A friend of mine asked me today, "Have you developed the New Yorker bad attitude yet?"
First of all, it's not just New Yorkers who have bad attitudes - I was born and raised outside fo Philadelphia, and then lived in Pittsburgh for eight years and I developed a bad attitude on my own, thank you very much. Second of all, as I've written before, I don't think New Yorkers as a whole have bad attitudes, they're just self-involved.
What I have noticed, however, is that things that used to be pet peeves are now major annoyances. For example, before I moved here my managers in Pittsburgh (who lived in New Jersey and worked in New York before moving back to Pittsburgh) told me to make sure I "moved like I had a purpose" even if I didn't have one. As I'm someone who's a fast walker, and who detests it when people walk down the middle of the sidewalk at a speed slower than surrounding foot traffic, this was not going to be a difficult task for me.
As I've found, however, there are a lot of people who don't heed this advice. It's a city of 8 million people, and probably close to double that during business hours, and still there are always people walking slowly down the middle of the sidewalk, blocking the entranceway to a storefront or subway station, or otherwise not paying attention to where they've positioned themselves. In other cities, this has been a pet peeve that resulted in some - shall I say - less than christian thoughts. In New York, however, I'm betting I've got about another two weeks or so before I blurt out, "fucking move, asshole!"
I told my mom this the other nite, and she said, "Becoming a real New Yorker, aren't we?" Maybe she's right, but I'd argue I was always like this - it just took New York to show me my full potential.
