Last week, my colleague, and dare I say friend, Lisa DeCanio wrote an article that elicited a lot of emotion from a lot of people called Why is Making Friends in Boston So Hard? It’s a really great piece that relates especially to the plight of transplants living in the Hub. She opined that those not from the area who uproot their lives to settle down in the Bay State struggle to integrate and establish relationships with locals in particular.
She writes:
I love Bostonians’ pride in their city, but I think it’s also a large part of why it’s so hard to make friends here. Bay State residents really have no reason to leave this state – the schools are fantastic, the jobs are great, and the beach is right down the road. You grow up in the ‘burbs, go to one of the dozens of local colleges, move to Boston for work, and are then surrounded with 25 of your BFFz from childhood, high school and college. At that point in your life, there’s no need to make friends.
As a lifelong resident of Massachusetts, I can say assuredly that this is the case for a great number of people. My core group of friends remained in tact through high school, college and now into our working lives in the city. The peachy life for we.
And she certainly didn’t write that as a criticism. It was a valid observation. But because of that, I feel almost obligated to speak out for the locals who seem so out of reach.
We suffer the same social anxieties. Unlike you, however, we’re in the fortunate position of having a pillow to fall back on. I don’t doubt that we get complacent there. But we want to meet new people. There are stories we can listen to our friends tell ad infinitum, but we certainly want to hear new ones now and again.
Unfortunately, you don’t have that pillow.
This isn’t to say that the burden is on you to approach us. In fact, it’s probably the opposite. Despite the lack of consequence in failing, meeting new people and trying to instigate a deeper relationship can feel like a high-wire act. It’s nerve wracking. The person with the safety net should be first to step out on the line.
The prominence of social clubs and dating websites proves that the desire is there. Striving for new, fresh relationships isn’t something homers and townies are immune to necessarily. It’s just that the incentive is greatly diminished. Some might even feel like if they reach out, it would be like they’re abandoning the group they already know so well.
I guess everyone needs to get over their fears of rejection and just take the dive. If transplants take anything from this article, let it be this: just because locals exist in established cliques, it doesn’t mean that those circles are closed. Because whether you wander in a pack or alone, we’re all just trying to avoid getting lost.
