I Hate Seattle

I hope that if you know anyone you care about or meet anyone, that is vulnerable, a sensitive type person, and they are wanting to move here, that you will stop them. They may kill themselves.

I have owned a small business here in the higher end part of the U district for about 16 years. It used to be fun. The people used to be nice....well, the young guys still are sort of nice..it's the middle aged hags out there that are out of their minds with self love. I have a job that's fun.....nothing too extreme...but, in the end, product has to be perfect. The female customers that I've had for the last 16 years are still great..it's the new breed of women that are killing my spirit. I am high energy, wear bright clothing and talk to everyone about everything. Alot of people have told me that I don't belong in Seattle....I am more of a Southern girl...kind(mostly), gentle(mostly)..outgoing. I tried like heck to make it work ..I did....but lately, I've just been beaten up one too many times by smart a** ugly women that think their time is more valuable than mine. If I get one more hand in the face in the middle of one of my sentences..I'll scream..(they have to answer their phones, you know). Or..."I can't wait for you to do your job...I have kids in the car."..hurry hurry hurry.What the heck is the rush? I'm tired fo the fake friendliness that seems to be the norm here in Seattle. I'm tired of the RAIN..the gloom..the lack of friendships.. the jealousy..the miserable way women dress...(sloppy fleece..Oh Yeah!!! and they wonder why they're single?) I'm tired of the road rage...I'm tired of the rage against me as a Christian...(my fish symbol really gets people angry)..WHY??? I'm tired of the insulting way people talk to each other here...snippy snippy snippy. I'm tired of everone here thinking this hell hole is the BEST place on God's green earth to live..."Why on earth would you want to move?) Her's a tip Seattle..When it comes to driving....The lane on the far left..isn't a lane to mosey on down the highway in..it's a PASSING lane. Pass and then move over. (move over?) Ever been to England?? Get a clue people!! Don't honk your horn at me when I'm at a cross walk..letting someone actually cross. I've been road raged by a smart car..a smart car..raging against my pickup truck? I've also been raged against by a cyclist...he thumped his wheels into the back of my BMW sports car....that worked!! I'm tired of the "I'm better than you" attitude that all the young/middle aged women have here. I was single again at the age of 40...I had NO problem getting dates. Guys thought my personality was fun and festive. But all I hear is these women complain that they can't get a date...Well..there is some truth to that I guess. Some of the guys here in Seattle could use some good old fashioned mid west influence!! Go eat a steak, buy a gun, lift some weights, get a tan, get outside and get away from your iphones and computers. Stop asking young girls to "hang out"..Call them up..go on a date...grow some ba**s...be a man!!!! Open up a door for a lady...and you young gals...try being ladies. Have some self restraint...don't give it all away the first week. The conversations I hear are amazing! Financially..Seattle is DOOMED!!!!! The taxes keep getting higher, the debt keeps growing, nothing is going to be done with that death trap called the viaduct. The 520 bridge is soon to be tolled..that's going to be GREAT!!! The roads are in disrepair..try going aroun Lk. Washignton Blvd...right past the Arboretum....POT HOLE CITY. Good Grief. Ms. Gregoire will do her best to make WA ST look just like California...financially. We Are Broke..Seattle!!!! I like Starbucks, though. But don't go for the coffee!! It tastes burnt. I like chai tea lemonade..and the coffee cake. If everyone treated each other like the workers do at Starbucks..we'd be a much friendlier place. Instead of What Would Jesus Do? ..could Seattlites possibly embrace the notion of What Would Barristas Do? I'm going back East.....Hopefully I can find a farmhouse tucked in a cornfield somehwere...me, my husband, my dog, my bible and my gun.....Did that make you angry??? If I was a Starbucks, would you want to throw a rock through my window? Like the liberal "no gun" protester that smashed Starbuck window in Leschi? (And dowsed the front with red paint??) That is the real problem the IS Seattle. It's Filled to the brim with Liberals that stand for free speech, human rights, anti-violence...until they need to make a statement against violence -with violence. Passive aggressive, violent, rushed, angry, unfufilled, arrogant,holier than though, faith hating, mean spirited people..(not everyone). I need to be quiet now. My unders have gotten into a bunch, and now I need to go cool off.

