سه روش موثر برای ملاقات دوستان در نیویورک

This is an All ears English podcast episode 212. Are New Yorkers friendly? Learn three effective ways to meet friends in New York.

Welcome to the All Ears English podcast, where you finally get real native English conversation with your hosts, Lindsay McMahon, the English adventurer and Gabby Wallace, the language angel from Boston USA.

Today we have a very special temporary co-host. She is a three-time self-made American entrepreneur based in New York City and she could run you all over the tennis court any day of the week with her nasty forehand. She’s my friend, mentor and inspiration in life and business. Christie, the fearless New Yorker. Now let’s get to the show.

In today’s episode you’ll meet Christie, the fearless New Yorker. She’ll give you the inside perspective on how New Yorkers think and she’ll give you some awesome strategies for how you can meet New Yorkers to practice English and have friends when you’re visiting the Big Apple.

Are you on our email list yet? Join more than 5000 other All Ears English listeners and make sure you don’t miss any of our amazing All Ear English episodes. Get on our list now and we’ll send you a weekly summary of the most exciting and interesting All Ears English moments every week. These episodes are hot so go to AllEarsEnglish.com/hot. That’s AllEarsEnglish.com/hot.

Hey Christie welcome. How are you today? Hey Lindsay. I’m awesome. Thanks for having on the show. I’m excited. Yeah, we are super excited hear that you’re joining us on the All Ears English podcast. You are our fearless New Yorker and we are so excited to introduce you to our audience. Yeah, well, I’m excited to meet them and thanks for calling me a fearless New Yorker. I’m very honored. I just want to put it out there guys, girls that I’m actually not fearless. I action a lot of fear, but somehow I make a way of overcoming it each day so that’s the truth about me.

Christie that’s super inspiring. You know I’m inspired by you and I love that you’re able to admit that you have fears. I mean we all have fears, no one is fearless, right? Yeah. Of course not. Yeah, you know but you, you’re a hard worker, you’re an entrepreneur. You live in New York City. Those are scary things for a lot of people. Yeah, yeah, I guess they are. They do scare me every day. And you know someone who is like achieving in life and living an awesome life is someone who’s actually like turning towards those fears and facing those fears and walking into them every day and that’s why I’m calling you the fearless New Yorker because that’s what you do. Okay thanks all right, all right. Yeah, I’m working on accepting compliments so I’m going to be like thank you Lindsay, I do agree with you then.

I love it. So Christie today we have a question, the All Ears English podcast has a really interesting question for you cause we know that you are our New York City insider, you’re a local in New York City and you know this is something that our listeners are probably wondering about. They like to visit New York. You know some of them go every year for business or pleasure. They want to go to Times Square and see the Park, Central Park but we want to know this question. Are New Yorkers friendly? I mean this is datable, alright? What do you think? I mean, how long have you been living in New York, Christie?

I’ve been living in New York for more than nine years now. How? Yeah. Yeah and I think that they are friendly, especially when you ask them for help and subway directions. And a lot of my friends who’ve come they have all said to me, surprisingly, that you know, people are pretty friendly. Just don’t get in their way when they’re trying to you to get somewhere. But if you have a question they’re more than willing to help.

Yeah that’s the one thing they’re just so busy, right? I think the misconception, I mean, actually I’ve heard a lot of people say that New Yorkers are not friendly. I mean, I’ve even said that myself. Even though you know I lived there for four years, you and I met there, you know, and I had, you know there were some days when I felt really like, oh my gosh, people here are so abrupt and so, so rude. Right. I mean you don’t get that on the subway, people kind of, I don’t know, rushing in front of you and not holding doors for you, things like that. That’s true, I think that’s’s true.

I think that it depends how we define friendly like every language, every word has different interpretations and it relates to our personal experience of the word, friendly. So I think that when I think of somebody who’s friendly as somebody who’s willing to help me and if I have a connection with them, they’re going to be open to me that would be friendly. But then yeah, I think that regarding outside of that like abrupt and how much they’re trying to get something done if it’s not, not on the personal level then they’re probably not as patient. They’re not patient. Right.

Okay so maybe not patient but maybe friendly. So again it really depends on what you’re trying to do. So, so a lot of our listeners are probably planning to go to New York sometime in the next couple of years and you know, we always encourage our listeners to go out and meet local people, but New York is one of the hardest places sometime to meet people. So, so it’s different, right? The way we approach meeting people in New York versus, you know, some small town in Texas or Kansas is completely different. So what would you recommend as kind of three tips, three ways to meet a New Yorker.

Okay well, I think there’re some interesting things about what you said is that, that people, it’s difficult to meet a New Yorker and I actually think that it’s almost easier because New York is there are so many transplants, so… What’s a transplant Christie, just a quick question about that. Because that’s a common word you do here in New York, but I don’t know if our listeners know. Yeah, transplant is somebody who basically didn’t, wasn’t born and raised in that area. So they came in, they grew up some where else and are probably living in New York City or somewhere new. And are you a transplant Christie? Were you born somewhere else and then or did you, were you actually born in New York? Yes, I was born some where else. I was born in Hawaii, so I am a transplant and it’s actually more common for people to be transplants in New York, New York city than to actually been born and raised here. Yeah, absolutely.

