I moved from the Midwest to the East Coast - here are 6 cultural differences that still confuse me

I still remember my first morning walk in my new East Coast neighborhood. I stepped outside with my coffee, ready to greet a neighbor like I would have back home. The woman walking her dog looked at me like I'd just proposed marriage, gave a curt nod, and hurried past.

That was just the beginning.

After spending most of my life in the Midwest, relocating to the East Coast felt like landing in a parallel universe where everyone spoke the same language but followed completely different social rules. The adjustment has been humbling, confusing, and occasionally hilarious.

Even now, years later, I still find myself caught off guard by cultural differences I didn't see coming. Here are six that continue to confuse me, no matter how long I live here.

1) Everyone walks at warp speed

During my first week after relocating, I found myself on a crowded sidewalk moving at what I thought was a perfectly reasonable pace. Someone huffed past me, shooting an annoyed glance backward. Then another person. And another.

Back in the Midwest, walking from the parking lot to the grocery store was a leisurely experience. You might even nod at someone or comment on the weather. Here on the East Coast, pedestrians move with purpose and urgency, like they're perpetually late for something critically important.

The pace extends to driving too. On Midwestern highways, going five over the speed limit felt rebellious. Here, if you're not doing at least ten over, you're getting tailgated and honked at. Everything operates at this frantic tempo that still catches me off guard.

What really gets me is that this hurried energy doesn't seem tied to actual time constraints. People rush through a casual Saturday morning coffee run with the same intensity as a weekday commute. It's like speed is just the default setting.

2) Small talk with strangers is basically nonexistent

I learned this one the hard way at the farmers' market where I volunteer every Saturday. I started chatting with someone in line about the heirloom tomatoes, asking where they were from and making friendly conversation the way I always had.

The person gave me a tight smile, answered in as few words as possible, and immediately looked down at their phone. The interaction felt so cold that I wondered if I'd somehow offended them.

In the Midwest, people are notably friendly and polite with strangers, striking up conversations about nothing in particular. It's just what you do while waiting in line or riding an elevator. On the East Coast, that same behavior reads as intrusive or weird.

I've stopped trying to make small talk with people I don't know. Now I understand that keeping to yourself isn't rudeness, it's just the regional norm. But honestly? I still miss those random little connections with strangers that used to brighten my day.

3) The bluntness took serious adjustment

During a work meeting shortly after I arrived, a colleague responded to my suggestion with a flat "That won't work" before immediately moving on to their own idea. No softening language, no "I appreciate your input, but." Just direct rejection.

I spent the rest of that meeting wondering what I'd done wrong and if this person disliked me. Later, I realized they were simply being efficient and honest. There was no personal attack, no judgment of me as a person. They just disagreed with my idea and said so.

Midwestern communication tends to be more indirect and cushioned. We say things like "I'm not sure that's the best approach" when we mean no. We apologize before disagreeing. We soften everything to avoid seeming rude or confrontational.

East Coast directness is actually refreshing once you adjust to it. There's less guessing about where you stand. But in those early months, I constantly felt like I was being criticized or dismissed when people were just being straightforward.

4) Public transportation is a whole different world

I took my first train ride at age 38, which tells you everything about how rarely Midwesterners use public transit. Growing up, driving was the only option for getting anywhere. My identity was tied to my car in ways I didn't even realize.

On the East Coast, trains are extremely popular and people regularly take them to cities like New York and Boston. Everyone around me referenced train schedules and subway lines like it was second nature. I had to learn an entirely new transportation vocabulary.

The real cultural shift isn't just the logistics of public transit. It's the way people interact in these shared spaces. The unspoken rules about where to stand, whether to make eye contact, how to handle crowding during rush hour. All of it was foreign to me.

I've come to appreciate not needing a car for everything, especially given my concerns about environmental impact. But I still sometimes miss the privacy and control of driving myself everywhere.

5) Work-life balance tilts heavily toward work

After nearly twenty years as a financial analyst before transitioning to writing, I thought I understood long work hours and career ambition. But the East Coast takes it to another level.

In the Midwest, people generally worked their jobs and then went home to their families and personal lives. Work was important, but it wasn't your entire identity. Here, everyone seems to lead with their career when introducing themselves at social gatherings.

The East Coast has a work-life balance that favors careers and professional progress, while Midwesterners view relationships and personal connections as more important. I see this constantly. Dinner plans get cancelled for work obligations without much guilt. Weekend emails are expected and answered.

This shifted when I left my corporate job to write full-time, but I still feel the cultural pressure. The constant hustle, the idea that you should always be working toward the next big thing, the sense that leisure time is somehow wasteful. It's exhausting in a way Midwest work culture never was.

6) People aren't as automatically nice, but they're not actually mean

My partner Marcus and I met at a trail running event back when I still lived in the Midwest. When he visited me during my first few months on the East Coast, he immediately noticed what I'd been struggling to articulate. "Nobody smiles here," he said.

He was right. Service workers don't greet you with warm hellos. Cashiers don't ask how your day is going while scanning your groceries. New Englanders tend to be standoffish compared to the extremely polite Midwest, and this comes across as coldness when you're not used to it.

But here's what I've learned: once you actually get to know East Coasters, they're just as warm and genuine as anyone from the Midwest. The difference is that friendliness isn't performed for strangers. It's reserved for people who've earned it through actual relationship building.

There's something authentic about this approach, even if it feels unwelcoming at first. People aren't putting on a show of niceness. When someone is kind to you here, it's real, not a social obligation.

Final thoughts

In my quiet moments, usually during my early morning trail runs before the city fully wakes up, I sometimes wonder if I'll ever stop feeling like an outsider here. The landscape is different, the social rules are different, even the rhythm of daily life moves to a different beat.

But adaptation is part of growth, right? I've spent years studying human behavior and psychology, and I know that cultural discomfort means I'm expanding my worldview. These differences that still confuse me are teaching me to question my assumptions about the "right" way to interact with the world.

Some days I miss Midwest warmth and easy friendliness so much it physically hurts. Other days, I appreciate the efficiency and directness of my new home. Both places have their strengths and frustrations. Both have shaped who I am.

The truth is, I'm still figuring this out. Maybe that's okay. Maybe being perpetually a little confused by the cultural differences just means I'm paying attention to the nuances that make each region unique. And if nothing else, it's given me endless material to reflect on during those long solo runs where I do my best thinking.