So tired of living in the DC area. So sick of it. Warning..negative VENT

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I am from the Midwest too, and a 16 year resident of DC.

I agree with everything you said, including the part about being stuck here due to my spouse.

As a result of everything you point out (crowds, time, cost, commute, traffic), there is a lack of spontaneous socializing here that is depressing. Literally, it makes people depressed. And it's not just a "we have kids and 2 jobs so we're busy" thing. My friends with younger kids and 2 jobs in other cities like Minneapolis and Seattle absolutely do get together with no planning aforethought several times a month, just 'cause.

I'm sorry to hear you're so bummed to be living here, though your experience doesn't reflect mine.

I don't know about "no" planning, but I frequently get together with friends and neighbors with little planning (e.g., "Hey, you want to do a playdate on Saturday am?" "We have a birthday party/soccer/ballet on Saturday, how about Sunday afternoon?" "Great, done.") It's definitely harder when the weather is bad, but when it's good, the kids on our block are frequently outside, shooting hoops, kicking the soccer ball around, or riding their bikes--all spontaneous--after school and on the weekends. We also invite people over for dinner more often in the warmer months, when we can fire up the BBQ and the kids can run around the yard, often with not much advance planning.

I also don't get having to plan trips to the grocery store around traffic. Do you really not have one in your neighborhood or at least pass one on your way home from work? Our neighborhood Safeway is frequently crowded, but that means I usually bump into someone I know, which always makes me feel like DC is really just small town.

[Anonymous]

I don't think of it as home either. Franzen in the book _Freedom_ has a great paragraph about DC on page 224.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I am from the Midwest too, and a 16 year resident of DC.

I agree with everything you said, including the part about being stuck here due to my spouse.

As a result of everything you point out (crowds, time, cost, commute, traffic), there is a lack of spontaneous socializing here that is depressing. Literally, it makes people depressed. And it's not just a "we have kids and 2 jobs so we're busy" thing. My friends with younger kids and 2 jobs in other cities like Minneapolis and Seattle absolutely do get together with no planning aforethought several times a month, just 'cause.

my sister has been in Minneapolis for years. Block parties are a regular part of her life. Friends in Seattle love it there too! I love both the Twin Cities and Seattle!

At the risk of digressing from the OP's point, do you think there is a socioeconomic correlation between lifestyle vs. geography? I mean, if you went to places is Minneapolis and Seattle that are the socioeconomic equals of say, Bethesda or McLean, would you find the same lifestyle? My sense of it is that things are more 'friendly' and 'sane' in places where income and col are more closely aligned?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

AS for parking, the further out you go, the better it gets. I love working in Leesburg and doing my shopping @ Costco and Target on the way home.

I love that Costo, too, in Leesburg (and also the Kohl's and Target, but not the Walmart). But let's be honest. That's not D.C. by any stretch. It's a 48 minute drive from the District with no traffic back-ups and it's another world. Not better, or worse, but totally different.

Put another way, the Leesburg big-box land is indistinguishable from the Overland Park, KS big-box land. Or the Arvada, Colo. big-box land, or Katy, TX outside of Houston ...

Born and raised in OP, KS. Even the folks in Leesburg aren't as friendly as the folks in OP, KS... big box or not. I know many many people that live in Leesburg and they ae very much like those that OP describes.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I don't think of it as home either. Franzen in the book _Freedom_ has a great paragraph about DC on page 224. [/quote


For those of use without the book, would you post the paragraph, please?

[Anonymous]

If you think DC is bad, you would be horrified by NY. DC is actually not all that crowded. It just depends on your perspective. I am from NY and DC is a much kinder, friendlier place. I guess my best advice to OP is to try to seek out a few friends you really like and just accept the fact that you live here. If you surround yourself with people you like, it does not matter where you are.

[Anonymous]

Not sure if this will make you feel any better OP but I felt the same as you do and so I left. Moved back to the South where I grew up. I've been back a year and I kind of miss DC! I miss people paying attention to the news and knowing what is going on in the world. And I miss having every kind of ethnic food available and I miss fabulous museums and theater. There are some things I really love about being back but not everything. I just think there are trade-offs in every place. I didn't realize how much I had changed since living in DC and I suspect you might go out of your mind if you actually went back to the midwest. Try to embrace it!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:
I hate that there is not much of a friendly feel in neighborhoods here. Everyone is too busy with crazy, overscheduled agendas. The craziness isn't good for my kid and i don't want her to grow up "stressed" Yuck.

I hear you! But remember, there are some very nice friendly neighborhoods in DC and the surrounding region -- some where it doesn't cost as much to live either. The friendliest neighborhood I ever lived in was one where most of my neighbors were working class and didn't even have college degrees. Yes, we did have to send our kid to school out-of-boundaries. But our neighbors were wonderful and they weren't overscheduled.

Good luck, OP! I know there are good people around the DC area. I hope you can find them.

