeza Avatar

    It’s hard to do that if you’re not single and married.

  7. Visible_Music8940 Avatar

    You’re on reddit.

    We’re all bad at making friends.

  8. Comfortable-Pay-4801 Avatar

    Exactly this. In a small town, people have to engage with whoever’s around , you’re kind of defaulted into a social circle. In a city, people have options. If you’re awkward, entitled, or just not great at reading social cues, it’s way easier to be filtered out because no one has to give you a chance. Cities don’t make people anti-social, they just remove the obligation to tolerate bad social skills.

    But yes, by default there will be more dickheads, perhaps not per capita but just based on raw numbers.

  9. Usual-Reputation-154 Avatar

    Is this unpopular? It’s way easier to be social in a city than anywhere else. Cities just have more people and things going on and places to hang out. I’ve lived in cities, suburbs, and the middle of nowhere. Cities are by far the most social

  10. MoultingRoach Avatar

    I’ve found the opposite. I’m not a very social person, and I found moving to a city to be a godsend. I’ve found so many fun events, Mets so many great friends, I can’t imagine moving back to a smaller town.

  11. PirateSanta_1 Avatar

    The biggest reason I love cities over rural areas is because being social is so much easier. Any niche intrest or hobby I have probably already has a group or two dedicated to it and stuff is happening every week. As such it’s easy to find groups to join and there are constantly new people moving into the city looking for friends so eventually you will find people you click with. 

  12. Mathalamus2 Avatar

    agreed. i cant imagine living outside of a city, or some sort of reasonably dense urban area. theres a reason we started building them. and moving to them.

  13. AttackCr0w Avatar

    I simply don’t want to be friends with the type of person who lives in the city. I want to be friends with people who have valuable skills…people who add value to their community. They can fix things, build things, and are simply more self-reliant.

    City dwellers tend to be people who need goods and services provided to them by the government or some other entity. They are merely consumers and not contributors.

  14. NoContextCarl Avatar

    I miss the city life but the bullshit outside of the social aspect of it made it exhausting eventually. 

  15. RScrewed Avatar

    Next you’re gonna tell me living in the suburbs isn’t really hell. 

  16. SheepherderIll9748 Avatar

    Living in a big city can be a huge reflect on your personality.
    It shows how good your social battery is, how good is your judgement on people at first sight.

    I find it very easy to make aquintances, casual friends but like everything, it’s hard to have one VERY good friend. It ain’t Elementary School where you can be super friend with someone just because you sit at the same table or because you both love the same cartoon.

    I don’t see my best friends everyday even though we live in the same city and know each other for more than 30 years for some of them. It’s adult life.