curtoid
02-14-2004, 07:07 AM
I have no idea if it's like this anywhere else, since DC is the only large metro area I've lived in, but there does seem to be a weird small town quality to the Washington region which is (at times) nice, but also frustrating.
It's frustrating, because DC isn't a small town. There are a lot of god damn people in this area, and sometimes the slowed down response and action in the retail stores, or in interactions, can really clog things up. NY, for example, knows it's a big city and that things need to move along quickly, and if someone is taking too long, some one will tell them - it needs to move along.
The nice aspect of the small town mentality is that people are, for the most part, polite. Not as a 100% rule, and certainly not as much as you see down south, but for the most part you will have people who do stop to hold doors open - they just might not get a "Thank You."
Another nice thing is that everyone in DC seems to be 1 or 2 people removed from someone else you know, especially if you've been here for any length of time.
I've given up becoming surprised when I find out that someone I met in a completely random community in DC somehow knows someone else. Ever since I moved back here in 1991 it has been that way time and again.
At the R&F Hockey night a few weeks ago, I thanked Wonder Boy for the tickets, and (trying to have a conversation) I tell him about my friend, Nathan, who was also at the game (Nathan is one of the original Georgetown Punks from the early 1980s who helped bring Straight Edge to DC - he's also a rabid, insane hockey fan; the only two things I knew about WB was that he was into Straight Edge and hockey), and Wonderboy flummuxes me by asking how I knew him.
I had to really think about that for a second and remember how Nathan and I met, and it struck me as a difference between people who have been here long enough might not have thought to ask them, because (odds are) they also know someone who knows that same person, or assume that everyone does.
(I had another story about an old friend of mine (Linda) who moved to Athens, Greece last year to work for the embassy and how I figured out she must know someone on our message board, but I'll just leave this at that).
I'm guessing that with the exception of NY, LA and maybe Chicago, DC is not that unique, and even in those bigger cities, certain circles and pathes are still bound to cross. I'm just not certain if there are many of the other top ten big cities that still like to think of itself as part small town.
http://img21.photobucket.com/albums/v64/curtoid/44.jpg
[b]KOP Out[b]
It's frustrating, because DC isn't a small town. There are a lot of god damn people in this area, and sometimes the slowed down response and action in the retail stores, or in interactions, can really clog things up. NY, for example, knows it's a big city and that things need to move along quickly, and if someone is taking too long, some one will tell them - it needs to move along.
The nice aspect of the small town mentality is that people are, for the most part, polite. Not as a 100% rule, and certainly not as much as you see down south, but for the most part you will have people who do stop to hold doors open - they just might not get a "Thank You."
Another nice thing is that everyone in DC seems to be 1 or 2 people removed from someone else you know, especially if you've been here for any length of time.
I've given up becoming surprised when I find out that someone I met in a completely random community in DC somehow knows someone else. Ever since I moved back here in 1991 it has been that way time and again.
At the R&F Hockey night a few weeks ago, I thanked Wonder Boy for the tickets, and (trying to have a conversation) I tell him about my friend, Nathan, who was also at the game (Nathan is one of the original Georgetown Punks from the early 1980s who helped bring Straight Edge to DC - he's also a rabid, insane hockey fan; the only two things I knew about WB was that he was into Straight Edge and hockey), and Wonderboy flummuxes me by asking how I knew him.
I had to really think about that for a second and remember how Nathan and I met, and it struck me as a difference between people who have been here long enough might not have thought to ask them, because (odds are) they also know someone who knows that same person, or assume that everyone does.
(I had another story about an old friend of mine (Linda) who moved to Athens, Greece last year to work for the embassy and how I figured out she must know someone on our message board, but I'll just leave this at that).
I'm guessing that with the exception of NY, LA and maybe Chicago, DC is not that unique, and even in those bigger cities, certain circles and pathes are still bound to cross. I'm just not certain if there are many of the other top ten big cities that still like to think of itself as part small town.
http://img21.photobucket.com/albums/v64/curtoid/44.jpg
[b]KOP Out[b]