I’m thinking of moving to San Diego. Every so often someone will say that they moved to California but didn’t like it because of the people. I visited recently and the people didn’t seem that different to me, but then again it was all limited to superficial chatting around tourist areas.
Is there anything to this? Should we be concerned that the people will be different and we might not get along? I’d be interested in hearing any stories from anyone who has moved in either direction, and found a difference or didn’t find a difference.
I moved from the Midwest to San Francisco and then Los Angeles. I find California natives to be generally more immature and childlike than adults from other parts of the country. That can manifest itself in both bad and good ways. On the one hand, they tend to be more open, friendly and optimistic. On the other hand, they can be selfish, rude and shortsighted. Brought to you by the Department of Overarching Generalizations.
I’m from California and moved east (although not all the way to the coast). I haven’t noticed any real difference. Californians are in general a little more laid back, I think, but that certainly doesn’t always hold true; there are plenty of uptight Californians. And as a whole, New Yorkers in particular seem a little more tightly wound than what I am used to, not sure if other East Coast people share that characteristic.
When it comes to friendliness, I think Midwesterners take the cake. Stand around looking confused on a streetcorner in Chicago for more than thirty seconds, and someone will ask if you need any help.
Hard to articulate, but oh, yeah. We’re a lot different out here than people who come from the East (hereafter refered to as the “Wrong” Coast). My wife was born and raised in Boston, so I see and experience the differences daily. People from back East have no concept of how BIG the West is. We have a car culture that people who live in big cities with mass transit can’t fathom. We are guided by the Sun, and know deep in our hearts that the Sun sets into the sea, it does not rise from the sea.
I come from the East Coast originally. Then I lived in the midwest for 12 years. Now I am on the West Coast.
East Coasters are always in a rush, will pull out mace if you ask the time, never smile, and are generally rougher in personality (I speak of NYC, which I love, but it does have it’s deawbacks - admit it.)
The Midwest is polite, laid back, people make room for you on the highway, people smile and say “hello”, generosity seems more common-place, and while you can get some rednecks, the folks I met were among some of the best I’ve known.
The West Coast, folks to me seem to have a sense of entitlement. Like, “I am driving, so this is MY lane, no matter that you were signallying to merge”. They’ve got an over-developed sense of being catered to - walk into a grocery store and tell me you can’t see that. They don’t seem as friendly. They seem more cliquish and harder to break into. It seems more about what you have to offer than about who you are. And Og-forbid you say hello…you either get odd stares, ignoring you, or simply - nothing. Only twice have I had people say “hello” or “good morning” back, in two years. And politeness - forget it. West Coasters were not raised with basic manners. “Thank you” seems to have gone the way of the dinosaur. “Please” is unheard of. I could go on.
But it is lovely. It made me cry with the beauty out here. I don’t think the folks who live here appreciate it.
Just my two pennies, but I am also depressed, so it may color it.
I think the big town/small town difference is far more pronounced than the east coast/west coast difference. There are differences, though.
The east coasters (from D.C. on up north) seemed much more likely to look down on this Colorado boy because my town was only 100 years old and “had no history.” I found a lot of “culture snobs” when working in Boston, D.C., and New York City. People seemed more tense and less tolerant. I was anxious to leave.
The west coasters (specifically Californians) were quite accepting of outsiders. I had no problem fitting in and getting along out there. Maybe it’s because so many of them are “outsiders” themselves. Californians outside of the big cities seemed a lot more relaxed to me.
The people in small towns seem pretty similar all over the country.
I grew up in Seattle, moved to DC, hung out in NYC, and am currently living in Portland, Oregon. I think West Coast people are more laid back, and less worried about precision in human interaction. I like the sense of particularness I get from people on the East Coast. I like the idea that things have a time and place, and people respect that.
I think the principal difference between people from the West and East Coasts is that West Coast residents have a greater tendency to have been born elsewhere. We residents of the West Coast don’t have a good sense of the history of where we grew up. We tend not to know our neighbors or care about local politics.
San Diegans probably care about local politics since the city has gone through two mayors in about six weeks because of scandals.
There will be a special election to pick a new one. The first mayor who resigned probably didn’t receive the most votes anyway. It’s a very long story.
I can only speak on the matter of working with business people over the phone. The north east coast folks seem very uptight and demanding. Where as talking with those on the south west coast, seem more relaxed, dude.
I tried to the east coast; it was not for me. Not at all.
I cannot exactly define what it is, but the people (or at least their mannerisms, customs, and the ways they interact with each other and with you) are very, very different.
I moved to Ventura County two years ago after having spent most of my life in the Southeast - between Virginia and Georgia, and I find that there’s a marked difference between East and West.
In general, I see that Californians are more selfish, self-centered, cold and rude than those in the Southeast.
Laid back? No…that was how I expected SoCal to be, but I see just the opposite.
