The Playground

Minnesotans can share their stories — but they need a little direction.

By: Alex Steil

I grew up in Minnesota, surrounded by Minnesota Nice, trained to have an easy conversation with anyone I shoulder-bumped in a crowd. I was shocked a year ago to read a social media post that declared Minnesotans unapproachable.

 “Minnesotans are closed off to their predisposed cliques,” it said. “Good luck trying to break in.”

I didn’t get it. My entire life, I felt comfortable going to concerts, dinners and other events knowing I could talk easily to the people around me. It was just natural. After all, it’s Minnesota Nice to chat with anyone.

But I read that post before I understood how Minnesotans act to “Them”:  It’s one thing to have a light chat. It’s another thing to sustain relationships with people who aren’t from Minnesota or even the transplants who have adopted this state as their home. This might apply to anyone who doesn’t know the story of the 1991 Halloween Blizzard.

No Minnesotan would come right and say it. We get a little exclusionary.

We don’t mean to be, though. What we need is for others to get us started.

We like to talk about what makes this state — our home — unique, but more importantly what makes it ours. Getting to know Minnesota on the level we do requires a little prodding to get us to actually sustain and deepen our Minnesota Nice toward others.

That was the first thing I did with a friend in college. Before even hearing her story, I gave her a tour of her mine. I took her out to dinner in Stillwater. I showed her the lift bridge I drive across when I need a break from everything.

From then on, showing her around became our thing. It was less personal than sitting and sharing our life stories during a walk in the park. Instead, I helped her see Minnesota as a place to call home.

She’s seen the Guthrie, the Chain of Lakes, the Ordway, Paisley Park, the High Bridge and every other landmark she needs to know. She also knew how to ask for more.

One night, on one of these drives, we were parked in a lot overlooking St. Paul. It was a clear night with the Cass Gilbert Capitol on the hill punctuated by James J. Hill-funded Cathedral across the highway. 

“I’m amazed,” she said. “Even after this long, you can still show me new things in this city.”

It was a moment of reflection for me. How could she have been here so long among so many so-called Minnesotans and not have seen this well-known place? I was a go-to spot. If, as I was supposed to think, Minnesota Nice was about extending oneself to others, why did she miss out on it?

Perhaps she was the rule, not the exception. She was a Them.

In reality, we’re Minnesota Nice to the first person who talks to us. We need to be engaged with before we become engaging.

This wasn’t my experience with residents from other states. The transplants from California were happy to talk about their state and town and friends without any real prompting. The newcomers from New Jersey talked about New York City and how happy they were to have lived just outside the city. They could assume everyone knew about the place they were from.

Missourians were easier to deal with. They just call themselves the armpit of the United States and leave it there.

But did these Minnesota transplants know anything about their new home?

Minnesota Nice is what I learned as a kid. My family talked with walkers at the park about the greenery. My dad always plowed our neighbors driveways who weren’t home during a snowstorm — and he always returned a bottle of rum to a neighbor who did the same. We engaged in small talk with people when it came up, always trying to steer it beyond a surface-level encounter.

This Minnesota Nice helped me learn the value of striking up a conversation in a communal setting. It was a Minnesotan upbringing. It has worked well for my own relationships — both with friends and passers-by. I can defend it.

But I also learned the other side of Minnesota Nice, what some call the darker side: I usually spent every other weekend with my grandparents and extended on a lake during the summer, but without friends or any real outsiders. We did have guests come over for dinner, but those were my parents’ high school or college friends. We addressed conflict, but we were always using a simple formula to calculate whether it was worth it to face it head on: did it pick my pocket or break my leg? If not, the conflict was set aside.

There are numerous accounts of transplants who move here and say they never really finish getting accustomed to their home. Some see it as cold, reserved or even creepy. As I see it, the latter is less Minnesota Nice and instead more Minnesota Nice. 

I have to start recognizing that not everyone understands Minnesota Nice. It’s not so much the second variation of Minnesotan culture is intentionally exclusionary. Rather, it’s demanding there be outreach from both sides every once and a while. Kind encounters will happen irregardless but they happen more, and one gets more out of them, when effort is put in equally.

But once you insert yourself as a Minnesotan, you’ll have to wait and see what happens.