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I read an article on the internet that said only 7% of Americans socialize with their neighbors! A lot of people in the US don't even know who their neighbors are!rome86 wrote:is it just me or these places look like ghost towns ? people are so isolated from each other - nobody talk their neighbors EVEN ON HOLIDAYS the town is dead with people in it. MY GOD
I even asked one american like why don't you have like carnivals , parties - why don't you guys make noise -it is holidays DAMMIT
her response - she just raised her shoulder and stayed quiet - unbelievable
These holidays I did not travel so I had to stay in but fortunately I hung out with foreigner like me and it was not bad.
anyway what do you all think about these places ? I believe they are more like seattle or worse.
How true! I live in a nice middle class almost all white neigborhood and have lived here over three years now and NOBODY knows who their neighbors are!gsjackson wrote:White America has completely privatized itself -- people have gone inside to their private spaces and hooked themselves up to machines. It is a dying culture, if ever there was one.
Ditto on all that, Red Dog. Wakefield H.S. for you? You might be just old enough to remember mine -- Fort Hunt, down the Mt. Vernon Parkway, which closed in '85. I've spent about half my working life in the D.C. area, some of it in political Washington, and was always trying to figure out how to get out.RedDog wrote:I was born in DC and raised in Northern Virginia, in a bedroom community near the Pentagon. The area was not bad and very livable up until the early 80s, then the population just exploded, it got very crowded, expensive and people got very uptight. I spent most of my teen years trying to figure out how to get out of the DC area, since I hate the mentality there. The DC area has what I call the "beltway mentality". The beltway is the ring road around DC and the mentality I speak of is the "we're number 1"/"the world can't function without us"/"we're the center of the universe" mentality. My the rest of my family falls for that BS hook, line, and sinker. Needless to say, they think I'm a freak for not liking it there.
Yes, there are benefits to living in the DC area: low unemployment and rare gaps between employment. But it comes at a price. In DC, you do 2 things: work like a maniac (16-18 hours/day is typical, unless you're a govvie, who work 9-5 and that's it) and sit in traffic (3-4 hours/day is typical). After LA, it's the worst traffic in the country, by far. You get so caught up in a never ending rat-race of work and commute that literally months fly by and you can't remember what you accomplished, let alone if you did anything fun (not usually). Just to give you an idea how much I loathe living there: I've been unemployed for 15 months (I was never unemployed in DC in 20 years), and my family is begging me and my family to come live in DC again, but we refuse. I'd rather sell everything and move overseas, than live in DC again. It wasn't always like this, but it has become an area with no soul, no nightlife, the people are ice cold and calculating and everyone thinks they're "important". I learned early on, that in DC, only about 10% of the people actually have any real power; the rest of the people are just trying to ride on their coattails and get rich or impress their friends. It's a dead-end existence there. Vacation in DC is great (Smithsonian, monuments, etc.), but you need no more than a week there to see all you need to see. Just don't go during the summer: extreme heat and humidity.
Yeah, I remember Fort Hunt, but I went to West Springfield...the worst football team in the area. I spent most of my time doing IT contracting to the military, but after my lay-off in 2009, I doubt I'll be able to get back into the field. We'll see what I can dream up, while living in Italy come this spring.gsjackson wrote:Ditto on all that, Red Dog. Wakefield H.S. for you? You might be just old enough to remember mine -- Fort Hunt, down the Mt. Vernon Parkway, which closed in '85. I've spent about half my working life in the D.C. area, some of it in political Washington, and was always trying to figure out how to get out.RedDog wrote:I was born in DC and raised in Northern Virginia, in a bedroom community near the Pentagon. The area was not bad and very livable up until the early 80s, then the population just exploded, it got very crowded, expensive and people got very uptight. I spent most of my teen years trying to figure out how to get out of the DC area, since I hate the mentality there. The DC area has what I call the "beltway mentality". The beltway is the ring road around DC and the mentality I speak of is the "we're number 1"/"the world can't function without us"/"we're the center of the universe" mentality. My the rest of my family falls for that BS hook, line, and sinker. Needless to say, they think I'm a freak for not liking it there.
