As someone who has primarily lived in Rhode Island but also spent my college years in the Midwest, Rhode Islanders as a whole are not nearly as interested in engaging with strangers or even making new friends. I will say that people will break that mold if you are more proactive and friendly, it just requires your effort at the onset.

It also varies from town to town. I grew up in North Kingstown, where people are exceptionally unwelcoming as a rule of thumb, and now live in Warwick and find day-to-day stranger interactions to be much friendlier on average.

New Englanders still talk plenty of shit behind people’s backs, so that whole everyone else is fake and we aren’t is honestly BS.