> I'm hesitant to move further from TFA, but a brief one-shot: Among Boston people who returned after "trying" SV/SF/California, I repeatedly heard of struggling, amidst an unfamiliar ambient "friendliness" culture, to recognize social signals around "actual" friendship - was someone "really" interested in becoming friends, or were they merely performing "friendly". AI tells me this is called peach vs coconut, nice vs kind, guess vs ask cultures.

My experience is that everyone from outside the Northeast thinks those of us from the Northeast are assholes, and we think they're all two-faced sociopaths.

I mean there's a reason for the term Masshole, having lived there for several years, but at the same time, it's just a stereotype.