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In a city where it sometimes seems like we’re always dealing with train delays, extreme weather or monstrous tourist hordes, it’s not too hard to get on someone’s nerves. (Not that we’d ever want to live anywhere else.) In the last few weeks, we’ve run down ways to be an a-hole in New York City and ways to piss off your fellow New Yorkers. After surveying the situation, these seem to be five surefire ways to get a New Yorker’s goat.
Photograph: Courtesy Creative Commons/Flickr/franciscodaum
1. Be a rude commuter
Commuting in New York City requires somewhat of a Goldilocks approach. If you move too slowly, people will hate you. Every second you fumble at a MetroCard machine or pause on the stairs going into the station, a thousand daggers are shot from the eyes of your fellow commuters into your back. If you’re too aggressive, New Yorkers will also hate you. Upstreaming to snag a taxi, pushing into a train car before everyone’s gotten off or stopping subway doors from closing are all unforgivable NYC commuting sins. You can atone with three acts of giving up your seat to an elderly person and one stroller assist down a flight of stairs.
Photograph: Courtesy Creative Commons/Flickr/frankenstein
2. Litter
Oh, you did NOT just throw that soda bottle into the street when there is literally a trash can half a block down on the corner. Those cans are there for a reason. Everyone in New York has to share the city’s sidewalks (and we’re on them a lot) so do us all a favor and don’t throw your crap everywhere. Every time a plastic bag gets caught in a tree, a Radio City Rockette loses her wings. And don’t get us started on the animal owners who don’t clean up after their pets. Anyone who leaves dog poop in the street deserves to be dunked head first in the Gowanus canal. Oh, and speaking of disgusting things, leaving your trash in the hallway does not count as taking it out. Carry it all the way downstairs and put it in the cans like a civilized person, you Hefty Bag Barbarian!
3. Take forever buying something
Girl, just order the coffee. I promise you that barista does not want to hear your life story or why you’re worried about the big meeting today or all the ways you feel like your sister is secretly undermining you. Everyone behind you in that line is probably already five minutes late for wherever they’re going and really don’t appreciate you holding them up even more with your chatting, super complicated order and indecision over whether or not you really need that biscoti. You need that biscoti. Add it to that order, and move along.
4. Block the sidewalk
Teenagers walking four abreast for no reason at all in rush hour; girls in yoga pants moving one step a minute as they browse Pinterest on their iPhones; Enormous Midwestern families stopping to take photos of every yellow cab that passes them; the one evil bastard who stood slightly askew on line at the food cart, causing everyone behind them to angle out across the entire sidewalk; the shivering maniacs who set up camp outside the Rockefeller Center every time a boy band performs on SNL; zig-zaggers; stoppers; standers; sitters: All of you are terrible people. This is New York, and we have places to be, so for the love of God, just walk faster or get out of the damn way!
5. Complain about New York
What’s that? New York is expensive? You don’t say! And a bit big and confusing and dirty, too? Well that’s an eye opener. Any other revelations you want to hit us with? How small the apartments are, perhaps, or how competitive the job market is? Here’s the thing: We know all this already. We’re aware of how broke we are, how shockingly cold/disgustingly hot (depending on the month) we are, how likely we are to be verbally assaulted by crazy people on the subway. We know it and we accept it and in fact we pretty much fucking love it. If you can’t get through your day without rattling on about all the stuff that you don’t like here, maybe it’s time to consider a move to Jersey.