I Hate Seattle

I finally got out!!!! after one year and one month..i got out!!! the biggest waste of one year of my life ever, was seattle!!!!!!!!!!! i feel like a veil of darkness has been lifted from my soul...good-bye seattle and thanks for nothing!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I don't see much discussion about those that have a commute outside of the inner Seattle core. I live in south Renton and I want outsiders to understand that when I moved here I couldn't believe the poor driving skills.

*dead stopping in roundabouts
*lurching in 4 way stops and giving the vertical palm toggle despite having the right of way.
*slamming on the brakes at traffic speed to allow a car to turn in front of them or allowing someone to jaywalk causing all the drivers behind to slam on brakes too.
*traveling at least 10mph under any speed limit traveling in the left passing lane.
*using a turn signal is a sign of weakness.
*hastily making right turns on red but making no effort to haul ass to stay at or above traffic flow.
*accellerating using idle gas from a dead stop
*Driving Helen Keller style - they drive all over the road and specifically straddle the white line into the shoulder for miles.
*Poor roadway planning - roads constantly turn from 2 to 4 lanes causing people to speed up in front of you to merge and then lazily go under the speed limit.
*Too conservative speed limits - 25mph - everywhere you go is a dangerous "school zone" that's a disguise to generate revenue to compensate for no state income tax.
*Driving up 405 or 18 doing 70 but riding the brake all the way down a slight grade doing 45 in a 60mph.

Natives don't want urban sprawl (its already here!) and how it harms the environment to cover up how cheap the state is to avoid building efficient overramps, flyovers, and redesign god damn state "highways", which I call access roads, that end at mile long left turn stop lights! Who designed this shit? What about all these cars and semi's idling pollution at lights where a god damn over ramp oughta be?! But hey, they need to spend millions on multiple studies to determine ecology effects. At MINIMUM, a road should be 4 lanes - for breakdowns, passing, emergency vehicles, etc. There should also be dedicated right hand turn lanes.

King county loves to build subdivisions but won't build curbing, storm sewers, street lights, etc. They expect the HOMEOWNER to build their own sidewalks!?!! The amount of return you get for what you pay in this state is nothing. The excuse that land mass is limited is bullshit. There is room to do so just poor urban planning overrules all.

It can't be the weather. I lived in Alaska for quite some time and people there are incredibly friendly and fun.
What's up, Seattleites? Why so uptight and unfriendly? Why so rude and hateful?
In any other city, when people go to a dj show or concert, people actually dance and enjoy themselves. Not so in Seattle! Instead there's a room full of people standing stock-still, perhaps stroking their chins, as if to say, "None of this could possibly meet my approval; besides I'm waaaay too cool to do anything like have FUN."
God help you if you are a friendly, outgoing person in Seattle. People here seem to have confused kindness with weakness; apparently in Seattle it's a very bad thing to use common courtesy and manners when interacting with others. The nicer you are, the more shit you'll get.
I wish I could walk one whole city block without having some street whacko DEMAND a dollar (forget spare change, they want folding money and act like it's owed them), a cigarette, or my firstborn child. Sure, other cities have panhandlers, but getting hit up three times per block in such an aggressive manner gets old pretty quickly.
And don't you just love the fashion here? It's like being stuck in the early 90s. Trust me, Seattleites, there is nothing cutting-edge about flannel shirts and messy hair, or wearing multi-layered lingerie as a dress (Kurt Cobain is dead and Courtney Love is a drug-addled slut, people. Not really the best role models). As for all of you 20-somethings with tattoos covering your entire body who treat those of us who choose not to ink like cockroaches, I can't WAIT to see what you look like in 10 years. Start saving now for the removal process; those tattoos will be green before you know it. By the way, that neck or facial tattoo was a baaaaaad idea.
And the housing? Bad plumbing, years of mold buildup, water damage, and prices through the roof.
Nightlife is nonexistent. As someone posted earlier, you have a choice between "hipster or douchebag" bars. And for the record, hipsters, whoever told you that you look good in those skinny pants was NOT a true friend.
Where does all the excessive negativity come from? I have lived in 7+ American cities, visited many others in the US and other countries, some with worse weather and smaller populations, and have never before felt a vibe like Seattle's. And the passive-aggressiveness? For God's sake, if you have something to say, then say it already and have done. Grow a backbone and quit behaving like a 5-year-old; you know better, or you should.
Living in Seattle is almost like living in the deep south; people are just as bigoted, and will look for any chance they can to attack you for being different.
I promised myself when I got here that I would never behave the way Seattleites do. That I wouldn't shun people who are nice, wouldn't refuse to make eye contact with people, wouldn't stop expressing and enjoying myself, wouldn't be rude for no reason. After 3 years, however, I find myself doing those very things. What the hell happened? It is time for me to escape! I am leaving in 66 days (yes, I am counting) and I can't wait!
Are Seattleites happy? Is it fun to never express yourself or dance? Does it make you feel warm and fuzzy when you are deliberately nasty and rude to people you know nothing about? I doubt it very much. So many people here are happy to be miserable. I don't think they are even aware that they are miserable, that one doesn't have to go through life with so much constant negativity.
Life is meant to be enjoyed, not endured. I don't know whether there is something nasty in the water, or if some strange dark force is at work; I have heard the same complaints about Seattle from many people. There is definitely something very wrong here.

