Why You Shouldn't Mock Suburbanites Who Say They're From the City

An American woman in a crowded London bar asks the American man she's just met: "Where are you from?" He sips his drink and replies, "Boston." They are far from the U.S., after all, so specifics don’t really matter. But the woman presses: Where in Boston? She loves Boston. Her mom grew up in Newton, and her aunt still lives in Somerville. The guy, reddening, fumbles: "Well, not too­­­ far from there, sort of north of Boston ... I'm from Maine, actually. Southern Maine."

It's a social practice as common as air: using a major city as a proxy when telling a stranger where you're from. At simplest, it's a matter of convenience; it can indeed be easier, and faster, to tell someone whom you assume does not know the intricacies of New England that you're from Boston, when in fact you're from Cumberland, Maine, 109 miles northeast of the city. Or, more often, an adjoining suburb or exurb.