I have to say that this city is the worst if not thee worst city to live in. It breeds stupidity. Everything in this city just doesn't make sense from the driving style and it's environment, to the attitudes, and finally the weather. I moved here with my wife and kids in 07 and I'm so glad to be outta here in a month. Growing up in San Francisco I thought that moving here from Vancouver Wa. could be my home away from home. WRONG!!! Far from it. I never thought I could hate a place more than Vancouver. Now that I think about it, we were spoiled in Vancouver. It was a choice between moving back to the bay area or here because our friends talked us into it. Those friends are no longer friends of ours. I can vouch for everyone saying the passive aggressiveness that people from here have and those so called friends had it and then some. Let me start with the basics. First off this place has many of the chain stores and restaurants we have in Vancouver. So why is it their inventory is completely different? From applebees not having the rib eye steak, to Costco not having enfamil formula, to the McDonald's and Taco bells that aren't open 24 hours. WTf?!!! Are you fucking serious?!!! And why does it take a road trip just to get somewhere around here? Whenever we wanna go somewhere we have to start right when we get up and plan on getting home at 7 or 8 at night. Seattelites once behind their cars drive like pissed off teenagers. Total disregard for driver etiquette and safety, if such exists in this hell hole. I'm surprised I'm still walking after riding my street bike around here. And what the hell is up with the freeways up here? 3 lane freeways with nonstop exit only lanes and left lane on ramps and off ramps. No wonder traffic thrives up here. This whole area could really benefit with a subway or bart train like we have in the bay area. Unfrotunately this city is totally outdated by decades and can never recover from it's stupidity. This city and it's people are so full of itself. It's probably from all of the caffeine that all these snobs ingest in a day. I mean what the fuck does this place really have? You spend millions on building stadiums for 2 suck ass teams but have to struggle to resolve the bigger problems that the city has. Fucking dumasses. Well anyway, I'm glad to be finally out of here. Although I'm still gonna have to be commuting by plane to go to work since I work for United but whatever. I just wish they would finally lay me off because quitting just isn't financially sound right now. Anyway thanks for reading. I feel for everyone that doesn't want to be here.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_League_of_Gentlemen

No, I'm not talking about the Hollywood film from a few years ago with a similar title. This is a sitcom that aired on BBC in the late 90's. I'm a big fan of British comedy, and discovered this one just recently (it was created by the same guys as Psychoville).

The story revolves around a small, remote village in England, and their strained interactions with the outside world which is slowly beginning to encroach upon them. What does this have to do with Seattle you might ask? Well, just about everything. Even though it is purely coincidental, after watching a few episodes it almost feels like the writers intentionally set out to make a parody of the Northwest -- the disdain for (while having a bizarre obsession with) non-locals, the passive-aggressiveness, the pettiness, the incompetence and lack of work ethic, the bad facial hair, the transsexual taxi driver who gives endless details about his treatments to people who don't really want to hear about it, the constant rain/overcast, etc...

So if anyone is interested, go to isohunt.com and search for "the league of gentlemen." First though, you'll need a bittorrent client if you don't have one already. I recommend uTorrent -- it allows you to download just a few episodes at a time if you like, which is good because the entire package is like 8GB.

The lying! Is. Un. Believe. Able. These people lie as easily as breathing. That doesn't mean they do it well. I didn't know many people until now. Didn't know them on what would look like friendly terms. But everything I gathered up until now made me wonder about the actual interpersonal relationships. Namely cheating on their spouses and fucking over close friends. Now I see that they are indeed like sick fucks. On the surface, seemingly nice, squeaky clean people. But in reality, cheating on their mate and able to talk and walk around like people who deserve to be in the daylight of God. They have a mutual admiration society between the 2 of them, in front of everyone, thinking no one would accuse them of anything because they're out in the open. That's what I thought, that's what I thought. Until I became a confidante. I only need a couple of nano second bytes of damming evidence to figure it out. Because that's what I'm good at - pasting together wee bits of information and looking at the big picture. I have an analytical mind, something beyond the capabilities of a seattleite. Being from another country, I number one decided up front not to become intimately involved with anyone. But it didn't stop me from speculating about just how bad a guy could fuck me over. This country, despite it's size, can be a lonely place. This city has a lot of people who are perverts. I keep meeting men who come on to me, then "reveal" that they are not only married but they have a "poly" relationship. These people are not attractive enough to be pulling this off. Sometimes they send the "female" of the 2 in. I've also been approached by women who I at first think are attractive young men from a distance because I don't wear my glasses all the time. Turns out this is seattle so they think it's ok to accost me. Did you know they have a sex research center or something, that's a disgusting sex club really. They brag about it here in the stranger (a periodical made of used toilet paper). I am in a work situation where my "boss" uses every opportunity to put his hands on me. He isn't unattractive, but it repulses me because it's not right. However, his other female employees don't seem to feel that way. His assistant, a woman in her 30's wears outfits like skimpy sundresses in the winter, and yesterday, a black leotard covered by a thin sweater. The sweater was riding up and sitting on top of her ass and exposing her cameltoe. You could see her nipples through her sweater. She's not attractive from the neck up, people. But they dance around bumping each other, whispering together and laughing, hands all over each other. Then there's the great friendship. Then there's the wanting to meet with me alone all the time. Seems a mistake to me - I'm not married. Married men want to cheat with married women, who won't tell because they have something to lose. I'm disgusted. I'm disgusted by this city's people. I always thought sewage ran downhill, but apparently in this country it runs uphill to the northwest corner.

