declining friendliness in Vancouver

I am finding Vancouver to be less friendly all the time. People are so concerned with having all the latest expensive stuff, showing off, expecting to be looked at in awe. Nobody smiles anymore, nobody looks at you, it's becoming easy to feel lonely here. I went to Portland Oregon recently. Holy smokes what a friendly easy going unpretentious bunch of people in that city. It was so wonderful. Let's all get smiling a bit more!

15 Comments

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Rachel M

Sep 1, 2016 at 3:32pm

A noted smiler by default.. I don't experience this, Sir (Madam, Other).
Put out what you want to receive - people warm up to you real quick.

Anonymous

Sep 1, 2016 at 3:33pm

I totally know what you mean. I commute through downtown Vancouver daily and a lot of days, I feel so surrounded by superficiality - it's really depressing. But there ARE pockets of amazing people. After I started volunteering for the Vancouver Fringe, I met soooo many great people - it's like they all stick together!

Sad

Sep 1, 2016 at 3:45pm

Yes Vancouver has gotten unbelievably unfriendly and pretentious in the last 10 years. Vancouver has this new shallow real estate inheritor class who are smug coddled by their parents , never had to work this wealth, they are vicious in their classism . This terrible class of people didn't even exist in the 1990s and now they run the show in Vancouver.

Zombies

Sep 1, 2016 at 3:47pm

I totally agree .People in Vancouver are so full of themselves it's sickening! it's all about I me and my. It's really becoming
a "zombie " like world .... Everyone glued to their cell phone .
This city has gone to shit .Too much immigration .So much
ignorance and rudeness you see in people every single day .
Disconnected and greed ...the real estate issues have just made it all worse .

Yep

Sep 1, 2016 at 4:41pm

Have you been living in a cave? This is not a recent thing.

You can blame it on materialism

Sep 1, 2016 at 4:52pm

But I say it's the fact that we've become a metropolis.... plus half (or maybe more by now) of Vancouverites aren't from Vancouver, so maybe they come from unfriendly cities.

no fun village

Sep 1, 2016 at 7:45pm

vancouvers toxic social environment is a big downer

Disagree

Sep 1, 2016 at 8:42pm

I get in conversations with strangers and they hold my hand warmly when we depart. There are people in Vancouver who are more than capable of sharing their thoughts and themselves with others.

Bitter local

Sep 1, 2016 at 9:33pm

I've lived here in Vancouver all my life, and I notice that even the hipsters around here are pretentious, self-absorbed and unfriendly. I'd gladly hang out with a Portland hipster any day!

I call bullshit

Sep 2, 2016 at 7:01am

Everywhere I go in Vancouver I find friendly people. People smile, say hi, chat to you when you're next to them on a bar stool. It's what you put out there. Yes it's hard just going out and making long term friends because everyone is busy in their life with work, family, friends, and other commitments. The problem with your comments is that you are comparing going on holidays and how you behave on holidays with everyday life. You can't compare. Act like you are on holiday in Vancouver and I bet you find that people react friendly to you. Give it a try. Instead of demanding people smile at you, why don't you smile first.

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