Okay, so keep going with that, with that tip you had regarding transplant. What was that? Well, since there are so many people who are transplants, people are a lot more open to meeting new people because there’re so many people just moving here believing, they expect that you’re that, they expect that you haven’t been born and raised there and therefore maybe you don’t have this tight group of friends and family already there. So you’re more open to new people, new experiences. So there’s a lot of events to go to, where people be open to kind of talking to you and even doing a follow-up get together which I think is actually a little more difficult in other places where people have been born and raised there and have a close knit of friends already like where I’m from, Hawaii.

So there’s not like an insider’s club, like no one’s really an insider in New York. Everyone’s an outsider, everyone kind of moves to New York to make it, right? They had some dream often, sometimes or maybe that’s just a cliché, I don’t know. I think that’s absolutely true. I mean everyone takes that risk to come to New York because there’s some bigger dream, they’re looking to find and fulfill. Yeah.

I love that. I love the idea of just going after a dream that you have. You know I moved there because the dream for me wasn’t so much acting on Broadway or becoming, you know, a star or singer. It was more, I just, my dream was to live in New York, just to, just.. I had always traveled there as a, as a kid to the city, you know from my small town in New Hampshire and I thought wow, this city gives me so much energy. And I feel so inspired when I go, you know when I was a kid I said okay, someday I’m going to live in New York. And when the chance came after moving back from Tokyo, I thought, well, this is the perfect transition. I can move from Tokyo right to New York.

Yeah, I think, yeah that was very similar those for me just like growing up I just always thought I want to live in New York City and something cool happened. Well, I’m glad you did it you know not everyone is able to follow their dream, for whatever reason. But I’m glad that you found the courage cause you are our fearless New Yorker. Thank you. You found the courage and you are able to make that move. So just to go back to what we’re talking about.

So, so you think it’s actually easier, a little bit easier to get involved with New York, to meet them because there isn’t that sort of insider’s club, right? Yes, yes. Okay. So I think you can be optimistic and to give your listeners some concrete ways to meet New Yorkers, I would suggest, of course, meet up.com and going to a meet up. There is also a lot of community sport groups. There’s one called Zag Sports where for a season. So you might have to be here for a whole season where you play like softball, basketball, and I think it’s also they donate profits to some nonprofit organizations. So this is really like fun social cause, versus it’d be a super serious basketball league so there’s, that’s a really social fun way to create, maybe even more long lasting relationships with people than just the events through meet up.

Yeah, that’s a good point because when we go to one event, we may never see. That was one challenge that I ran into and I was able to make some really close friends through meet ups. But when you go to meet ups, it’s like there’s new people every time. It’s not the same group. So you might meet someone one night. Have a great conversation then you never see them again. Yeah. You know. Exactly.

Okay but yeah meet ups or good. So community sports, things like that. I would also say, you know this is on a little bit less concrete level, but more kind of conceptual level, but don’t be normal. You know, I found that everyone in New York is a little weird and that’s actually okay. Do you know what I mean? Yeah, yeah. There’s a lot less, people are a lot less normal than you think. So be weird. Like if you, you know, people have different styles of dress, ways to dress, you know, on different careers. People often identify with their work, whether that’s good or bad, I’m not gonna make a judgment, but that’s, you know, you’re out there and first question that you get is often what do you do, right? That’s true. That’s true. Yeah.

And I think the fourth tip, the third tip I would say is besides the actual things like going to events through meet up or finding some type of Zag Sports, longer term social thing is when you feel like there’s a connection, don’t be afraid to invite the person to do something, maybe relevant to the topic in which you met them on. So if you met them a language meet up, saying, oh you know, I’m trying to improve my language. Still do you wanna do, do you wanna meet up for coffee or something. And because people are so much more open to new event or new people, they they be more likely to say yes than finding it awkward, weird. If I was in Hawaii, I just met somebody they they might think that’s a little odd.

Yeah, absolutely I like that idea, Christie. Well, I think we’ve got some really good concrete and some less concrete tips on how to actually go ahead and meet New Yorkers. So I want to encourage you guys, you know if you’re planning to visit New York, don’t just hang out in Times Square and walk around like a tourist. Go to Union Square. Go to Brooklyn and try that, you know get involve with the meet up and a group of sport. Try to meet a local and practice your English and just absorb this city with that local person. Awesome.

Well, Christie, thank you so much for joining us today. This is been super fun. You’re welcome. Thanks for having me Lindsay. And bye, Christie. Take care. Take care. Bye.

If you wanna put your ears into English more often, be sure to subscribe to our podcast in iTunes on your computer or on your smart phone. Thanks so much for listening and see you next time.