[Anonymous]

Your observations about DC resonate even though I like it here (because I have NYC and Boston as reference points), but it seems to me that the problem isn't DC but your husband. His wife is miserable and you apparently have the qualifications to make at least a little bit of money in a cheaper place, but he won't consider moving. How can the business make enough money to be worth staying for (and making you miserable) but not enough to have a good standard of living here? If he's a good enough businessman to make it here, who says he doesn't have a shot somewhere else (somewhere less cutthroat, where he can get away with earning less).

You are in a city that is a bad match for you, but you are also in a marriage that is keeping you in misery.

You can vent here to blow off steam, but it won't change anything. Your husband needs to hear that life here is unacceptable to you and then the two of you can figure out a way to make both of your lives livable.

I'm not one of these "dump the bastard" types. But it's his problem too. If my husband were keeping me in KS (sorry, folks; I don't like it there) I wouldn't leave him but I wouldn't stop working for a tolerable outcome.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Not sure if this will make you feel any better OP but I felt the same as you do and so I left. Moved back to the South where I grew up. I've been back a year and I kind of miss DC! I miss people paying attention to the news and knowing what is going on in the world. And I miss having every kind of ethnic food available and I miss fabulous museums and theater. There are some things I really love about being back but not everything. I just think there are trade-offs in every place. I didn't realize how much I had changed since living in DC and I suspect you might go out of your mind if you actually went back to the midwest. Try to embrace it!

This is a really good point. We left DC to chase things that we thought we wanted, but came back. Some changes are global - they are happening everywhere. But mostly, happiness is a frame of mind and your unhappiness is probably less about the actual place you're living and more about some other things (don't know what).

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Your observations about DC resonate even though I like it here (because I have NYC and Boston as reference points), but it seems to me that the problem isn't DC but your husband. His wife is miserable and you apparently have the qualifications to make at least a little bit of money in a cheaper place, but he won't consider moving. How can the business make enough money to be worth staying for (and making you miserable) but not enough to have a good standard of living here? If he's a good enough businessman to make it here, who says he doesn't have a shot somewhere else (somewhere less cutthroat, where he can get away with earning less).

You are in a city that is a bad match for you, but you are also in a marriage that is keeping you in misery.

You can vent here to blow off steam, but it won't change anything. Your husband needs to hear that life here is unacceptable to you and then the two of you can figure out a way to make both of your lives livable.

I'm not one of these "dump the bastard" types. But it's his problem too. If my husband were keeping me in KS (sorry, folks; I don't like it there) I wouldn't leave him but I wouldn't stop working for a tolerable outcome.

You bring up some good points, but shouldn't this have been a conversation they had about 18 years ago? This is the way it has been for 22 years. I don't think it is fair to dump this all in his lap and say he is the bad guy.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I have lived here for 22 years and d*mn I can't stand it here anymore! I'm originally from the Midwest. Land of laid back, friendly, modest folks.

In the cities, perhaps. In rural areas, I've found that, unless your family has lived in the area for generations, and you're as white as the driven snow, it's about as cold and unwelcoming a place as can be.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I think one of the other big problems with the people who live in this area is the unwillingness to commit to the area and say this is home. I hate to tell you this, but after 22 years, this is your home. Warts and all. It is time to let go of what you had and make lemonade. I've been where you are and yes, at times I still get blue about all of the negatives, but you know what? This is home. My two children were born here and this is where we live. I'm much happier since I've shifted my point of view.

This is my experience, too, and I think it's an important point. I am also from the midwest, and have lived here nearly 10 years. We always planned to move back. But, in the last year or so, due to various factors, we have realized that this is it, this where we live, this is home. Even if we wanted to go "home," it's not really home anymore, and it can't offer us the job opportunities we have here. We are also kind of stuck because we bought during the bubble, and would have to take a major loss that we can't afford to sell our house. For a while, we really felt helpless and unhappy. Recently, though, we've decided to embrace it. This our home. There is a lot that we love here, although also a lot that irritates us. This is where our kids were born and where they will grow up. We pay more attention to things like what is going on at the local high school and elementary school, and we're just generally not preoccupied with trying to get the hell out of here. Unfortunately, we still have this pesky housing problem as we bought a house we love in a not-so-good school pyramid (as we never planned to be here for the school years). We have another 5-6 years or so to figure that out before our oldest hits middle school.

[Anonymous]

Sounds like you'd be unhappy anywhere OP.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I am from the Midwest too, and a 16 year resident of DC.

I agree with everything you said, including the part about being stuck here due to my spouse.

As a result of everything you point out (crowds, time, cost, commute, traffic), there is a lack of spontaneous socializing here that is depressing. Literally, it makes people depressed. And it's not just a "we have kids and 2 jobs so we're busy" thing. My friends with younger kids and 2 jobs in other cities like Minneapolis and Seattle absolutely do get together with no planning aforethought several times a month, just 'cause.

my sister has been in Minneapolis for years. Block parties are a regular part of her life. Friends in Seattle love it there too! I love both the Twin Cities and Seattle!

All depends on where you live. I live in DC--not the exurbs, but DC--and block parties are a regular part of our families life as well. I think a lot of folks end up living in some soulless exurban hell-hole because they want a big house, and so end up mistaking the problems of "the soulless exurban hellscape" for problems of "DC".