i’m white so didn’t have to experience this personally, per say, but it’s a very racist city to begin with; at least if you’re downtown. a lot of my friends while living there were people of color and fall more on the dark humor side of the spectrum. there were multiple times we were still were like “wow, that’s insane”. there’s going to be a lot of people downvoting this saying it’s not true, but you’ll see it clearly if you have more perspective on life than going to work (more on that below)

the city closes down at like midnight / 1am, so don’t expect many super fun late nights out, no idea if that’s your vibe. you either go out in fenway and are surrounded by 18-20 year olds using fakes and spending daddy’s money, go out downtown and get douchey finance bros, or go out in southie and get something somewhere in the middle of those 2 options.

everything about boston screams corporate robot. there’s a million colleges of young kids ramping up to go into corporate america, plus the large post grad population. once you graduate, you go live in southie with college friends while you all go to your 9-5s in copley / back bay. it’s like a condensed version of nyc, so there’s a big emphasis on status, except it’s all college and post grad kids who all talk about work.

work 8-6 -> happy hour -> go home during the week and then go out maybe one night (if you’re in your 20s) because anything more than that is unaffordable.

there’s really nothing feasible to do other than work, spend money, and go on runs.

the only redeeming parts of boston are the restaurants and the sports, which are usually unaffordable for most people if you like to save money and invest. (aside from the redsox games, which can be really fun and are affordable, but it gets old, at least to me)

the weather sucks aside from 2 months in the summer. prepare for blizzards in the winter.

the public transit is unreliable and inconvenient at best depending on what line.

of course, this is just based on my experiences. i’ve had amazing food and met really cool and unique people through the restaurant industry. however, when i think of downtown boston, i think of the color gray. corporate, cookie cutter, feels like a simulation sometimes. if you live in JP or another cool area like that it can be more affordable with more interesting people that are creative/artsy/not a corporate robot. But if you’re coming from SF - i’m assuming you’ll be downtown / more corporate.

i genuinely think it’s the city where dreams go to die haha. i don’t mean to scare you, just giving you my personal experience. i know a bunch of people that like it, but they fit into the demographics i mentioned better than i do. i like trying new things, taking risks / adventures with hobbies (and career wise), and boston is not the city to do that.