New Yorkers: They still find D.C. wanting!

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So says the Washington Post's Monica Hesse, who today wrote about a gathering of transplanted New Yorkers, who deliver tired criticisms of D.C. — or any city that's not New York, for that matter: you can't eat on Metro, there's sales tax on newspapers, the bagels, oh gosh, the bagels.

But here's the thing, and I, a real New Yorker, want to be explicitly clear: These people are not real New Yorkers. They're Manhattanites. Even their name, Fellowship of Unassimilated Manhattan Exiles, admits that they're not New Yorkers. Yes, there's a difference between New Yorkers and Manhattanites; there's a huge difference. Real New Yorkers have lived some of their lives in the outer boroughs.

Manhattanites have a tendency to stay sheltered on their little island and rarely venture across the East River, except to get out of town. Ask them where you can find a street littered with excellent South American steakhouses (Northern Boulevard in Astoria) or where to find some of the best Jewish bakeries (Avenue M in Brooklyn), and you'll get ice-cold stares, or even worse, overpriced Manhattan imitations.

The discussion over New Yorkers whining about not being in New York is limited to Manhattan, where the sense of superiority gets retroactively infused into your DNA even if you've moved there). Now it's moved to Twitter, where some common ground can be found between Manhattan aesthetes, Brooklyn greasers, and D.C. losers: The whining is tired.