In Seattle, there’s always the fear of being caught in interminable, mindless smalltalk. At least for this New Englander.
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On Point on NPR has been doing a series on populism, and yesterday’s episode was on the urban/rural divide, its history, and how in spite of the notion of “rural resentment,” rural Americans have far more political power.
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I have posited that part of this is because Seattle has a really high concentration of salaried intellectual workers who never really clock out and are always squeezing in some thing… Compared to a place with more service or labor, workers who get to actually leave work at work.
Imagine Kyle at a café, trying to grade papers being bothered by a nice older gentleman with a bunch of questions that inane things, and him being too polite to really just get himself out of it.
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[quote=“Euphorbia, post:3618, topic:21693, full:true”]
This has happened several times. Most of the time I don’t mind though.
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Man this is the worst I was sitting at a bar doing my logic homework and this guy came up and was taking about his philosophy degree but he hadn’t been using it at all and we started chatting and it was Kim Thayil from Soundgarden.
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serves you right for living in seattle
This is a Seattle problem in that someone chatting to you at a bar/cafe seen as a imposition here. In the south it would be rude to ignore the people sitting around you in a public place.
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Yeah, I dunno, people say that but I’ve never had a problem chatting with folks, and people seem willing to chat. Just keep it to inane small talk and you’ll be fine.
That’s because it is an imposition when you are always on the grind.
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One person’s inane small talk is another person’s deep conversation though.
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It’s called humor Kyle, try it sometime. 
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As time has gone by, I’ve noticed more how much I miss talking to strangers and even more, strangers who I see often (staff at the climbing gym, etc.) There are some people here who I’ve seen around on a weekly or monthly basis for MORE THAN 10 YEARS and even if i’ve struck up a few conversations over that time, the next time I see them I might as well be there for the first time.
By contrast, the few staff or regulars I met at the climbing gym in Nashville struck up conversations like the second or third time I went.
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Be that as it may, I’d pick Stockholm over Nashville and Swedish weirdo culture over Tennessee weirdo culture any day of the week.
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We’re actually considering a move over…
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To Nashville?!?
Come live in Andersonville in Chicago so you don’t go into full Sweden withdrawal.
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Not sure I would long for the spontaneous casual conversations in Tennessee these days
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Biggest hugs. Feeling this and I must admit I’m very happy to be back in a red state vs the NL. France was great though. So was Italy. They might be less likely to return a smile than Americans, but they’re every bit as kind and a bit more sincere about it. ATME
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It would be on the same street as my retired parents and brother and his kids, so it’s mostly about them. They live next door to one another and have a huge shared yard and a ton of woods.
I’m a little nervous about the day to day Nashville and US in general, but we’re still taking steps that way.
There’s some component of Scandinavian culture that ended up in Seattle and I think this reserve is exactly what people complain about.
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This is my dream to do with family. Just let the kids roam and set fires and build huts and and and…
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