How are you liking the new city, that's the question I've been getting a lot lately from friends, family, acquaintances and acquaintances I'd like to get to know better but somehow they're always like ooo I have to go to a wedding last week, how about the weekend after, or huuh that sounds like a great idea but I don't drink beer is it okay if we go to a wine place, etcetera. And the answer to that is: I don't know. No clue how to answer the question, or to even evaluate my stay here for the last three weeks to get around to evaluating it.
Because the move has been multiple things: I've changed cities, which means I've gone from the Northeast to the PNW. How do I isolate the changes due to that? Versus say, the changes that have happened from living with a couple of roommates to living all by myself. Versus, the changes due to living in a place where all my friends were moving out to the burbs, and everybody was settled and in stable relationships versus this city where most of our gang is either single or super duper excited to help other single people be out and about. There's too many uncontrolled variables, and I can't parse the intention behind the question, so there's been no clear answers yet. Disappointing, I know. Also I moved from a quiet neighborhood to a place that's in the heart of everything, heart of downtown and my friends all live in these tall luxury buildings around. So different circumstances completely.
There's no easy answer. Where do I even start answering from? Seattle is...a city. That's not Boston. More expensive to eat out, groceries are pricier, the taxes for eating out are twice as much as in Mass. And the people here walk so slow, I'm always rushing around by comparison. But then I've never lived where all the bars and restaurants were, so it's unclear if I can differentiate there. How are the people in Seattle, if somebody asks me that I'd be screwed. Because as somebody who came from a liberal arts school in the northeast with super-liberal students, it feels like I'm back on campus with annoying people who aren't particularly politically astute and don't seem to realize the full implications of their proposed policies, but will make them shamelessly anyway? That's not a great answer. And it's not about Seattle, just my neighborhood, the three blocks around me.
Generalizations are unhelpful, generally speaking, but at this point there's so many things to generalize about one finds it not easy to start making them. So, to go back to my original question: I don't know, it's a whole different experience, different friends different circumstances, different neighborhood. I need more time to process everything. A lot more. The length of stay I intend to have here currently may not be sufficient to give a complete answer.
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