Are Londoners UNFRIENDLY?

Are Londoners unfriendly?


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ZenGiraffe

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are the Brits friendly?
Scots, the Welsh, and the Northern Irish are friendly, though only the Welsh are approachable.

The English are a MIXED BAG, but LONDONERS are the least friendly, least approachable people on this earth.

It's my favourite thing about the city, you can ignore absolutely everyone and it's socially acceptable.
 
Scots, the Welsh, and the Northern Irish are friendly, though only the Welsh are approachable.

The English are a MIXED BAG, but LONDONERS are the least friendly, least approachable people on this earth.

It's my favourite thing about the city, you can ignore absolutely everyone and it's socially acceptable.
Worse than Parisians ?
 
There’s a big difference between friendly and nice, mind. London people may be pretty unapproachable, but they are often far more accepting and open minded than a large amount of people from smaller places - which I would consider makes them really rather NICE as humans.
 
I think people are conflating things. Londoners are BUSY! but they're not CUNTS!

coming from Amsterdam, living in a country where the default mode is rude and cunty, where people working in restaurants or shops generally look at you as if to say what the FUCK are you doing in here/you irritate me but I also will not acknowledge you at all, London is a breath of fresh air.
 
I think these are two different things though. Customer service in London is better than it is in Amsterdam or Paris (if such a thing exists), but you could also spontaneously combust on the Underground and nobody would move except maybe to TUT at you.
 
A few years ago I was sitting on the tube reading a book, and I didn't notice a woman standing who was pregnant. A man tapped me on the shoulder and said, "In this country, we stand for pregnant women." I guess some vestige of my eastern European heritage misled him.

He was AGOG when I replied with an English accent.

I suppose his cause was valiant, but with a lovely racist twist.
 
I think people are conflating things. Londoners are BUSY! but they're not CUNTS!

coming from Amsterdam, living in a country where the default mode is rude and cunty, where people working in restaurants or shops generally look at you as if to say what the FUCK are you doing in here/you irritate me but I also will not acknowledge you at all, London is a breath of fresh air.
Having grown up in the Netherlands with English parents, the Dutch are blunt and forward in a way that seemed really rude to them but quite normal to me :D
 
One of my favourite things when using the Tube in London was to make eye contact with people and smile at them, purely because it made them uncomfortable. It always used to pleasantly surprise me coming back up north and everybody letting on when I was walking the dog or just out on a walk with Mr F. I still say "morning" to random strangers if we pass on the street.
 
Well I am always friendly when approached, particularly for directions. Quite often spark up friendly conversations with strangers at the theatre too.

I CAN be an absolute twat at times, if the moment is right. But it’s rare.
 
95% of the replies to THIS random tweet certainly made me chuckle. Certainly not giving the rest of England a good name. But I think that’s just the state of Twitter :goodgrief:

 
It’s a cultural thing rather than a personality thing. Londoners have just learnt to ignore one another. You don’t know what language anyone speaks, and on average everyone is just BUSIER and in a RUSH so it has a knock on effect on the larger behaviour of people interacting. People have just learnt to keep well alone.

I LOVE London’s anonymity. It was what drew me there as I didn’t grow up in Liverpool city centre, I was in a suburb with the most intense small town mentality and it was suffocating. Anyone who grew up in a suburb will relate.
 
My experience of living in London for a while yonks ago was that people just seemed to get on with their daily lives and and not really bother with each other (which is perfect) but in instances where there had to be engagement were perfectly friendly and nice.

How do we gauge friendliness anyway? I don’t recall anyone ever blanking me if I had to ask them something.
 
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I think Londoners are just more efficient in their relationships than most other people. Why waste time with crappy small talk that is meaningless? I'm certainly not offended by being ignored by people I don't know - I'm relieved by it.
 
But zone 2 is essentially just one big GAIL’S now.
Have we discussed all the people getting a bee in their bonnet about Gail’s not being good enough for, er, Walthamstow :D
 
Is it the fact it's a chain people object to? That's what seemed to get people upset here.
 
I think these are two different things though. Customer service in London is better than it is in Amsterdam or Paris (if such a thing exists), but you could also spontaneously combust on the Underground and nobody would move except maybe to TUT at you.
Genuinely yesterday on the tube , someone fell arse over tit and nary a person moved nor cared. In my defence I'd just been standing for 5 hours though. A guy in a PARAMEDIC UNIFORM (I kid you not) appeared a good five miniutes later and wiped the floor around him using his SHOE:D, and not even the fallee acknowledged it. It was all so bizarre but equally so London.
 
Don’t find them particularly unfriendly just very stressed looking.
 
Have we discussed all the people getting a bee in their bonnet about Gail’s not being good enough for, er, Walthamstow :D

I’m noy saying Walthamstow doesn’t have it’s charms but the last time I was there was for a BACKSTREET WRESTLING MATCH.
 
Is it the fact it's a chain people object to? That's what seemed to get people upset here.

I read an article in The Guardian which suggested it was a mix of this, the general GENTRIFICATION chatter, with objections to the owner's political opinions thrown in.
 
Walthamstow is really rather nice these days. I have several friends who moved there and when I last went to visit it looked totally different to how it was years ago.
 
I can't say I've ever really noticed Londonners being especially unfriendly. That being said I don’t think Essex folk are especially cordial. Plus I've grown up with Londonners, so I don't really notice. The mostly East Londonners that have moved here by the thousands, I've mostly found quite affable.

I get that they're quite abrupt in the street, but I'd probably default to be that too it it was that busy. I'd be stressed if every journey was an endless series of connections. Although I found myself like that during tourist season in Brighton, and that had a totally different vibe.
 
I absolutely HATE Walthamstow, SORRY, and the gentrification is somehow making it even WORSE!
 

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