I can only agree with the "nastiest people ever encountered" part ...and the rain. But, who doesn't know about the rain, for heaven's sake? I love the grey gloom as it fits how I feel most of the time. I.E. introverted, comfortable being inside, and melancholy or introspective. Look up 'hygge' to understand that this is a cultural characteristic for those of us who come from Scandinavia and/or Western Europe. It's pleasurable. Esp if you come from Texas or some place where the Sun just fries everything and makes walking from your house to your car a sweaty, sticky, miserable experience. The rain isn't bad and, imo, is better than either loads of snow (which we mostly miss) and being radiated so much that you can almost see the outlines of your surroundings through your closed eyelids because the Sun is that friggin bright! Gah, I really disliked Texas.
Anyways, back to the CON about nasty people. Holy smokes they're rude and arrogant beyond belief. Between the snooty millionaires cashing in on Portland's real estate boom and the drug addled homeless here who are, somehow, insular and condescending as well...it's almost enough to turn me off. But, the creative class people who've hung around from the 90s and other artistic / 'real' / just humble people make up for those other two. So far, at least.
The Seattle 'freeze' isn't just for Seattle and...is just a euphemism for wealthy looking people looking right through you, avoiding eye contact at all costs and completely ignoring when you say 'hello' or hold a door open. It's not just me, either. My kids didn't believe me until I took them for a walk and counted the people who didn't respond to me gentle, affable "hullo".
People are people but there's higher ratios in different places.
Progress Ridge, specifically, has a very large ratio of pretentious a-holes.
The other thing about Portland Metro that people may not know is that, though it's on the West Coast, there are a lot of ...shall we say...blue collar or no collar workers here. Lots of rural, country folk who heard about Portland and lived nearby and now br-r-r-rat through the streets in their muffler-less monster trucks, spending loads of money from working in the lumber industry and generally bringing the cultural IQ down double digits. Oregon is the rural stepchild of the West Coast. It is what it is.
Though why anyone moves to Portland and complains about Left wing politics or 'weirdos' or homosexuals, is beyond me. Stay in Sweet Home or Medford or go back to Oklahoma or move to Texas! Yes, get in where you fit in and take my place in miserable, conservative, backwards Texas. You're not going to change an entire metropolitan area so all you're doing is making both yourself and those around you unhappy.
That's about all: the people of Progress Ridge and Tigard (and esp Lake Oswego, I hear) are muy muy pretencioso and very full of themselves. Even worse than Austin!
Particularly galling because we're all jammed togather like ants due to Urban Growth Boundary and can hear every sneeze and utterance by living in these paper-walled, tee-tiny homes and duplexes that were clearly just cheaply 'thrown up' to make a buck and have absolutely ZERO built-in soundproofing between the units. And these are the expensive places I'm talking about! With the uppity class of 'Portlanders'...
Harold |
Tigard, OR |
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