10 Reasons To Be In Love With Boston

Like many others, I spent four of my most formative and drunken years in a deeply involved love affair with Boston. In the wake of Monday’s tragedy, I’d like to present you with 10 reasons to appreciate the city that I never really left.

1. Compared to Boston, every other city looks like a homeless person who just threw up on himself. Boston is seriously so clean that it’s confusing. Trash remains inside bins and the cobblestone looks like you could lick it. I mean, you probably wouldn’t want to, but it’s nice to know that you could. Ya know?

2. It’s a great place to fall in love. I’ve done it, and I’ve watched many others do it. I recommend meeting someone in the fall, snuggling through winter, and then being publically and indulgently adorable in the spring. Summer is sweaty and disgusting though, so consider vacationing elsewhere before your relationship abruptly ends over how badly you smell. Seriously.

3. Its neighborhoods are unique and distinct and you should pay equal attention to all of them. Pet puppies in the South End! Purchase used books in Cambridge! Get pizza in the north end and then go to Allston to drink beer and throw it all up! You’ve got options, and they all provide their own unique appeal.

4. New York is exciting and LA is sunny, but Boston will effortlessly allow you to call it “home.” Enough said.

5. The public garden looks like it was designed by Tinker Bell. With its pixie blue bridge, swan-filled lake, and drooping willow trees, this park is a goddamn magical storybook fairyland. I want to be born, get married, have children, and then peacefully die inside of it all at the same time. I know that is a very big, weird statement, but that’s just how I feel.

6. If you love sports, welcome to your personal, fanatical heaven! If you hate them, there are so many things in this city to laugh at!

7. It’s delightfully digestible and comfortably medium-sized. The T quickly becomes second nature and getting from point A to point B is usually pretty easy, provided you’re not in a car. Don’t be in a car here. Ever.

8. There’s young people coming out of the woodwork. Which is great if you, too, are young. If you’re not, things might get weird for you. Sorry.

9. Yes, bars close at 2 A.M., but… New Yorkers, let’s take a poll: how many times have we all woken up super glad we stayed out until 4 A.M. taking three extra tequila shots, getting pizza all over our faces, and then vomiting everything up into our bathroom sinks? Not a ton of times? Yeah, that’s what I thought.

10. People like me have fled Massachusetts in order to build our lives, but we still feel Boston sitting inside of us. There’s no denying it: Boston’s in our blood as we ride the New York subway, sit in traffic on the 405, travel around the country and the world in search of adventure and contentment and meaning. We were young and stupid and delicate in Boston, and it was kind enough to cradle us. So here’s to you, Boylston Street – a huge chunk of my heart is still walking on your strong, awesome pavement. Thought Catalog Logo Mark

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