At first, I thought hearing music on local radio here from Seattle grunge bands that I'd long forgotten about was quaint.

Now, however, it's just another annoying aspect of how Seattle culture clings tenaciously to its glory days.

Speaking of celebrated local musicians (and nothing to do with Grunge): apparently, Jimi Hendrix hated Seattle so much that his friends and others who knew him well stated that it was improper to bury him there.

I used to love coffee until I moved here.

Of course, I don't mean Starbucks. Nothing against the original place, but the chains that cropped up all over America became (get this, Seattle) another personification of corporate America and the eradication of local culture via gentrification.

Sound familiar?

Right, see, the rest of the United States isn't this monolithic chain of strip malls and condos, with the only vestiges of authenticity left in the country being the underbelly of Fremont.

We can all appreciate irony: a city that laments its own gentrification and loss of identity contributing in its own way to the same phenomenon happening in suburbs, exurbs, small towns, and urban neighborhoods all over the country.

Every small town wants to protect its historic district after all, it's only natural to wax nostalgic.

For the record, I don't really hate coffee. One of the good things about this place is the roadside espresso stands.

Consider most pictures of the Seattle skyline that feature the Space needle. It always looks like it towers over the city, doesn't it?

To the outside observer, this landmark appears to dwarf skyscrapers in a feat of phallic architecture that makes the Eiffel Tower look like a pygmy in comparison.

And it's yet another facade in this Potemkin village of a fish town.

First, the Space needle, as observation decks (yeah, specifically observation decks, not all towers) go, it ranks something like 42nd tallest in the world and 13th tallest in the United States. Even in Seattle, it's only the 6th tallest edifice.

But, every picture of the Seattle skyline has to be a close up of the Needle, sitting on the hill, with the skyscrapers miles in the background in order to make it look impressive.

Why is this? Maybe because it personifies Seattle's inferiority complex, perhaps? Kind of like Karl Jung's collective subconscious manifest in a steel frame tower that's awarded its little patch in Seattle center far away from anything that might be taller than it is on order to generate more impressive postcards.

I've heard Seattle's peculiar driving etiquette discussed a lot, but I've noticed something interesting and maybe you have, too.

When the driver at the intersection stops and insists that you go first, and you don't play the "you first" game back with them and instead proceed, have you noticed that some of these people will then gun it out into the intersection because you didn't play the wave game with them?

Weird. If they didn't want me to go first, then why all of the formalities?

The last time I visited Las Vegas and was at the airport for my return flight, I didn't have to check the departures board to figure out which flight was to Seattle.

All I had to do was look for the gate with all of the gloomy, silent, repressed, asexual looking people sitting near it.

There were passengers at the gate from another, earlier flight to Seattle that had been delayed due to mechanical issues.

My flight was still on time. I overheard a man from the delayed Seattle flight say "well, the fair thing to do would be to put us on this next flight and bump these other people off to fend for themselves."

Fortunately, no airline would operate that way. However, to the Seattle mentality, there's probably some twisted logic to the notion. I noticed a few people on my (non-delayed) flight within earshot of the guy look guilty and fidget, as though they thought the airline would actually do that. I also occurs to me that the delayed flight could be one reason why people were so gloomy but, it was everyone at the Seattle flight gate, not just the delayed people.

The few people who were talking were mostly complaining about Vegas and saying how they couldn't wait to get back to Seattle. My guess is that fun actually offends most of these people; therefore, Vegas is anathema to them.

Speaking for myself, Vegas rocked. I love that town.