Further observations on the Seattleite demeanor:
…we generally agreed native Seattleites are “polite but not friendly”, rarely returning messages and almost impossible to pry away from doing whatever they’re busy with (even if it’s nothing) for anything spontaneous. One must give at least 1 week notice to have a coffee with a Seattle native. Anything less just discombobulates them beyond comprehension. It’s an odd phenomenon felt most sharply by us transplants from other less polite but more friendly locales who are trying desperately to connect with our new neighbors (new being relative to anything less than a lifetime local).
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2 Responses to “Seattle Personality”
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Hey there. I'm Ariel Meadow Stallings, a native Seattleite who's written my way up and down the Left Coast. Electrolicious is where I post daily randomata, but I also write for a living. My first book, Offbeat Bride, was published last year.
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leblanc
August 15th, 2005 at 11:17 am
hm. i think some of that way-of-being might be dribbling down the coast to SF. getting anyone to do anything here is worse than pulling teeth, and even if they *do* agree to do it with one week notice, 90% of the time they won’t show up anyway.
i personally attribute this lack of committment to cell phones. in the old days, if you said you were meeting at The Restaurant @ 7:00, you had to show up, otherwise your friends would be left sitting there. now, you just call at 6:45 and say you’re not making it. are people there just as flaky about showing up in Seattle as they are in SF, or once you say you’ll be there, you’ll be there?
Ariel
August 15th, 2005 at 11:22 am
Folks are pretty good once they’ve committed, it’s just GETTING anyone to commit that’s hard. Seattleites will always say “We should have dinner! We should get together!” but it’s rare that they actually go through the effort of making plans. I am 100% guilty of this.
And the cell phone thing, TELL ME ABOUT IT! I know people who will play “Call me in a couple hours and we’ll make plans” all day long if you let them. I hate it.