Ok, this is kind of a silly rant, but I’m ridiculously frustrated with Northeasterners inability to recognize that there are places where one might choose to live and exist other than Boston, New York, and California.
When I say I want to move to Denver/Boulder after graduation, I get looks either of disgust or disdain or just an instinctive, complete with that stare only a rich, easy-paved life in the Northeast can pull off, “Why?” I’m declared either a “outdoorsy hippie,” a “republican” (because clearly no liberal in her right mind would choose to live in a “red state”), or merely “insane.” I could make upwards of 30k more a year in NYC or Boston, why on earth would I choose to live in a cultural backwater like Denver where you can’t hobnob with Mischa Barton on a regular basis?
Why? Because believe it or not, some of us prefer the beauty of the mountains to skyscrapers, would rather spend evenings at home cooking dinner than grabbing 24-hour gourmet food leaving at midnight, would prefer ski boots over Prada boots, would rather spend our weekends hiking and skiing than at the hippest club, would rather work 50 hour weeks and and get vacation time and even be able to take 6-month maternity leave and still make partner (gasp!). Sigh. To them, this is “inconceivable.”
However, I currently have one ace up my sleeve. I just remind them of the most recent proof that God loves the midwest: Chicago and Indianapolis are in the superbowl, bitches.
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January 24, 2007 at 12:25 pm
Rebekah
As a former Northeasterner, I have experienced this exact same phenomenon. As a senior in high school, one must be prepared for the question, “Where are you going to school next year?” While every single one of my peers were exclaiming their acceptance to schools like BU, Boston College, Cornell, Princeton, NYU, Syracuse, or any of the SUNYs, I was ready with the response. “Emory University. In Atlanta. Georgia.” The second and third statements were often in response to the questioning faces and stumped expressions that nearly always followed the first. Responses to my choice of school included:
“Great school. Kind of far away, isn’t it?”
“Never heard of it. Atlanta you say? I don’t know anyone who lives there.”
“Going south huh?” (Knowing look) Gonna learn how to be a southern belle? (Insert bad southern accent here) Live life all slow like?”
“Isn’t that a flight school?” (Embry Riddle in FL)
“I always thought Emory was in Boston.” (Emerson is, maybe that is what they meant)
“Why?”
It isn’t just the midwest that makes Northeasterners question your motives, political leaning or sanity. Why on earth would any leave New York City, center of the universe, to head south of the Mason-Dixon line where modern life is a scene straight out of Deliverance. (I had one friend who would hum the banjo tune every time I mentioned Georgia.)
Granted, the graduating class of 2002 from my high school was understandably gun shy about flying and more students than usual remained within driving distance of their parents. In fact, the majority of my graduating class chose to stay in New York out of a form of state patriotism. My guess is parents still hysterical in November and December of 2001 had quite a bit to say about how far away applications got sent. Only one other girl in my class went futher away from home than I did, to California. Everyone else stayed on the eastern seaboard, north of the capitol.
I can also claim parents and a younger sister who are recovering Northeasterners, recently transplanted from New York to Missouri. While my mother aches for decent ethnic food, especially sushi, Thai and Chinese food, she loves the fact that her commute decresed from 2 hours on trains and ferrys to 5 minutes on foot. True, taking in a Broadway show or driving up to the mountains of Massachussets to ski are no longer weekend plans, but my family seems to have made a home there in MO.
I can’t tell you why Northeasterners think the way they think, but I suspect it has something to do with the environment in which we were raised. Day trips to NYC to see the Mets or window shop on Madison Ave., school field trips to the Met, MOMA, the UN or the stock exchange were not out of the ordinary. A city that never sleeps has more to offer to insomniacs than a quiet midwest town. If sushi at 3AM, new club openings, hustle and bustle and a penthouse apartment are what you want out of life, then yes, you would be crazy to leave New York. My guess is, the people who look at you funny when you suggest Boulder, CO don’t share your values for skiing, hiking, clean air, a large back yard and a quieter existance. In most cases, I would be willing to bet it is because they don’t know any better. They are ignorant of the ways of the outside world, trapped in the Northeast bubble in which rapidity, salary and prestige matter most.
January 24, 2007 at 4:49 pm
cvalh
Rebekah, every one of those comments about Emory is familiar.
When I first moved to New England (from Nebraska) someone asked me if I was from Kansas. I told them no, Nebraska, why? They told me I sounded like “one of those midwesterners in the movies.”
When I moved to Oklahoma, they flat out decided I’d lost my mind. (That was once they realized it wasn’t located in that box on the map otherwise known as Alabama).
January 31, 2007 at 3:16 am
the politica
I give you both an “amen.” I’m from Wisconsin and went to school in Philly, where, when the cow comments were finished, the greatest compliment many people could muster was something to the effect of, “You don’t have much of an accent.”
After being briefly trapped into the I-won’t-move-anywhere-that’s-not-on-a-coast-or-Chicago mindset, I find myself in Oklahoma, as well… and even fellow Wisconsinites believe I’ve lost my mind. There’s a subconscious hierarchy of states, and Oklahoma is near the bottom.
I still twang out the dueling-banjos tune when encountered with the Southern elements of Oklahoma and mime terror when I stretch out my vowels too long, but life is life wherever you’re living it. And that, despite growing up with a Midwestern geographical enlightenment, was still a hard lesson to learn.