Are people in Milan nice?

I am from Venice and I have traveled quite a lot and I think Milanese people are a special breed of humans: they are amazing.

Milan is Italy’s business pivotal center so you will find a huge community of Italians coming from every region (North, Center and South): so much so that real 100% Milanese people are actually not that common!

It is difficult to generalize, but Milanese people tend to be:

a. Very focused on their job and career prospects.

b. They all want to make good money (i.e. better money compared to their peers, at least).

c. They “never” stay in Milan over the weekends as they always take the car and go either to the beaches in Liguria (during Summer-time) or to the Alps (during Winter-time). Milan (particularly the city center and during summertime) is beautiful over the weekends as it is basically empty, I’m not kidding.

d. Some of them are incredibly wealthy but their wealth is incredibly understated. Those with flashing cars and the usual expensive watch are usually either the football players or not that rich as it may appear.

e. They rarely socialize out of their usual group of friends: Milanese “friends” go to holiday together, find their partner exclusively among their group of friends, oftentimes work together or have businesses together, etc. If you are not from their group it is almost impossible to gain their trust and become one of them (this is a common trait of Northern Italian people, not just Milanese, but I think that with Milanese people this trait is particularly exacerbated). Exceptions apply in case you are particularly famous and/or rich: in that case they will come to you first.

f. They are extremely careful about their look: a Milanese woman would not even dare to go food shopping downstairs without being 100% perfect in her look. This also applies to Milanese men (within reason).

g. For unknown reasons, they are / pretend to be always in a rush to do something or go somewhere. It is true

h. Socially they rarely make the first step to make (or keep) contact: if you want a Milanese friend you need to work damn hard! They naturally do not seem interested (they have their own circles of friends dating back to at least their high-school years and they are totally happy with them).

i. Politically, they can veer from being extremely conservative to extremely liberal but, in general, politics are not their focus of interest.

l. They only buy German cars (no other option is even remotely taken into consideration). On a September Sunday night, the interminable line of Audis, Mercedes and BMWs coming back from Liguria is (metaphorical) illuminating of the Milanese lifestyle.

m. In Milan, they always commute with their scooter. While commuting, they stay on the phone (uninterruptedly) with someone at work or with their partner.

n. They like to travel to remote places during summer. Nevertheless, they think that Milan is special and whenever they are abroad they keep talking about how things are better in Milan, how they miss Milan, etc.

o. They can be occasionally very generous but also incredibly self-centered. Some of them can spend their weekends to help the poor or the homeless and some others can forget to come to your wedding because they are working too hard.

p. For reasons that I am not really able to grasp, they are very proud to never socialize with the neighbors and to never even know their names even after decades of living next to each other.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.