I moved to Idaho this spring after seven terrible years living near Tacoma. I can't imagine a worse place to live. My husband and I rented a house on two acres across the street from a golf course. We had a beautiful, park-like yard full of wildlife. Sounds nice, right? It wasn't. I picked up more trash out of my yard than we ever threw away ourselves. We're talking condoms, dime bags, fast food wrappers, diapers, bottles of urine, you name it. Every day.

The trash was bad enough, but I'm just getting started. My favorite story to tell people about Tacoma is the time I got punched in the face and robbed at the Fred Meyer in University Place. It was the Saturday afternoon before Easter and the store was packed. I was waiting for my friend to unlock her car. I had my purse on my shoulder and my friend's purse was in the cart, which I was holding onto. Three crackheads in a Crown Vic pulled up and the woman in the backseat jumped out and grabbed my friend's purse. I yelled, "Hey", which gave my friend time to grab this lady by the hair. My friend ends up wrestling with her in the back of the Crown Vic. Meanwhile, the man in the passenger seat gets out, comes around, punches me in the face, and steals my purse while I'm laying on the ground. This is all pretty bad, but what makes it even worse is that probably fifteen people saw it happen, and no one helped us at all. The cop who took our report was utterly uninterested as well.

What else? I had my mail stolen repeatedly, including two stolen checks that were altered and cashed, and several attempts at identity theft. My husband installed an amp for my car stereo and I had it about two days before my car was broken into and it was stolen. The cop who took that report told me what a nice neighborhood I live in. I told him he had to be kidding. We had bums living under a tree in our yard for a while. My husband had to call the police to stop a girl from being raped in the street in front of our house. We've also called the police twice to report stolen cars that had been dumped. Hookers worked the corner from time to time. Our neighbors across the street got robbed four times in eight months.

I could go on and on about the crime, but I don't have the time today. Our neighbors were just as horrible. We had a drug dealer living in the duplex behind us and there was constant traffic on the dead-end street. Two of our cats got hit by cars and no one bothered to stop. Another neighbor called the cops on my husband for setting off fireworks on the 4th of July. This was the same lady that called another neighbor's son a "half-breed" when she was uspet at him for bouncing his basketball during the day while she was trying to sleep. A neighbor walking her dog took it upon herself to make repeated ignorant comments to my husband about the state of our yard and how the neighborhood was going to hell because of people like us. At the time, cutting the grass wasn't a big priority. I was extremely ill and undergoing cancer treatment. Thanks for asking!

