Love it here
I love it here...on this site. Every few months I get really frustrated about the people here, how everyone here is a certain way. Then I somehow convince myself I must be the one who's confused and wrong; after all, how could everyone in an entire city be a certain way? It's big, and diverse, right?
Then after a while I have to scout out the net to find others with the same types of experience, and realize that this is not just my warped delusion. Seattle attracts a certain type of person, and it's not the grunge-rocking punk-rocking free-spirited progressive type of culture I sought when I came out fifteen years ago.
Mostly what bothers me is the antisocial, asocial, asexual, cold culture; i.e., the people's attitude towards life and more importantly, each other. I have no problem with other voiced complaints like the traffic, mass transit, homeless, weather, etc. If it was possible to engage people in conversations here without phony smiles, holier-than-thou condescension, ice-cold politeness, or whatever other anti-social shields get thrown at you, I would have no problem with it. I spent two years in CA and have more friends from those two years than after eleven years here.
Financial circumstances and my inner doubter ("Seattle can't be like you remember it, really! It's you who's wrong!") brought me back. I'm not bitter and angry, I'm used to coping with the prevailing coldness, but how do Seattle lovers do it? How can this type of emotional coldness be so okay with everyone?
I've noticed that when my long-ago acquired cold-shield drops and I am outgoing and charismatic (I learned to bury that shit a long time ago), people are receptive to genuine friendliness, to the point of being like moths to a flame ("Holy crap, that dude's being actively warm!"), but I think they don't know how to handle it. People are so reserved and starey and uptight while thinking they are progressive, it's hard to ever engage people on a human level without any barriers or masks, it seems.
Any true social warmth is usually immediately suppressed. The cultural code of cold conduct (CCCC for short) requires that a Seattleite passive-agressively (using the hated staring & other nonverbal communication) Seattle Freeze(tm) the social warmth back into asocial stagnation. It's like it's unacceptable to be friendly to strangers without a huge dose of cold thrown in for good measure; it's not okay to go out to bars and have a good time (there's such a high level of restraint), talk to strangers of the same or opposite sex, smile, whatever.
Last thing: there's two primary breeds of bars in the city. One, you have to dress like Death, with all the black and stuff; two, you must be dressed in your bland programmer's outfit or your North Face uniform.
Oh, the sun's gone down! It must be midafternoon.
Anyway, there's my rant. Every so often I need to do it. Thanks, IHS.