I’m from El Paso. I left but it still doesn’t mean I want to hear “sorry”. It might have a lot of negativity to it, but it also has really positive things, too.
I’m outta here! See this thread!
Oh yea this all the way, foreigners used to also come up with “oh wow where Bush is from??!” but that slowly faded during the Obama admin.
I kinda got the impression growing up that kids in my hometown were a bunch of snobbish, spoiled, self-entitled assholes. Somebody started a “You know you’re from _____ when…” group on Facebook, and yep. Assholes, the lot of them. So, to all those people who said the titular statement to me? Thank you, you were right all along.
My wife is from Detroit. She gets that a lot.
I’m from Salt Lake City, so I get that a lot.
I happen to agree, so my response is usually “me, too.”
[QUOTE=Bad News Baboon]
Has this ever happened to you? What were your thoughts on it?
[/QUOTE]
I love it. I have a ton of funny stories about just how bad my hometown was and this gives me an opening to launch into them.
When you are from the armpit you hear it.
Recruiters even tell people from here to lie on their resumes and say they are from one of the neighboring towns.
Like they are any better.
Then there is the contest and the first place winner gets a free week in Philadelphia.
Second place wins two weeks.
I lived in Jersey for 6 years. Funnily enough, when I told people I lived in New Jersey, it was usually me doing the apologizing. It’s pretty bad when you feel guilty for where you live.
I think there are certain places in Jersey where living can be downright pleasant. Unfortunately the majority of my experience with it was heavy commuting on the NJ Turnpike/Garden State Parkway on roads choked with smog and accented by the melodious sound of air traffic coming in and out of Newark. In fact, if I could summarize the experience of living in New Jersey into one word, it would be ‘‘traffic.’’ I lived right off a major interstate so walking anywhere was out of the question. That lovely winter we had this year resulted in some 3 hour commutes (each way.)
It was like living in a concrete prison and I didn’t truly realize how bad it was until I discovered there are other ways to live. Where I live now, there are, get this, bike lanes. And I can get to work in 25 minutes.
It’s my ultimate trump card with my husband:
‘‘I lived in New Jersey for you.’’
[QUOTE=Lukeinva]
Then there is the contest and the first place winner gets a free week in Philadelphia.
[/QUOTE]
Just goes to show that one man’s trash is another’s treasure. I would live in Philly in a heartbeat.
I was at a winery in the Shenandoah Valley and about to buy a few bottles of wine, when the owner asked where I was from and gave me the “I’m sorry” line when I answered Washington, DC.
I said, “I’m not buying shit here,” got in my car and drove off with my purchases still sitting by the register. Now THAT’S funny.
That’s nothing compared to the reaction Torontonians give me when I tell them I’m from Buffalo.
You’re from Detroit too, huh?
There’s a saying among New Mexicans: “Poor Las Cruces. So far from heaven, so close to El Paso.” During my Las Cruces years, whenever I traveled to ABQ and SF, I’d hear “Cruces isn’t real New Mexico”, “It’s just a well-off suburb of El Paso”, and so on.
Thanks to the film Roger & Me, you even get this reaction internationally.
I don’t see it as a big deal. It doesn’t affect me or my hometown one way or another. Hell, when I interact with people from a rival town (or school district), I half-expect to hear some jab. It doesn’t mean that, if they go into specifics about why my hometown is pitiful, I won’t defend it, but I take the initial response as a joke.
Now, that being said, I will say that I’ve been in a few situations where I’ve had to defend my current city because of negative stereotypes, but that’s more because the situation becomes a “Oh, you’re from [Insert City Name]? That must mean you’re snobby, pretentious, etc.”
A few years ago, I went on a 4 hour roadtrip with my old roommate and we went to a bar. Met a group of people and hung out with them for the better part of an hour. Everyone was having a great time. But, as soon as we said where we were visiting from, the mood instantly changed. Conversation dried up and we practically got frostbite from the cold shoulders.
That made me mad. Moreso because (despite the friendly / enjoyable interactions we’d had prior to this revelation) they instantly thought that we fit into their preconceived stereotype.
You should have smacked him with your purse before you stormed out.
I have the impression that this joke is a great favourite worldwide, concerning towns with a reputation – deserved or not – as less-than-delightful. It gets aired plentifully, re many towns in the UK.
A variant over here, re towns with a reputation as dismal, worthless hell-holes: “The Royal Air Force made a mistake one day, and dropped an H-bomb on [Town X]. They did three pounds worth of damage.”
Funny implying I was being feminine and that is some how inferior. Classic dope misogyny.
Some of their wines had Confederate generals on them and when he made his little joke, at first I was going to ask him if he had any other characters in his American Traitors series, maybe a Benedict Arnold red, or a John Walker Lindh reisling, but then I thought, “fuck that guy.”
[QUOTE=madmonk28]
Some of their wines had Confederate generals on them and when he made his little joke, at first I was going to ask him if he had any other characters in his American Traitors series, maybe a Benedict Arnold red, or a John Walker Lindh reisling
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I am so going to steal this.