In summary, Tacoma sucks. I was up there a couple of weeks ago for a wedding, and I swear I will never go back. I didn't even get to the traffic, the horrible sense of entitlement that people have, or the soul-sucking strip mall landscape and endless suburban tract home communities that infest the I-5 corridor. Thanks for this forum, I love to read what other people have to say about this pit.

Wow! I'm so glad there is this community here since it's so so hard to find people who can relate to these issues. My parents moved me here from California when I was a teenager-talk about culture shock!
First off, the climate here is oppressive-we all know, but that can't possibly explain Washingtonians social skills.
I find myself making excuses all the time for our behavior to visitors and transplants (which I sometimes forget I am, been here so long-how scary is that!). For instance, I work in the travel industry and talk with people from all over the country every single day. When I ask, "how was your visit, how was the city, did you enjoy Seattle?"...they often tell me people in Seattle aren't that friendly (after they've glanced around furtively so they don't get persecuted! And this is from people everywhere-though I've noticed that it seems to hurt people from the southern states' feelings the most, so I always take extra extra time with them, I want to make them feel welcome-and it's like stretching new muscles!) But again I'm a transplant, so I remember, all too painfully, what it was like to be The Other in the land of the DEEP FREEZERS.
Plus, I'm embarrassed for us.What does it say about us that we freeze people out, we're commitment freaks, and we can't even be bothered to welcome new people or be friendly to visitors?

I've lived here off and on (but mostly on) for 20+ years now and I've never gotten used to that. I don't think human beings are supposed to.

Also, when I've tried to explain my experiences to other Seattlites (or any Washingtonian) they either get defensive or deny it exists.
I could think about it objectively and say it's a little like a collective Stockholm Syndrome, meaning if you were held hostage by an oppressive regime(Seattle's way of life) and told they would kill you (Seattlites saying they hate you, or go home), when they didn't kill you (they don't blatantly tell you they hate you), you'd internalize the hurt they caused, think it was all in your head, or in other words, go along with it and even perpetuate it yourself to SAVE YOURSELF!
There's a psychological explanation for it but its completely insane! (and doesn't make it any less disheartening) I guess if tranplants to Seattle want to survive this place they better start acting like Patty Hearst and do whatever the SLA (or Seattle Loser Army) wants!

Man, I'd almost forgotten how prejudice Seattlites can be towards non-Seattlites(and especially towards Californians) until I had an incident at work today and let me just say it feels so good to know that I'm not alone in my feelings about Seattle and it's people sometimes!
I happened to mention if I moved back to California I'd live in Northern California, and got bashed pretty heavily at work for it. All the old prejudices came up, all the old memories such as the time a Washingtonian nearly killed my mom and us kids because we had California liscence plates! That was in '89 so luckily the California bashing has died down for me-that is until today! I was shocked, it still persists, this irrational belief that Californians "invaded" Washington and jacked up housing prices. As if! (there goes my valley girl voice :)
All I can say is, thank god I'm not alone, thank god my sentence is almost up and I'll be back in my lil slice of heaven-Colorado by 2012 where the sun shines 300 days a year and the snow is like POWDER, Baby....oh, yes, I'm leaving here on a jet plane! Don't know if I'll be back again..oh babe, I (have) to go...cause I'm leaving on a jet plane, don't think that I'll be back again!

