Are people in the South nicer than anywhere else?

Testshoot, what are you doing in Savannah? I live here currently, though I'll probably be going back to Connecticut/NY soon.

 

Peter,

let me know when you are comming out so i can see how messed up my schedule is then If worse comes to worse we can go get a bite to eat again. I know this terrific German resturaunt that does not serve SALSA

Rob

 

ROTFLMAO!!!!! Too bad i did not get a picture of your face, It was almost a perfect shade of rosso corsso

Honestly that salsa was the mild stuff. You shoud of tryed what i was eating now that was warm

Rob

 

Coming from Eastern PA just above Philadelphia and on the border with New Jersey and very close to NYC I would have to say that I am impressed with people in the west.

I lived in LA for 7 months last year and they were 20x more polite than the people in my area.

When I came home I couldn't believe how rude people can be.

 

Please don't take it so harshly. No, it's not my personal conduct - as an ENFP I like making others feel comfortable and being around happy, social people. I'm a Canadian who moved to Cambridge after 2 years in Seattle and 4 years in rural Hawaii, and let's just say I was used to a more laid-back treatment of people and situations.

I've made some good friends here in Boston, and there's a lot of things I like about the city itself... but what really chaps me is that I've found that unlike places where strangers are pleasant and engaging, many people are very short until you know them. It's not that I dislike Boston, but it's certainly not in the running for a "most inviting locale" award - which was the theme of this thread.

I think the biggest issue for me is that I'm not the kind of person to walk up to a counter and be all up in someone's face, but I've had a handful of situations in a few short months where all the sudden I had to take the offensive and assert myself against rude people and it's just been kind of a rough transition psychologically. I've had to be all uppity to get certain things done or people to listen to me and it isn't my preference.

 

Tell me about it. I called up about a half dozen companies that sell cameras at a discount price and every person on the phone was rude and unhelpful.

 

As we keep slogging onward and upward through the fog, each area of the country starts looking like a big box shopping center. We are losing much of our regional identities.

However, when my daughter was 14, she went from Texas to Boston to go a prep school. (Zack can tell you which one.) She had a difficult time adjusting at first. I told her that folks in Boston didn't mean to be mean. They just don't know no better. You just have to go with the flow.

Then she went to college in New Hampshire. You know, the state where inmates make license plates that say, "Live free or die." Damn, I have never meet so many Bubbas in my life!

Personally, I think that Yankee meaness comes from spending why too much time inside during the Winter. I mean look at Doody's posts. I'm expecting any day now for him to start babbling about how if you stare at something real hard everything goes blurry.

But I have to tell you about the first real Yankee I ever met. He lived in upstate Vermont (i.e., about as far away from Ma$$holes as you could get). The guy was in in late 60s, and he had been a dairy farmer all his life. He milked cows in the early morning and again in the early evening. Guess what he did for fun? He chopped wood. This guy musta had four barns stacked to the ceiling with split wood. Real friendly guy, if he liked you. Even better, within 30 seconds of meeting you, he'd let you know if he liked you or not.

No wonder, we lost the war....

Dr "Laid Back" Tax

 

I'm corn-fused, what else would it come in?

 

I count myself as one of those 'displaced Yankees'...having been relocated to the deep, DEEP south of South Carolina about seven years ago, I've had a very interesting experience finding and accomodating Southern Culture into my lifestyle. There have been some very interesting observations.

Southern Hospitality exists, but has been diluted by crime, Political confusion, Yankee tourists who end up buying property, the Confederate Flag Debate, and the Nu South movement. When I moved here, the underground joke was : "Atlanta was what 500,000 Confederate soldiers died to prevent". Apparently the fast-paced, big-city lifestyle that roiled Southern common-sensabilities was marching south, and nobody was altogether thrilled about it. That's true today. What used to be Southern Hospitality is now something that is only paid lipservice to in favor of tourist dollars. Sad.

The Civil War is NOT over. It has been temporarily suspended due to the premature surrender of Robert E. Lee. Yankee politics are not welcome here, as many Yankees favor liberal (read: Gay crackhead welfare-receiving, God-hating, cohabitating, tofu-and-soygrass-eating, green/purple-haired FREAK) issues that do NOT fly down here.

The Bible-Belt stereotype is alive and well in the South. Many folks spend more time shopping for a church than they do shopping for a house. They don't call Charleston the Holy City for nothing....I was surprised to learn that many Southern Baptist services run ALL DAY on sunday, not just a few hours in the AM. A strong source of where Southerners get their polite behavior? Probably, but don't go around telling people you are a New York Athiest. The Cold Shoulder treatment was well-learned from the days of Reconstruction.

It gets hot here in the summer. DAMNED HOT. Air Conditioning is a vital national necessity. Those that don't have it are Hardcore Locals who have very thin blood, or are poor. The heat slows everyone, and everything, down here. Hence the slow-paced lifestyle. Rushing around, getting 'all worked up' and acting like an over-emotional fool is something to laugh at on television. Lay back in your easy chair, sip on some sweet tea, and rest a spell.

Having said that, the closest thing to Southern Hospitality I've seen north of the Mason/Dixon line was Boston. Boston is like one big Irish/Red Sox church where the locals are hugely proud of their city. I had a distant Aunt get lost in downtown Boston once, and the local streetgang was nice enough to give her directions back to the Faneul Hall area - now THAT's civic pride.

 

Michael, have you read Confederates in the Attic, by Tony Horowitz? Great book we read in my Civil War History and Culture class in college. A Jewish journalist from NYC tours the South and the Civil War sites for several months, and gets to know a lot of locals, Civil War diehards and some very scary folks.

 

Merely putting down a plow and putting on a tie does NOT make one a Cosmopolitan.

DL

 

I have not read that book, but it's on my list of must-reads. There is a growing movement to rewrite history here in the South. The Civil Was was once preached to me by a local as "The War of Northern Aggression".......and that was said with a very serious face.

 

Ahhh, gotta' love those good ole' Southern values!


I've had the pleasure of meeting and talking to many Yanks, and a lot(if not all) just love the ppl here in Texas! Many have said they wouldnt live in any other state. I have noticed which Yanks have moved to my neck of the woods by just the way they drive. Got dang Yanks!

 

PeterS: "Yes, the Bay Area does have a lot to offer. I bailed from Los Gatos for good three years ago to Sonora (Hooterville II). The BA was becoming a place that I could not figure out which lanuage I had to learn!"

Yea, I lived of off Camden and Hwy 17; applied for a lateral transfer internal to city I worked for; got job but Personnel shot it down because "you don't speak Cambodian".

18 months later I moved to Colorado. Haven't been back to Calif in 12 years.