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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]I didn't respond to this thread in its original iteration, but now I feel compelled to say something by way of explanation.  I didn't speak up at first because I'm a native of Seattle, and we're just not confrontational.  We tend to have a "you think that way, I think this way... huh" attitude, so no need to argue.  But, I don't like to see people having a hard time integrating, so I figured I'd offer a few explanations.

(For some background, I lived in the Seattle area until I was 21, and have lived in the South and DC for the last 16 years, but spend 1-3 months in Seattle every year, so I still feel pretty connected to the culture.)

Here are the parts of this general narrative I don't disagree with:

--It probably is hard to integrate and make friends in the Seattle area.  There are lots of "locals" or "provincials," who have deep roots, and those communities are hard to break into.  Washington and Oregon are also the least churchgoing states in the nation, so you don't have big church communities that can help newcomers integrate.  Obviously, there's plenty of anecdata above that some people have managed to break through, but I don't want to discount that it may be hard to build deep friendships.  (Of course, it may be hard anywhere, especially at age 30+ or 40+.)
--There's some deep rooted racism in the Seattle area that is largely unspoken.  There are large Asian American communities in the urban area and large Latino communities in the rural towns, but very few African Americans.  There's plenty of prejudice toward the latter two groups in particular but it goes largely unspoken (especially relative to the South where they tend to air their racial grievances all over the place).  I don't at all defend any racism, and the Seattle area needs to work on it as much as anywhere does.

But some of the other observations I'm afraid are misunderstandings.  First, there's a persistent characterization of Seattleites as "passive aggressive."  Seattleites are actually just passive.  We are the home of grunge and pot.  It's just a "chill" culture.  If I let you in front of me in line at Bartell's (the drug store), it's not because I'm secretly stewing and plotting my revenge upon you (in passive aggressive fashion).  It's because I'm not in a hurry, and I genuinely don't care who leaves Bartell's first.  For people coming from a hurried place like NY or DC, it's easy to assume that such deference must be passive aggressive, but it's genuinely just not caring.  Sometimes when my mom visits me here, she'll see people jockeying for position in line--say, to get on the metro or to get to the host stand first at a restaurant--and she's just genuinely puzzled why anyone would care who gets there first.

That attitude carries over into traffic.  Yes, Seattleites tend to drive slow, and they'll do what seems to an East Coaster like cutting you off.  It didn't occur to the Seattleite that they were cutting you off because they didn't know you owned that position on the roadway, and they didn't assume that you'd care if they got in front of you.  They'd also be glad to let you in next time when the roles are reversed.

Seattleites also have a basic MYOB attitude stitched into the fiber of their being.  It's the legacy of the Old West where people lived on huge plots of land and didn't see their neighbors too often.  There's just this sense that everybody takes care of their own business and doesn't interfere with each other's.  (Tim Egan's columns in the NYTimes are good at articulating this mentality.)  On a policy level, that amounts to social liberalism--e.g. with regard to sexuality--but it also leads to regressive tax policies like high sales tax, no state income tax, and tons of user taxes.

But it also means we're just fairly standoffish.  We assume that everybody is just taking care of themselves.  There's not a ton of warmth.  We're not effusive people.  The flip side of that is that we are TOTALLY genuine.  Relative to the South, you never have to wonder if someone is genuine when they go on and on about how much they like your pie.  And there are no code phrases like "bless her heart" or "she means well," which insiders know indicates that the rest of the statement is disingenuous.

Anyway, I find the people in Seattle lovely, but I think that's because I know how to read them.  (FTR, my husband--a Texan--also really likes them!)  I'm definitely not saying that these Seattle traits are the best possible traits or that I don't think there are merits to other regions and subcultures--just that I'm not sure all the assumptions being made in this thread were accurate or helpful.[/quote]
I live in Seattle now and agree with everything you said.
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Totally disagree, and to me it seems like another justification of anti-social behavior that has made Seattle such a distinctly unpleasant experience for many people.  In fact, I'm fairly shocked by the level of underlying aggression I see in Seattle- where people seem almost primed for confrontation and anger.  There's a reason so many serial killers come from this part of the country- it's not some random fluke.  People who have a high social EQ sense it fairly distinctly.

I get along fine with Seattlites, because I'm a people person.  But I moved away as fast as I could, because I found the underlying aggression and the coldness of the people to be deeply unsettling, even when they liked me.  Most of the people I knew in Seattle would talk about their trips to the east coast and how everyone was "nice" and "friendly" (to people in DC who have never been to Seattle, hearing our part of the country described as 'friendly' should tell you everything you need to know about the warmness of the PNW).  To someone who has grown used to the niceness and friendliness that characterizes many parts of the US, this level of hostility can be quite shocking.
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