What State is the Friendliest?
 

In my experience I have to go with Kentucky and Tennessee and Hawaii. And I'll have to admit that even though they're obsessed with their cars and cell phones...Californians are great, too.

Texans are pretty friendly....except when they are on the freeways.

I have lived in a few different states, and have been blessed to visit a great many more than that, I think that Minnesotans are among the nicest people I have been around. I lived away for a decade, and am happy to be back 'home' for almost five years now.

Come on over for a visit... don't forget to try our Wild Rice Soup, hee.
:)

The red ones.

Detroit.

I agree with jorr - Texas. Except, yes, those freeways! Why are such otherwise polite people such rude drivers??

Hawaii comes in a close second.

I agree with ahhnold, except for Michigan.

And I think that not entirely, but almost across the continent, the countryside is friendlier than the cities or the suburbs are within that same state or region- almost anywhere.

Kansas City is a very, very friendly city if you are a baseball fan- and so is Cleveland.

My favorite will always be NYC with San Fran coming in a close second.

And those would be cities, not states ;)

The state of inebriation!!

No, the BLUE ones.

There IS NO friendliest state. States are only geographic areas. People are the same all over. I don't recall if it was Mark Twain or Will Rogers who told the story about the guy sitting on his front porch and two different people stop to ask what the people in that town are like.

In both cases, the old man asks what the people were like in the visitors' home town. One tells how great they were, the other complains how bad they were.

In both cases the old man replies that the people in his town are just like that too.

Do you lie awake concerned about this?

I thought it was Texas until I went to Alaska in June.

Wrong rb, people are not the same all over.

There are friendly people in every state, but I have encountered much more courtesy and neighborly acts in Iowa than my native and current state of Massachusetts.

Haven't been to every state yet, but of the ones I have been to, Texas gets my vote. The folks in Hawaii do run a very close second, though.

"Texans are pretty friendly....except when they are on the freeways."

I see the perfect example when I look into the mirror. Not rear view mirror, but regular one.

And I'm not always friendly on this board either. ;)

I've lived in several states in the Eastern half of the US and visited most of the 50. Tiff is right, Minnesotans are pretty nice. But Ahhnold has it pegged - Iowa.

My DH and I always describe the difference with the "car in the ditch" theory, which goes like this:

If you put your car in the ditch at 4 a.m. during a Minnesota blizzard, the farmer will come with his tractor and pull you out - no problem.

If you put your car in the ditch at 4 a.m. during an Iowa blizzard, the farmer will come with his tractor and pull you out.

Then he'll invite you into his home where his wife will cook you breakfast, he'll introduce you to his daughter and urge you to stay for lunch.


Ahhnold knows that I am NOT exagerrating.

I had to stop at a gas station in DEs Moines for directions. The guy showed me on the map where to go,opened the door for me and waved goodbye as I drove away.

No, not all people are the same.

Very few people in Massachusetts will go out of the way to help you.

And Des Moines is considering relatively "unfriendly" by most Iowans.

City people. Hrumpph.

Totally disagree with rb, people are not all the same everywhere, especially in their social constraints and what they consider friendliness.

And it isn't anything I or tracys2cents lie awake over, just another Fodor's query. And I myself, like it when people who live locally share themselves, even with a few words. Or go out of their way to help or guide me. And like to hear about places where people feel that this is the norm. I love this kind of question because it helps me find another Kansas City.

Friendliness is subjective.

I take it to mean that people will talk to me and interact personally to me on what I would judge is a pleasant and mannerly (even joyful) scale. It doesn't mean I LIKE that place, or feel that I mesh with the location at all over others.

Blue states' populations love to love people in the abstract, IMHO. They don't for the most part, person to person, want to graduate to the personal, in your face, level.

Red states' folks tend to different modes, but almost all have a real tendency to "see" you there. And smile or talk to YOU. That's what I consider friendliness. Mississippi was outstanding, Texas is as well.

In Kansas City I have had two different families in the ball park ask us home to dinner later that day. REALLY! It will never happen at Yankee Stadium. I tried to talk to a girl there and she acted like we were stalkers.

I just did think of a possible exception. Some of the SW states can be very stand-offish- or at least they were to us after the "scale" of what we experienced in the south.

Hawaii sounds excellent. I wish I knew.

JJ5 is right. In my younger years growing up in Boston, I could try to strike up a conversation with any girl from the most drop dead gorgeous right up to the girl with a fat ass, and they all ignore you as if they are a super model(yes, even the fat one).

When I was in college, somewhere in the midwest, any girl would at least, shall we say, give you the time of day for lack of a better term.

Needless to say I married a girl from the midwest.

