5 Ways Living In A Big City Warps How You See The World

Of course, you know this. It's why people think big-city folk are rude. No one smiles at each other. No one says hi. But I'd offer that this behavior is less about rudeness and more of just a numbers game. There are simply too many people to say hi to. Every morning, I ride a train with hundreds of people I don't know and usually don't recognize. Then I walk through a major train station surrounded by thousands of bustling strangers. Then it's into a subway taking me underground to work. And even though I'm going to the same place every day, varied only by which train I catch, I almost never recognize the strangers, because there are so many. Also, everyone in the city wears masks 24/7. Did I mention that?

Here's me on my way to my office job.

There are two points here. First, when you live in a small town, you don't have a million strangers to say hello to during the course of the day. It's a manageable number. But, more importantly, you have an extra incentive to say hi: You'll see them again. You know them. They're your neighbors and a part of your town, even if you're not on a first-name basis. Pretending they're some anonymous stranger would be the weird thing to do. But when every person crossing your path is about to float off anonymously like the remnants of Robin Thicke's career, it's really only the weirdos that stop and say, "Hi there!"

When I went to Los Angeles, I wondered how a group of suburbs connected by nothing but traffic and smiles could constitute a city. And I'm sure if I ever get to London, I'll wonder how a place that takes up so much space geographically, instead of being compressed on a tiny island, where the groundswell of humanity forces you to build up into the sky, could be a city. Just like people from Tokyo will never understand how New York can be a city when you can't even buy a soiled schoolgirl's undies from a vending machine.

Yes, that's a real thing.

If you want to see my head explode (and why wouldn't you?) just watch me order a Big Mac in a small-town McDonald's. In the city, even with employees earning minimum wage and hating every customer for being part of their hellish fast-food existence, there's typically a three-minute exchange for this transaction -- running from the time of your order. But go outside of the city and suddenly fast food is no longer fast. I can wait in the DMV and expect to get nowhere. I'll stand in line for hours for the forthcoming Star Wars movies. But I simply can't wait 10 minutes for a Big Mac. My stomach devours my other internal organs. Big-city establishments have to serve tremendous numbers of people. And most of those people have to get back to work. Once you get used to that kind of production, it's very hard to accept anything less. Even if you're in Bumblefuck, Iowa, with nowhere particularly important to go.

Walking around New York City, I can assure you I see absolutely stunning people almost daily. Wannabee models and actors/actresses as well as just super vanity-obsessed individuals using all their God-given genes and technology's products to create strikingly impressive appearances. But you know what? I can't remember what any of them have looked like.

Have I seen this woman on the 4 subway line? Who can say?

In smaller towns, you travel five miles out of your way to see the hot chick working at the Dairy Queen. You linger in the break room for that cute dude who delivers the water. The beautiful people in places that are not centers for modeling and acting are fewer and further between. And, quite simply, with fewer people, there are fewer superstars (probably fewer freakazoid monsters, too -- it's just math). So the hot people really stand out. You can get fixated, but in big cities, there are simply too many gorgeous people walking around to care. So, got a partner with a wandering eye? My advice for saving your marriage is moving to the closest sexy big city immediately so he or she can't obsess about others. (Unless your partner ends up fucking, like, everyone. Then, I guess, it would be a bad idea.)

What some people see as the comfort of relative isolation, I see as a place for evil to feast unchecked. Sure, in New York someone might throw you down a subway staircase and take your wallet, but then what? I mean, the odds of him then dragging you to his basement and doing scientific sexual experiments on you with his inbred brother are really slim. Someone in New York City is always around. There are always witnesses. I know horrific things happen in big cities too, but I always take comfort that some bigger fish will always swallow the evil.

Yes, Phantom Menace was actually made only as a metaphor for my feelings on big-city violence. No wonder it sucked.

So, yeah, I guess if you live in urban areas with gangs and crime rates, that can be scary, but I just can't see a guy like Norman Bates lasting in a city very long. It doesn't have to make sense; it's how I'm wired. I blame New York. And The Texas Chain Saw Massacre.

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