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I am a native Californian brought up to Seattle by my husband's job. I am so homesick, there isn't a day that goes by that I don't long to go back and make no mistake, I WILL GO BACK (hopefully sooner than later). I have really tried to give Seattle a chance, but it is so lacking in everything. The weather here is gray and cold all the time. Even on the days when it does get warm, we usually have to wait until 2pm before the sun comes out! Seattlelites idea of a beach is Alki, I miss Newport, Huntington and Santa Monica!!! I even drove 3 hours to the WA coast only to be thoroughly disappointed! Seattle is overcrowded, overpriced and everything seems to close down so early at night! I'm so tired of everyone saying that there is so much to do here in Seattle/WA, have these people never been to Cali? In CA (primarily southern CA where I spent the majority of my years) we have beautiful beaches with actual coastal towns and piers and water that you can swim and surf in, awesome parks - actually some of the best anywhere (Yosemite, Sequoia...) deserts visited by people all over the globe (Palm Springs) a bigger downtown than Seattle (Northern CA) amusement parks (too many to mention) theater/arts, museums, an abundance of eats (Seattle has no good Mexican food) lots of culture and diversity and best of all the weather is nearly perfect all year round! The only reason Washingtonians would bash CA is because they have nothing better to do (seriously there is nothing to do here) or they're just jealous because they can't live there for whatever reason. Funny thing is when they vacation Cali is usually their first choice!

If I hear one more person in this retarded little town bitch about "Californication" I might just hurt somebody. Don't worry, Seattle, you will never be anything like California. But what really gets my goat is the fact that Washingtonians (more than half of whom are from Seattle) are swarming all over California, but never get that shitty attitude from Californians. Californians have been having their state invaded for half a century, but do you see "California is full" signs? No. I pointed this out to a local recently and he said "well, that's different." How the fuck is that different you little chache? Where do Washingtonians send their kids to college since the best this lame state can do is UW? California. God I hate this place. Do they give you idiots a class in elementary school brainwashing you that despite the terrible weather, shitty attitudes, lack of culture and boring people that this is the best place in the world simply because you can get to the mountains faster? I can't wait to get the hell out and go back to California. This minor-league bullshit little burg is so sad, gray and delusional. I can't take another week.

PS: If you're a local that trolls these boards to defend your piece of shit town, go ahead, post your response telling me to get out, don't let the door hit me, whatever. What does it say about you you're trolling these boards getting off on hating Californians? Go ahead, prove yourself worthy of your ridiculous provincial small-minded little hometown.

Let me start out by saying how much I hate this fucking city. I have never in my life been surrounded by this many sad, fat, depressed, uninteresting, self righteous, socially retarded people. Every day when I walk out my door I look around and am instantly pissed at everything I see. From the five year old drinking Starbucks to the Seattle sombrero wearing, croc loving, middle aged wash out. No one will talk to you and, god forbid they do, you are subjected to the most boring shit on Earth! "No, I don't care about your most recent trip to Ikea, but thanks for trying to act like a normal human." I think the Seattle freeze is just the cover for the weak, unconfident people that live here. They know deep inside that they are completely uncool and therefore, refuse to put any effort into any real human connections.

There is no nightlife, bars are a joke, and fuck any dj who calls them-self a Seattleite. (A side note: fuck all the little hipster rich kids. If I see another eighteen year old who used daddy's money to get a full sleeve I will kill myself. ) There is a reason everyone moved here in the 90's, they had Prozac. I can't believe that it is one day from my 22nd birthday and its 58 FUCKING DEGREES OUT.

I can't wait to move to California.

I hate it here.

...and that 2 mile radius includes a large swath of Puget Sound. However, this figure doesn't include the thousands of vagrants/homeless (that the city can't be bothered to do anything about), so the actual number is probably much, much higher. I've constantly been appalled at the extreme laziness and shit work ethic of the locals since moving here, but I've guess we've found the one thing that Seattle actually excels at. Also, those of you that have been complaining that Seattle isn't very welcoming to kids, apparently there are some people who do like children... perhaps a bit too much though....

This actually makes total sense though when you think about it, Seattlites have the most repressed, uptight attitudes towards sex I have ever seen.

But don't worry... the SPD is on the case when it comes to the real critical issues.... like jaywalking.

http://www.mpdc.dc.gov/mpdc/cwp/view,a,1241,q,540529,mpdcNav_GID,1532.asp