> I'll admit to no particular experience in any of these cities but that does not exactly comport with their reputations.
Most of the complaints re N.Y. I have seen are from people who visit and then appalled when strangers respond with negativity in response to the visitor's lack of courtesy. I can't count the number of times I've seen someone be appalled at a gruff response in line at the bagel shop; however, when there's a line wrapping around the block, and staff are running around at full speed to keep up with demand, that's just not the time to ask "so, what all have you got planned today? doing anything, uh, interesting?"
I don't know how common negative sentiment is towards D.C., but my experience is that people are friendly and outgoing. You pretty much have to be outgoing by necessity -- the demographic is incredibly transient, so people are constantly being exposed to strangers, and as someone moving to D.C you need to be outgoing if you don't want to be alone.
And as for Dallas, it's an incredibly common sentiment (within the numerous Meetup groups I'm a member of) that most people in Dallas (and the greater DFW area) are pretty standoffish and cliquish. Part of the love for Meetup is that it self selects for people that aren't content with being born in Dallas, making some life long friends here in elementary school, and then forever pushing away anyone else that isn't already a friend or a friend of a friend.
> I'm pretty sure that's how it's always been. Either way, when the most exciting thing you could do at home alone was read a book people just did these things because they didn't want to be bored out of their minds. Friendships naturally followed from those shared activities. IMHO, that's part of the problem today. At home entertainment is pretty compelling and it's easy to get sucked into things like WoW but those don't tend to help you build a life like going out and doing stuff does.
But this isn't a dichotomy where the two options are planned, structured events or staying cooped up in your domicile, and I'm definitely not promoting the latter.
My point is that different cities are more (or less) open to spontaneous interaction with people you don't already know without necessarily requiring some sense of explicit attendance or membership.
My experience outside of Dallas, Texas:
- Go out to grab a drink, expecting to hit it off with one or more people at the bar. On the way, crack a joke with a passerby, chat for a bit, propose we all go to the dance club a couple blocks down the street. Have an awesome night talking, dancing and ending the night with some pizza around the corner.
- Pass some guys walking down the street, they seem like a fun group of friends so we shoot the shit; they invite me to bar hop with them. We're all on the same wave length, and the bromance is 100%. We're in Durham as the Duke students are coming back, so it's a super lively night. Live music just starts at the first bar, and the group of us are the first to start dancing, prompting the rest of the students to join in. Super fun night.
- Go to the park and see a bunch of people slack-lining. Ask if I can join in. Ditto with the people doing acro yoga. The majority of people didn't previously know each other, so I'm not perceived as some weirdo interrupting some friends.
And I could go on. My point here is that there exist other ways to meet people than showing up to some contrived event that was constructed specifically to connect people together. You could, instead, meet people organically going about your life: on the street, at the grocery store, at the pub, at the coffee shop, in the park, etc. The culture of the city/state you live in will then determine whether this is an option for you, or if people will blow you off.