Are West Coast people different than East Coast people?

In My Humble Opinion
61

I just moved from Boston to Seattle about six months ago, and I’m not having much luck making friends. There are a few people from work that are OK to go out to lunch with, but other than that, we don’t really see people much. If any of you other East Coast Seattlites want to get together, I’m up for it. Email in my profile.

Generally, I would say that people here are much more outdoorsy than they were in Boston. There are other definite personality and cultural differences, but it’s hard to put a finger on what they are. But I do feel like I don’t understand people here very well. And I grew up in California!

62

I know this question is old,but as a person born and raised in Virginia, I find myself wanting to beat the shit out of at least 50% of the people I come in contact with on a regular basis. Most East Coasters are dishonest, wishy washy, stuck up trash talkers who will behave this way without thinking twice but then get mad when you treat them the same way back. If they ever tell an interesting story that “happened to them in life” most of them are making it up entirely or mostly. It is seen as perfectly acceptable for blacks to be racist towards whites without it being seen as racist, and most white people will not stand up to an aggressive black man for fear they will be labeled racist. Outdated ideology reigns supreme as does brainwashed ideology. Most people think based on emotional opinion and not fact. Everything is taxed everywhere, but minimum wage is $7.25. Honestly if a hurricane came and leveled the entire east coast, I would not care. People are rude for no reason just because you are different than them. I need to leave. Oregon is cool, and Texas is cool, but the way people drive, talk, act, dress, think, eat, and walk here on the east coast makes me wish they were dead. Obviously there are a lot of people here that I do like, but I’ve never been one to like undeserved disrespect. Here on the east coast, that is a cultural phenomenon, but you better not treat us how we treat you. Yeah, FUCK THE EAST COAST!

63

As a native Californian who lived in Northern Virginia, Northern California, and Southern California, I haven’t seen much difference between people.

64

And if you don’t own a car, you don’tNative San Franciscan, live all up and down the Pacific Coast … moved to Iowa … then to Cape Cod … then to Western Carolina … back to Iowa … then finally settled in Oregon.

A few posters mentioned that the East Coast has more history, and the further East you go, the more trapped in that history the people become. From what I know of Merrie Olde England, there’s an even deeper attachment to their history. Here out West we don’t have that history to bind us, we’re making that history right now.

We’re more open to new ideas, more willing to co-exist with people not like us. It’s hard to explain, but as a middle-aged man with hair down to my waist, I hardly get a second glance West of the Sierra/Cascades. However, just the other side it’s different, people look at me strange. East of the Rockies, people take a step back, on the East Coast it’s downright hostility. This was especially bad in the Orlando, FL area, and only slightly better on the Space Coast.

As Hunter S. Thompson said it’s like the Wave of Social Change crested and broke out in the Mojave Desert, and receded back into the Pacific Ocean never reaching any further than Barstow.

Another thing mentioned upstream … the West is vast … true wide open spaces… one can drive for hours without even a house along the road, let alone small towns. And everything is bigger, the canyons wider and deeper, the trees are taller, the Pacific Ocean waves are always strong, regular and tall, we have active volcanoes, active earthquake faults, we have blue whales, grizzlies, big foots, Jerry Brown … just everything bigger than life. Only the hearts of Texans eludes the West.

There’s beautiful women all around the world, but in Southern California they wear next to nothin’ …

65

I lived in San Diego for 18 years and have been in New Jersey for 10. Across the board, I’ve found East Coasters to be far friendlier – including New Yorkers! Perfect strangers talk to one another in stores, gas stations, theatres, on the sidewalk, and so on.

To paint with a wide brush: SoCal culture can be rather vapid and self-absorbed.

But it’s not humid! :cool:

66

I had self-diagnosed “Reverse Seasonal Affective Disorder” the years I lived in San Diego :cool:. I grew up in Utah and was used to four seasons. Because I must always be so very special, the year-round sunshine in SoCal actually depressed me; it kind of felt like time just rolled along without “markers” of change.

I love the distinct seasons here, though I’m not a fan of the humid summers (see Jennshark humidity complaint threads #1 - 14,767).

I adore the frigid, bleak winters here, they invigorate me; the winters here, of course, are often the very reason people flee to the sunny Left Coast.

67

I’ve spent most of my life residing along the Eastern Seaboard. We tend to be modest, good-looking intellectuals. What with Hollywood being in California and all, West Coasters tend to be like TV characters—an amalgamation of The Brady Bunch, 3rd Rock from the Sun and The Addams Family is pretty accurate.

68

Just jump in man, like in the water by the sea, don’t just put your little foot in … go for it all the way.