Yes, there are benefits to living in the DC area: low unemployment and rare gaps between employment. But it comes at a price. In DC, you do 2 things: work like a maniac (16-18 hours/day is typical, unless you're a govvie, who work 9-5 and that's it) and sit in traffic (3-4 hours/day is typical). After LA, it's the worst traffic in the country, by far. You get so caught up in a never ending rat-race of work and commute that literally months fly by and you can't remember what you accomplished, let alone if you did anything fun (not usually). Just to give you an idea how much I loathe living there: I've been unemployed for 15 months (I was never unemployed in DC in 20 years), and my family is begging me and my family to come live in DC again, but we refuse. I'd rather sell everything and move overseas, than live in DC again. It wasn't always like this, but it has become an area with no soul, no nightlife, the people are ice cold and calculating and everyone thinks they're "important". I learned early on, that in DC, only about 10% of the people actually have any real power; the rest of the people are just trying to ride on their coattails and get rich or impress their friends. It's a dead-end existence there. Vacation in DC is great (Smithsonian, monuments, etc.), but you need no more than a week there to see all you need to see. Just don't go during the summer: extreme heat and humidity.
Yeah, but West Springfield was pretty damn good in basketball, maybe a little before your time. In 1974 they had a team that played Moses Malone a one-point game in the state championship, and W.S. didn't start anybody over 6-2. One of the most enjoyable teams to watch I've ever seen.RedDog wrote:[
Yeah, I remember Fort Hunt, but I went to West Springfield...the worst football team in the area. I spent most of my time doing IT contracting to the military, but after my lay-off in 2009, I doubt I'll be able to get back into the field. We'll see what I can dream up, while living in Italy come this spring.
That's the way it seems, just a few miles out of downtown you get into a total ghetto. Traffic is very heavy and most people seem to commute into far away suburbs. A couple of points. First, in the era that I'm recalling, before you and many others here were born, Americans still knew how to have a good time and nothing you mention would be considered remarkable in any American high school. I'm sure a lot of it still goes on, but as the Arab points out in another thread, there's something uniquely lifeless about American "life" now, a sense that normal human desire has somehow been bred out of people.have2fly wrote:When I visited DC I loved downtown and museums, but as one comedian said: "DC is a lot of chocolate with a little milk inside"
Are you guys aware that every American discusses sports when they remember high school? To me it sounds NUTZ! I NEVER EVER talk about my school in terms of sports, most schools in Russia-Ukraine don't have competing teams or no teams at all. IT DOES NOT MATTER to any Ukrainians or Russians. I think you already know that in Russia-Ukraine you get to stay with one group or class of people through entire schooling, from elementary to high school and usually you stay in the same building too! That class becomes your second family and you make brother-like friends for a lifetime! What I remember is how I kissed my classmate after school when I was 14 (she was SO hot), how our class went for a camping trip to Crimea, how we were partying and hugging/snuggling/sitting on our lap with many girls so many times, how we would hang out outside of school building smoking cigarettes and running away from one of the teacher trying to catch us, how we would go to have a few beers after high school with my classmates and talk about our life and share ideas and stories, how we went (WALKED!!!) to somebody's apartment (flat) after school to hang out and have a few beers, how we hit a nightclub and stayed there until 6:00am when we were 15 years old and it was the best shit ever - I danced all night to club music and literally could not walk for a few days because I was so sore, but it was the best night in my lifetime and best friends that were with me, like my brothers on my side - we were laughing and remembering that night for a long time. Who remembers any night in a club in the USA? All of those nights are the same, like all life in the USA is the same every day. No one is excited about anything, no one cares, there is no emotional connection to anything or anyone. It's insane.
I wish Americans could only imagine what they are lacking by growing up in the US. Amazing how everyone is brainwashed into sports in the USA and they start it while you are in school.
I think we've all mentioned, at least in passing, that the social environment sucks. There are, however, a lot of attractive women in D.C., especially working on Capitol Hill, which has always been kind of a happy hunting ground. The congressmen love to have sweet young things fluttering around them, and most congressional staffs will be about 70 percent hotties. All the problems with AW noted here, however, the politico chicks have writ large, but with a side helping of bubble-brained idealism, which may or may not constitute a mitigating factor in your opinion. All of them have a significant disillusioning process lying ahead.rome86 wrote:you guys are off topic
