I have been with my current partner for about four years now. He's a born and raised New York City kid, and while I have been living here for most of a decade, and I hope to one day raise a family of city kids, I am very much not a NYer. But having lived with one for so long, there are a few things that I've observed that genuinely amaze me, and I wanted to share them with you.
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New Yorkers can orient themselves so quickly. We'll get out of a subway station in a part of the city we rarely go to, and I have to look around for 30 seconds to figure out where I am, but he's already figured out cardinal directions based on subway exits, and street layouts. It's like a map is burned into his mind. I've noticed this ability to scan and navigate surroundings from other NYers as well.
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New Yorkers don't hate Jersey. In fact, it seems like they somewhat enjoy a trip out of the city. The only frustration I've seen exhibited at New Jersey is the freeway exits and changes are incredibly hairy.
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The ability to perceive danger: if someone is acting erratically, he can spot it a block away and try to steer us away. He also can differentiate when someone is just loud, and when someone is trying to create a scene.
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What I call the dead-eyed subway stare: At any major transfer point like Fulton, 59th, Barclays/Atlantic, native New Yorkers will instinctually tune out the rest of the world for a split second in order to listen for service changes on the subway. Sometimes accompanied by taking one earbud out.
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The kindness: There's a kind of NY style compassion I really admire. It seems like there is a persistent need to help people get to where they're going if they're lost, to help tourists swipe their cards correctly, to help people carry strollers up and down stairs, to hold open shop doors for others even if you're not going through them yourself. It's like an instinct, you barely even ask, you approach, offer to help, and then go about your way. The only time I don't see the kindness is in Elevators. People want those doors to close ASAP. And on the 6 at rush hour. Everybody is angry on the 6 at rush hour.
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The ability to commiserate with strangers. There's a perception I guess that people really like to mind their own business here, but when something is bad/frustrating/funny, New Yorkers have an ability to slip into conversation with each other like they've been neighbors for 20 years. I can't do it so easily.
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Balance: still amazes me when I see someone standing on the 2/3 going god knows how many miles per hour, with their arms crossed on the subway.
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An archeological insight: the city has changed so much in 20 years, that a lot of people from here can tell you what used to be where, and what it was like, and the history of certain places.
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When to jay walk and when not to. There will be times when I stay back on the sidewalk when the light is red, and he wants to go. Other times, I'll be the one to go, and for him it was way too close a call. I can't calibrate it right.
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A perennial frustration with the NYPD and an overall sense of appreciation for FDNY, and a profound hatred for any mayor ever elected except maybe Ed Koch.
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The pathological fear of bed bugs. I get it, but it was never a thing where I am from. It seems like the boogeyman for NYC kids that your parents tell you about at night.