My wife, who is a New Yorker turned Londoner, has said when relatives ask why she left that London frustrates her but New York makes her anxious and that she would rather be frustrated than anxious.
I lived there for a long time, but of the various cities I have lived in it's the only one I don't really miss even though it is probably the most important to who I am as a person.
It is a bit depressing when you suddenly realise that you are almost the only one left from what once was a big social circle from your country but then they've moved on and so have you. Would it be the same if you were all largely back somewhere you didn't like?
I'd be more a "hot, acrid aftertaste to New York" person myself, but then I was shocked at how unfriendly the place could be when I visited in 1996. Short of a light, I asked a woman for one in the street, and she handed over a matchbook while cutting me off in one smooth notion. The absolute waves of disdain I got made me retire to the place I was staying, hiding from the city.
Fortunately, it wasn't all like that then, or when I returned in 2024 with my wife and daughter. I can take it and leave it; daughter wants to visit again; wife never wants to return. Let's just say there's a hell of lot of untreated mental illness in the town.
My wife, who is a New Yorker turned Londoner, has said when relatives ask why she left that London frustrates her but New York makes her anxious and that she would rather be frustrated than anxious.
I lived there for a long time, but of the various cities I have lived in it's the only one I don't really miss even though it is probably the most important to who I am as a person.
It is a bit depressing when you suddenly realise that you are almost the only one left from what once was a big social circle from your country but then they've moved on and so have you. Would it be the same if you were all largely back somewhere you didn't like?
I'd be more a "hot, acrid aftertaste to New York" person myself, but then I was shocked at how unfriendly the place could be when I visited in 1996. Short of a light, I asked a woman for one in the street, and she handed over a matchbook while cutting me off in one smooth notion. The absolute waves of disdain I got made me retire to the place I was staying, hiding from the city.
Fortunately, it wasn't all like that then, or when I returned in 2024 with my wife and daughter. I can take it and leave it; daughter wants to visit again; wife never wants to return. Let's just say there's a hell of lot of untreated mental illness in the town.