San Antonio is rat poison for the soul. Go to Aust
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12/22/2015
Been stuck in San Antonio for almost 15 years and it is another world down here, a very small, ignorant, uneducated world. Abandon all hope ye who enter here. It feels like Summer all year around. Those cute snow boots I bought from Jersey almost 10 years ago have still gone unworn. DRIVE AT YOUR OWN RISK. Most people in SA don't formerly learn how to drive and they come straight from Mexico. There is a MASSIVE drunk driving problem due to all the illegal Mexicans that never gets addressed. You will constantly see lives cut short down here due to drunk driving and many other accidents caused by the sheer stupidity of these people. If you value your own life I'd advise you to be off the streets by 1 a.m. every morning and midnight on the weekends if you can help it. It's ridiculous.
There is a big problem with recycling too. I always tell people you'll know when you're in San Antonio when you start seeing mounds of trash everywhere. Beer bottles outside neighborhood parks and plastic everywhere all along the highways. It's a hideous sight, not to mention all the dead animals you'll come across on your travels. Seeing roadkill here is almost as common as seeing 20 year old Lupita walking down the HEB grocery aisle with her 9 kids and another one on the way. Holy hell.
There is also a major problem with unchecked growth. I'm not racist just keeping it 100. Mexicans multiply like rabbits and they get pregnant at very young ages, so the city is constantly growing and this creates a butt load of construction all over the damn city. Traffic is already horrible but the city is under constant construction always at rush hour. Apartments and other subdivisions are getting put up EVERYWHERE and anywhere they can which just makes the city look even more like a ghetto. So now they finally have to do something about the roads which the city has been putting off for ages. It's a mess.
If you are young, a professional, or both, then you're screwed if you move to SA. The job market is super limited due to a number of factors. SA is a city that prides itself in ignorance. Most of these good but albeit uneducated people just want to live paycheck to paycheck, drink, smoke, eat tacos and Whataburger, party, and wear "GO SPURS GO" t-shirts. Education, diversity, and building a better future is not a big deal to the sect of Mexicans that live here, and the job market reflects that. HOWEVER, Mexicans look out for each other here more than anything and if you're not in the "clique" then you stand a small chance competitively. A Spanish speaker will get a job over an English speaker even if the person who only speaks Spanish isn't as qualified.
As a young person myself, one of the worst things about SA (and there's a lot of bad things) is the social/dating life. Dear God it's terrible, and SA has been rated one of the worst cities for dating and relationships, mostly if you're not a Mexican. You'll just have to go to Austin to have yourself any kind of healthy social life. Why? Mexicans in SA are extremely lacking in diversity and tend to have a lot of family and friends all in the same place since they never leave and they're very cliquish. Due to this most of them are already in close relationships with each other and they pair off with each other at young ages (which usually ends up in teen pregnancy). Now enter people who are new to the city looking for new friends to make and new relationships to build. That creates a problem. It's like a new kid going to a new school but there's no other new kids to make friends with at any point. All the other kids have just so happened to have been there their entire lives and already have their own exclusive groups. And strangely and hypocritically enough, SA Mexicans tend to be very prejudice towards other Latinos and extremely prejudice towards blacks. Some are prejudice of whites but many are more accepting since many try to emulate whites a lot, which is beyond bizarre. So overall, if you're not already in their group or if you're not Mexican or white, you won't be accepted into the fold very easily. This is very true for black people though, especially black females. If you are a black female you will have a hard time finding positive relationships in SA. Mexicans are very family oriented people and many Mexican women seem to not like black women for reasons I'm sure have to deal with insecurity. If you're black and have a Mexican boyfriend his mothers and sisters will most likely give you hell, and because Mexicans stick together this will ruin any kind of relationship you have. I've seen this happen at least 3 times. It can go either way with a black guy and a Mexican female, but it's something about black females some mexicans here do not like. I've found out a lot of mexican guys will find non mexican women attractive but are afraid to do anything about it due to fear of their families' disapproval, so they just stick with each other almost all the time while considering you as their side piece. This overall makes for a very horrible dating experience and just a bad life experience.
Bottom line is the only place worth living in Texas is Austin. You'll have a much better quality of life there in all areas. Take heed.
Kaira | San Antonio, TX