[Note: This post is yet another one that’s backposting. This was originally meant to post April 10.]
It’s weird… it’s so weird my expectations vs. reality vs. all of that…
I used to talk about how lonely LA could be – everyone in their car all the time, people sometimes being flaky-ish (sorry about stereotypes!… but that was kind of my experience…)
And the only experience I had in New York was one where I felt like everyone was suuuuuper friendly.
Granted! What I should remember is that every time I’ve come to NY for anything before, I’ve been a part of something that really involved people. When I interned in a Broadway producer’s office, he knew all these people… and those people would stop by. I’d meet people intrinsically as a part of that job. (Did I use that word (intrinsically) right, btw? That seemed kind of right to me…?)
Anyway, I got free tickets to shows. I was part of events. I was around all these friendly theater people. (And I worked for someone important-y in the community, which I’m sure helped to have people be so nice to me!)
And then when I worked at the Fringe Festival, everyone on that show was from out of town. So, we bonded pretty well.
And when I took a producing class, we all got along pretty well as well… And when I was in that class, I was pretty young and stayed with family friends, who really treated me like a daughter – so I kind of had a built-in family, always asking about my day and such.
But now, I’m finding it so much harder to meet people!
And I don’t know if something changed in me, or if something changed about the city, or if something changed with how much we use technology in the last 7 or so years, and if that makes people less likely to just meet up with strangers.
I don’t know if it’s because, before, I was meeting people deep in the theater community, and generally those people are known as outgoing and all that jazz… And now I’m meeting random people… But, I’ve been met with a lot of just misunderstandings, I guess – people thinking I’m sarcastic when I’m not… just people having a different way of speaking and understanding and such in New York.
And this is where I’ll pick up next time.