A vacation won’t do it for you, move to San Diego get a house or a condo enjoy the same weather everyone else is enjoying, get into the Southern California/San Diego mood of being nice to them and they will be nice to you. Enjoy the pain and the pleasures of the San Diego Chargers, go to the beach enjoy the views, eat somewhere down on India street for great pizza or Mexican food.

Go over the bay bridge to Coronado for the day, visit a Navy ship at the foot of Broadway, take three day cruise to Mexico, stay out of TJ (it’s across the border) and stop worrying about the people.

It’s a wonderful place to live … my home for four years in the Navy and my home for 24 years after the Navy, but I lived mostly in the North County in land in Valley Center which is a rural mountain area and they were nice people.

Like the east coast everyone is busy making money and the people on the west coast are trying to get into your back pocket too.

Love it and miss it, especially the weather … LA is 130 miles away and that is an entirely different story due to the melting pot up there and forget North of Santa Barbra where the uppity people live. Two different states for sure, people and the weather.

Let us know how it works our for you … twenty years from now that is :slight_smile:

69

This doesn’t directly address the OP, but I’ll throw in my two-cents anyway.

I’ve lived in the Midwest (Ohio) for almost my entire life. The only time I’ve lived out of state was when I was college student in the late 1980s and early 1990s. I was in the university’s co-op program, my employer was in Maryland, so I lived in Maryland on-and-off for four years.

I felt really out of place in Maryland. Everyone seemed to dress nice, and most people had an “uptown/snobby” attitude. “Status” seemed very important to them, and I was frequently quizzed on what college I was attending, what degree I was majoring in, etc. When I told them I was attending the University of Cincinnati, they had a contemptuous look on their face. I am guessing they were thinking, “What a hick!”

I am so glad I didn’t stay and live in Maryland after college.

70

I’m from NY (the city). I lived in CA twice, for total of some months in 1970’s, and again for 2 years in 1980’s, San Diego and LA respectively.

First time as late teen was working a blue collar job and hanging around with ‘beach people’. The thing that surprised me most was how openly racist many white ‘surfer dude’ type people were. People where I grew up might think the same things, but not say them. It was something I might have expected in the Deep South (perhaps a stereotype, I’ve never lived there), not CA. Then again I gradually learned that a lot of CA white working class type people, at least in those days, still have Southern/OK roots.

It surprised me less how much more into drugs people were. Again these were both my experiences, I’m not saying either is a scientific finding.

Second time I was a graduate student. My classmates, mainly from CA but some from all over the country and world, were more refined and never heard the kind of racist comments nor obsession with drugs as first time around. I did still notice there are more (outright certifiable) nutty people on the bus or walking around the streets in LA than NY. And I just still didn’t relate that well to white native CA’ans (I’m white). My good friends in grad school were mainly foreign students. My impression was that people were less genuine, acting like they were ‘laid back’, but not really. But all told LA has a lot going for it if you’re not poor (a lot of places in the US are that way, including NY, all bets are off if you are poor, I was still money strapped then but not really poor). And the people are not bad per se.

I have deep roots in NY, Brooklyn really, generations along every branch of the family tree back to when it was a city in its own right, so I might be more inclined than average to feel like the outsider in other places, compared to people who aren’t really deeply from anywhere.

71

I’m from New York but have been living in the Bay Area for 20 years. East coast people are a lot more formal than people out here. But Californians are very snotty about our weather. And lots of native Californians are very insular. Many are afraid of living with snow (versus visiting it) and can’t imagine why I’d want to move back into the cold.

And yes there is a divide between north and south California. Southerners like to put an obscene three letter work before road numbers. :smiley:

72

Second, third, and fourth the humidity thing. No wonder Easterners are short-tempered in the summer. My first visit there, I walked off a plane at BWI in the height of summer and literally choked on the air. I’d shower three times a day and change shirts six or so, and it never did any good. 10 minutes later I’d be swimming in sweat. And get used to the buzz of bug zappers. Mosquito central.

73

I don’t know where Plan B is now, but 11 years is long enough to have learned that in San Diego, the Dodgers suck! :smiley:

74

I’ve lived in the West, NE and SE. The NE and SE folk are a lot more similar to each other than either are to the Western folk. I.e., Yanks and Rebs are quite similar.

One noticeable difference is attitude towards personal independence and letting others live and let live. Another is friendliness to new things and ideas is much more common.

So I split the US into East and West. (And I mean west-West. Not Kansas and other Eastern states. The Mississippi doesn’t divide the US in half folks.)