A very small example that always raises my hackles: I see far more people, here in my area, that unload their shopping carts in a supermarket parking lot and just leave them anywhere, usually blocking or partially blocking a parking space next to their car. They just can’t be bothered to return them to the corrals.
Does this happen in the Southeast? Sure, but it seems far more rampant here in SoCal.
There are assholes everywhere, but it seems that there are more in SoCal than anywhere I’ve ever been. Perhaps it’s worse in the Northeast.
YMMV, of course. I’m just comparing where I’ve been to where I am now.
I’m going to second that the major difference is big city/small town and not so much which coast. People who live in big cities on the west coast remind me of those who live in big cities on the east coast. They’re often rude, cold, selfish, etc., but in different ways. Someone from New York can be rude when they interrupt while you’re speaking. People from the West coast can be rude when they just stop listening. I know I put up a wall around myself when I lived in a big west coast city. It was safer and cut down on the overwhelming stimulus of living in a big city. From what I’ve seen, a lot of big city east coasters do the same.
People in small towns are generally more friendly seeming with their ‘hellos’ and ‘have a nice days’. Just try moving to a small town and trying to actually become a part of the community, though. After four years at a small town high school I was still an outsider. I was just from one town over-- the poor kid from Israel never had a chance. But there is more politeness and such, to your face, than you’ll find in a big city.
I moved here from Vermont about 4 years ago. I have also lived in the Midwest (Kansas City, mostly) and in Boston, New York City and briefly parts of Main. Here is what I have found:
The people here all feel like they have some weird internal hidden agenda. While they are, for the most part, unfailingly polite you get the feeling that this is not an emotion that runs very deep at all. Back east, I could pretty much count on knowing just what any given person thought of me? Here? Who knows?
I totally agree with the sense of entitlement mentioned earlier. I would also add that I find the people here to be pretty passive-aggressive. I have also found that I have a much tougher time meeting people and making friends here than I have anywhere else (although that could be because I am different than they are).
You will also notice a lot of little things that are odd to you. For example, back home you could walk into a café in the morning for your cup o mud and see a dozen people in front of you and not even worry about it because they were all just getting a cup of coffee. Here, if you have more than 2 people ahead of you it is a certainty that you are going to be late for work because they are all going to be having some time consuming to make stupid pretentious concoction.
I have often fantasized of starting a social club for transplanted easterners here.
It sure is pretty, though and for me at least you just can’t beat the weather.
I think I’ll disagree with this. I’ve done a lot of driving in SoCal. On the motorcycle, most people will make room fo you to split lanes. In a car, I’ve been let into a lane more often than I’ve been blocked. I think people in SoCal understand who frustrating it is on the freeways, and they’ll cut you a little slack.
But it does help if you’re a little assertive. Nothing pisses a SoCal driver off more than someone who doesn’t seem to know what he’s doing.
On the other hand, I’ve named Oregon (a Left Coast state) ‘Driver’s Purgatory’. People there seem not to know how to drive, and IME they infrequently will be courteous enough to let faster traffic pass. Up here in NoWA, everyone seems to drive 5 mph below the speed limit – no matter what the speed limit is. I’m in constant fear of driving into a 5 mph zone, and being stuck behind people who are stopped!
I think this is true. If you talk to a stranger, they immediately want to know what the hell you want. You’re probably going to ask for money. New Orleans is the friendliest place I’ve been.
Maybe I’m weird, then. I was raised to be polite.
Interesting. I’ve lived by the water in San Diego and L.A., and I’ve lived in the Mojave Desert. Many are the days when I’ve been blown away by a beautiful sunrise or sunset; and I started a thread about The Desert in MPSIMS a week or so ago.
On the other hand, many people in SoCal may never have left the cities. To these people, Nature is something to be looked at; not experienced.
What Binarydrone said. There’s a saying that if you move to Seattle from the East Coast, you’d better bring your friends with you, 'cuz you’re not gonna make any new ones. I’ve also found that’s it’s curiously easy to drop out of contact with friends I’ve made here.
There also seems to be an odd lack of spontaneity in people–anything you want to do, you have to plan three weeks in advance. And if you’re planning a party, for example, you need to invite about three times the number of people you want to actually show up.
This is facinating. Here in California, the general consensus on East Coasters is that they are rude and aggressive. We consider them uptight, pushy, too rushed, and cliqueish. We also think they are too obsessed with money and too ready to go to any length to get the career (husband, kids, look, service) that they “need”.
Anyway, I think that what we have here is not a set of values that one side is living up to or missing, but rather a bunch of miscommunication. I know Californians arn’t all rude. I get plenty of smiles on the street, help from total strangers and "god bless you"s from the homeless. I think we are just miscommunicating…our codes for “nice” read to you guys as “rude” and vice versa. There is also the factor that being new is hard anyplace, and of course everyone is going to seem cliquish when you’ve just left your own group of friends.
California isn’t homogenous, either- there is a big north/south divide- we think they are superficial and they think we are snobbish.