Lots of gross generalizations here! Just wondering how many states y'all have been in who are condemning states by whether they are red or blue...Ahhnold, been to Oregon and Washington, lately? We're very friendly here, and quite blue. (Well, not blue, in spite of the weather - you know what I mean!)

Really, this question is very hard to answer. I'd say you can find friendly people most anywhere. I think that, in big cities all over the world, people adopt a disinterested look so they don't get hassled by weirdos, who, based on the sheer number of people around, are present in greater quantity.

Yes, there are regional differences, but really, the people in the US are pretty darn friendly all over (big cities possibly excepted, as noted above).

On second thought, reading that last post, Ahhnold, we aren't THAT friendly!!!

WorktoWander and others, how about this true story (last week):

Three guys, who are totally unknown to me but just see me mostly at a roadside "hi" distance, show up at my frozen closed up house in a blizzard- get a key from a neighbor- sit there with the space heater THEY brought with them to get the temp up indoors to 60 degrees. Leave one of their number there. Come back every day for 3 days. Get the part at a location 45 miles away, and put it in the furnace and then TELL me (the owner) that I can pay them when I see them. REALLY! That's the way it is if you say "Hi" there and communicate (rural Michigan).

In Chicago the first hour would have been $80, and I would have had a pipe-busted wreck of a house anyway.

All is well now plus they only want to take $40 when they "see" me.

When I am incredulous at the time and attention people normally give each other, even those considered strangers, I am reminded how many things I myself probably have taught myself not to "see". And this isn't in the abstract but in eyeball distance.

Somebody very "friendly" noticed that the snow wasn't melting where it should have been. Now that's friendly in every sense.

orcas, I go to Oregon twice a year and it is not as liberal as massachusetts.

you did strike down gay marriage with a vote, correct? Well in Mass. we can't even get it to a vote.

Orcas, I meant that literally. Nothing out of the gutter.

You know the saying, "She wouldn't even give me the time of day", meaning not even acknowledge someone.

ahhnold, Somehow, I don't get the link between a place being friendly or not, blue or red, and gay marriage.

I do think that, were I African American or Hispanic, I might not think rural areas were so doggone friendly.

PS. I live in Washington now, though I'll still claim Oregon, too as it is in my heart. Due to our political structure, the legislatures in our two Pac NW states are heavily skewed to the less liberal conservative areas of the states which contain a very small percentage of the population.

So what is this silly stuff about which state is the friendliness? My ideal "state" has no borders. Is this a question of who smiles at you at the service station and says "y'all come back?" Or is it the superficial fuzzy friendlenss of folks who smile but won't really accept you as a friend
"because you aren't from around here"? Or is it a real concern for someone's welfare despite a seemingly aloof manner? Or is it in being gay friendly, meaning a genuine acceptance of LGBT folks as friends?

ozarksbill

Orcas you are buying into another generalization altogether. My town of Cassopolis in MI is about 60% African-American, and many of the small towns in the South are the same.

And believe me in Chicago there are areas which I frequent that are nearly 80 to 90% Hispanic and that I find are extremely unfriendly towards me in my commuting experience. My brother can't even get directions from anyone when he asks and he speaks Spanish, nearly fluently.

And it isn't just the people in the cities. All our suburbs are mostly user unfriendly as well. People are walking around with "lists" in their heads, achieving /getting ahead- driving a child, you name it, and don't feel they have any time for anyone or anything much beyond their own limited and usually selfish agendas. All overbooked too, for the most part. They seem to not have time to even "smile" outside of their circle. Manners and much more are considered time wasters. And friendly people "weirdos".

I've seen a woman down a small ravine in a near blizzard with the cars passing by at the rate of 20 to 40 a minute- as if she wasn't there. And when I got her a phone, it was still barely hello/goodbye.

Friendly is pleasantly acknowleging strangers, having the good manners to treat everyone pleasantly (whether you like them or not) and going out of your way to help.

Like my father who traipses down the road, across a bridge spanning a canal and up two blocks. He stops at each lakeside summer mansion along the way to check the thermometers he's asked the residents to leave visible through the windows so he can make sure no pipes are freezing. At 65, he does this daily throughout the winter months for these acquaintances.

And for the one guy who cheaped out on the thermometer he put up to protect his multimillion dollar home? It didn't work. Dad bought and installed a good one and didn't say a word to him.

All of his wealthy "summer friends" reciprocate by not calling the cops on his friendly, wandering black Lab who makes daily begging rounds.

Friendy manners grow everywhere. They're just a little thicker on the ground in some places.

Tell us more stories of random acts of friendliness - it's so much more fun than what we're starting to do here.

Just like life, you can't have the peaks without the valleys.

