Beirut. It's more of a village, really. A variety of very specific social, economic and infrastructural factors in our tiny 10,452 km² means the spectrum of people you meet here is pretty limited – but still very rich!
1. The indie musician
The music scene if a very tight knit community in Lebanon, but also very widespread. You're always bound to find someone musically inclined in Beirut, because so many people are either in a band, forming a band or know where to see all the live bands.
Once you meet someone in a band, you suddenly know all the band members, and you'll probably start dating someone in a band. Then, for weeks on end, you meet the same people at the same types of gigs listening to people cover the same artists over and over again.
This kind of friendship is a vortex really.
2. The friend who lives in the middle-of-nowhere
Whenever you make plans in Beirut you always have to account for the one who live in the Mount Lebanon hinterlands. They're always complaining about you not making plans somewhere "near them". Except they live in the middle of nowhere.
If they don't know how to drive, making plans with them is nearly impossible, resigning them to a life of total obscurity. You make an active effort to remember them, but they soon drop off your social map. Ya haram.
If they do drive, they end up shuttling everyone around and turning into your adult life's school bus. Because nearly everyone is "on their way" -- it's logistically impossible for you not to be when they live so far away.
3. The gamers, ie Beirut society's ghosts
These are the people who are always at internet cafés either playing counter-strike or heroes of the storm on any night of the week. They're always there, and subsequently, they always smell like smoke, even if they never touched a cigarette in their lives.
There are also different communities, and wars between them, like PC gamers, Sony gamers, Nintendo gamers, etc...
There are even Facebook groups for gamers to come together because they're hard to find - because they're gaming all the time - but we know they're out there (or rather inside) somewhere.
4. The chronic protester
I think that many of the Middle East's relentless protesters got their training from having over-protective parents. How else can you have a normal life, if not by rebelling against your tiny, crazy domestic system?
In all seriousness though, these are the unsung heroes standing up to the thousands of political, social and economic injustices, while the rest of us struggle to piece our own lives together.
5. The Dubai-bound
These are the people who have family or friends in Dubai and travel there any chance they get. Don't even try to make plans with them whenever there's a 5 day holiday cause they've probably already packed their bags and have gone.
They flutter so frequently, they'll probably be gone and back again before you can say "Burj Khalifa."
6. The night-life lovers
The people who live for Friday/Saturday night-life of bars, drinking their worries away, singing rambunctiously and not having a care in the world.
They can be found frequenting Makdessi street or Mar Mikhael, staying in either one spot the entire night or hopping from one bar to the next.
7. Food festival fanatic
With the many food festivals here in Lebanon (Souk el Akl, Beirut Street Food Festival...) we produce many foodies.
A food festival is like Christmas to this person, and no matter how many nights the festival lasts, they'll probably be there every night, trying something new every day.