I was recently visiting WeHo, where I may be moving, and was talking briefly to a young hispanic man at Motherlode, just to ask a question, he looked me up and down and in my mid-sentence, simply shook his head and looked back down to continue scrolling on his phone.

JD Vance. Trump. Rude people. Golf fans at the Ryder Cup.

When I first moved to NYC in my twenties, everyone was rude. This was notorious in New York. I went, for example, on time to get some spirit gum at a make-up shop. The woman behind the counter gave me that, plus something I didn't need. I said, "Do I need this other product, too?" She merely shrugged. I dropped off a sweater at a dry cleaners as it had lost a button. I said to the guy, "Is it possible to get it back by the end of the week?" He threw the button at me. Another time, I was looking at a stool in furniture store in Greenwich Village. There was a huge scratch on the surface. I said, "Can I get a discount? It's scratched?" He snorted, "I have other stools."

It was shocking for this Texas boy to face such rude people. I vowed I would change New York. Now, maybe I'm a complete narcissist. But when I left New York, sixteen years later, New York had indeed changed. I like to think I had something to do with this.

I was polite to (nearly) everyone. And I tend to think, like a pebble in a pond, that that made a difference. I always said please and thank you to subway attendants. I was a waiter so I was overly-nice to wait staffs. I made friends in my acting classes, local churches, and stage plays.

When I moved to Chicago, in 2020 which is a bit odder than NYC, I didn't have the patience to try and change that city. Many guys I dated were flakes, socially people rarely retuned my phone calls, I did do some stand up comedy, and that community was very nice, but I think that's because they were mostly depressed.

If I do indeed move to West Hollywood as is my plan next year, I truly hope I don't become rude like most of its citizens. San Diego was recently named the most friendly place in the USA, but there's nothing for me in SD. So moving there is really out of the question.

What's very funny to me is how clueless the WeHo girls are. I have a few friends who live there. One friend, who bluntly made fun of me as if we were in high school with his fellow WeHo mates, pointed at a sweater tied around my waist and said, "We don't do that in WeHo." When I told him, a few weeks later, that I didn't like the attitude in WeHo he shrugged and said, "Just ignore the young ones. They're diamonds in the rough." I wanted to explain that I meant people like him, but I bit my tongue.

Another guy, a hairdresser, who I and a Saudi friend chatted with at Gym Bar was so bitter, negative and cynical I almost couldn't stand it. I finally blurted out, "I may be moving to the neighborhood next year, but I really hope I don't become cynical like so many of its people." He, too, shrugged and said, "You gotta ignore them. That's what I do. And that takes a tough skin." A little too tough for my taste.

So I hope, like a fish in water, I don't become cynical. I guess if I do, I won't realize it.