I lived in TX 6 years--I would not describe Texans as friendly. I will leave it at that. Coloradoans are a friendly sort, as well as Hawaiians. But it is all subjective isn't it? And based on your own personal view of what it means to be "friendly" to someone.

I find people immensely friendly in my current state of residence, WI. To focus on Worktowander's call for random acts of friendlinesss--I have seen a lot here. For example, our first winter here a neighbor that we hadn't met plowed our driveway for the entire season. I still don't know why! He still does it when we can't get to it right away. Also, I find people go out of their way to help you here, be it at a grocery store, retail store, gas station, etc. Another example, I once dropped a $20 bill in our mall and someone saw it and returned it to me immediately.

We always plow our neighbors out if we get to the piles first- but we all have snow blowers. My Dad had a man shovel his walk in the city of Chicago all the time without even asking and it was just man/shovel power. But no more, he moved.

On the other hand and in the same vein, we all had to shovel out parking spots within Chicago, and many would put chairs or furniture in the freezing street so no one else could park there. It got to be like turf wars. That's not friendly, in any sense.

MN, IA, WI are friendly, especially in the country. IN is in areas, they even have Hoosier Helpers on the highways.

CO has been friendly to us sometimes and in some areas, but not all.

I'll throw in a "random acts of kindness" story here. And this is from the big city of Chicago, so I'll sort of contradict what I said about big cities not being so friendly here. It just depends....

My father was injured in a car accident in midlife and in a wheelchair thereafter. He lived in on the southside of Chicago in a neighborhood where the majority of people were African-American. Once, before there were curb cuts everywhere, he tried to go over a broken curb to get to the street level and cross, and he was pitched out of the wheelchair into the street. A couple of African American guys eating in a restaurant across the street saw this happen through the window and came running out to help him back into his chair. Maybe white folks would have done the same, but I will say that, in general, we noticed people who were African American went out of their way to be helpful and kind to him in his wheelchair. Strangers would even invite him to join them in family barbeques when he'd go on walks through the neighborhood parks, quite frequently, in fact. And that's the truth!

Orcas: it may have been more to do with their economic status. I've found that the least affluent people usually (not always) to be the most willing to share things and help others. Maybe because that's just how things happen in those social circles; you don't have money to "hire someone". You help your neighbor and pray the favor will be returned when you need aid. Sometimes our finacial riches tend to shield us from our human riches.

I've bicycled across the US twice and gone ME to FL once, and other shorter east coast trips a number of times. Seldom have I met unfriendly people. I do grant that being on a bicycle makes me more "approachable" than someone in a car ... but I still maintain there's lots of friendly people everywhere and that no state has a monopoly on them. Yes, some cities the people are often busy and often don't offer, but they don't don't usually ignore when asked.

Too many generalizations in this entire thread, including mine!

Generalizations get a bad rap. Without generalization every human would need to reconstruct their entire reality every day. Almost like re-inventing fire every time you went to cook.

Especially in subjective things like rating "style" or evaluating something that is rather abstract like friendliness- you aren't measuring in exacts.

Something isn't bad just because it has too many generalizations within it. Another value judgment- mine.

Opinions are opinions- they should be able to be expressed without censuring- but as opinions.

I know one thing, and that is that I'd rather be walletless and a victim of misfortune, where people notice and aren't having to be defensive. And that goes for the good times then, as well.

rb_travellerx, I agree with your generalizations about social class and the extention of kindness. I found this also true in Europe years ago when I visited as a single young adult. The less money the people had, the more generous they were to me. Very interesting.

Yes, rb, probably very true. And they almost always have time to extend for the process of friendliness itself.

My top 3:

1. Oklahoma. Great people, very friendly, and they really value relationships. These are people who are not only nice to your face, but back it up with nice gestures.

2. Minnesota. Very friendly people who have that sixth sense of knowing when someone needs help. I've never seen people who value community more than Minnesotans.

3. Colorado. Maybe it has something to do with all that sun. Coloradans aren't "go out of their way to help you" friendly like OK and MN, but a few days there and you'll realize that everyone just seems to be polite, happy, and nice to each other.

StephCar pegged Texas... maybe it is friendly on the surface, but once you spend serious time there your opinion changes dramatically. And I'll leave it at that.

The friendliest states I've encountered are Louisiana, Nebraska, and Alabama.

I happen to have blue state political beliefs but live in a somewhat red state (louisiana). I think there is something to be said for the friendliness quotient in the blue states versus the red states.

But I think that has more to do with the urban v. rural issue- blue states have more of their population in cities, while red states are more rural. Therefore, I think the friendliness is really a rural v. city thing.

Yee Haw, Alabama!! Belle