Imagine moving to New York City and realizing you don’t like it. If you told a neighbor you were planning on moving, would you feel insulted if they told you your hometown wasn’t a city, or would you accept their perspective that NYC is the only city?

In this story, one man is in this situation, and he is really confused by his neighbor’s definition of a city; however, his coworkers seem to think this definition is correct.

Let’s read all about it.

AITAH for calling my neighbor out of touch for saying NYC is the only real city?

A few years ago I moved to NYC from Milwaukee for work.

I don’t like it here very much, I get why others do but I’ll be moving back home when my lease ends.

I’m autistic and NYC is too much to handle, no offense.

He told his neighbor he plans to move.

I have a neighbor we’ll call Joe, he grew up in Middle Village where I currently live.

We were talking this morning and said I wanted to move back to Milwaukee since I do like big cities and was born there.

He said Milwaukee doesn’t really count as a city.

I asked him what Milwaukee is if it’s not a city.

Here’s Joe’s definition of a city…

And he said it’s just a town surrounded by bars, suburban sprawl and shootings. He said for it to be a city, it needs energy, culture and a transit system that actually works and only NYC meets those requirements.

I told him that definition just seems out of touch with what most would consider a city.

And he claimed I’m just being insecure.

He asked his coworkers who they think is right.

So I brought it up during my lunch and my coworkers who were on lunch with me generally feel like he’s right about NYC and Milwaukee but he didn’t need to say it to my face. And it was wrong for me to call his opinion out of touch.

Which I get, maybe we both should’ve just nodded politely or something.

I can completely understand why someone who has always lived in NYC would not consider Milwaukee a city. They’re quite different.

Let’s see how Reddit responded to this story.

This person knows how New Yorkers think.

This is a good point.

Surely the neighbor would admit that there are some other cities on par with NYC.

This person rants about New Yorkers.

Just because it has “city” in the name doesn’t mean it’s the only city!

If you enjoyed this story, check out this post about a cousin who had to stop loaning her keys after her family started to act like they co-owned her car.