New York Hustle

Should we be worrying about our hurrying? By [Jeanne Martinet ] On Amsterdam Avenue, I watched a homeless man approach a briskly walking passerby. The homeless man held up his hand and opened his mouth. It sounded as if he had a heavy accent; he spoke haltingly, laboriously. Slowly, he began, â??Excuseâ?¦ meâ?¦ canâ?¦ youâ?¦? The passerby, a tall man in a camel hair coat, looked exasperated. â??Listen, fella, let me give you a helpful tip, he told him. â??You gotta spit it out. Just go ahead and ask! You"ll never get anywhere this way. Amazed at this exchange, I couldn"t help wondering: Are New Yorkers in such a rush that we are even telling our homeless people to hurry up? Although the image of the rude, harried New Yorker is a widespread stereotype, I actually don"t believe New Yorkers are ruder than anyone else. But we are definitely more in a hurry. One reason for this is that walking is an integral part of our mass transit system; when we walk, we are traveling to somewhere, not just strolling for fun. It may seem as though we are always rushing, but we are merely trying to get to where we are going in an efficient and timely manner. So much of our lives are spent stuck on trains and buses, over whose locomotion we have no control, that when we finally get to the sidewalk, we tend to book. The impatience we feel, as pedestrians, is a close cousin to the impatience other people may feel when they find themselves in a traffic jam on the highway, especially if that traffic jam is caused by something unnecessary, like rubbernecking. (Tourists and New Yorkers are often in direct conflict: Tourists want to look at the city; we just want to get to our jobs, our schools or our doctors" appointments.) Our heightened sense of pace is also the result of many people sharing a relatively small space; the â??crowd factor creates a sense of urgency. There are always lines to wait in, crowds to navigate through. We are forced to really focus. The sheer amount of bodies makes everyone feel that they have to expend a lot of energy to get anywhere or get anything done. In fact, one of the side effects of big city life is we don"t feel as if it is right to dilly-dally in line. There are usually people waiting behind us. There is no time to chat with the check-out person, or search for the exact change. (I myself feel guilty looking for change for more than 10 seconds.) Recently, a friend of mine told me about being in a crowded cafe waiting for a table. There were other table-less people hovering nearby, so when two women paid their bill, got up from a table and began to put on their coats, my friend quickly approached and slipped her purse onto the back of one of the chairs. One of the women gave her a dirty look. â??Oh, aren"t you leaving? said my friend, taken aback. â??Well, we haven"t left yet! said one of the women in a huffy tone. My friend was surprised, as this type of table-saving behavior is fairly normal for New Yorkers0ˆ  in a cafe where there is a lot of competition for the tables. Similarly, one time a friend and her daughter were visiting me from out of town. It was Saturday night; we had just been to a Broadway show, and it was pouring rain. Trying to get a cab just as all the shows on 45th Street let out at once was like trying to lasso a bucking bronco. I grabbed my friends" hands and started walking up Eighth Avenue, in order to get away from the glut of cab-seekers. â??Where are you going? said my friend. â??Let"s just stay here and wait our turn. â??Are you kidding me? We"ll be here forever, I protested. â??No, there"s a system, she insisted. â??People will go in order, don"t worry. Right. The system was that we stood there in the rain while people jumped in front of us and grabbed every approaching taxi, until finally I convinced my friend to walk north four blocks to a less frantic spot. Still, this was not about New York rudeness. It was just that New Yorkers are in a hurry. Because of this, you have to be on your toes if you want to reach your goal. On the other hand, as it turned out, that impatient passerby on Amsterdam did in fact end up giving the slow-speaker a dollar. The panhandler"s strategy worked after all's even if it was not, perhaps, executed in a New York minute. _ [ Jeanne Martinet](http://JeanneMartinet.com), aka Miss Mingle, is the author of seven books on social interaction. Her latest book is a novel, Etiquette for the End of the World. You can contact her at [JeanneMartinet.com.](http://JeanneMartinet.com)