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I moved to Seattle from the east coast about a year ago. I'm heading back because I don't fit in here. It's me, not the city.

I spent a lot of time working remotely. Bouncing up and down the northeastern corridor. I found a way to get acclimated to a city rather quickly. Find your tribe, friend the service staff, and it generally grows from there. Make yourself that you're a regular, and a good person.

I'm not an outdoorsy person, I'm not a "chill" person. What I enjoy wasn't common fare. That's not meant as a knock. The closest I found here, was the LGBTQ community. But there was a bit of trepidation with me being a software developer, i.e. causing problems for the city.

There is the Seattle freeze. But it's also we're busy and there is not that much in common. It's important to try and not be negative. Blaming the city is not beneficial. Maybe the city just isn't right for you. What do you want from your city, where you live?

I will say I did find it's more insular. My usual fare of trying to join a conversation at a bar didn't work. Saying hi, was not well received. I also think I had a cloud of negativity, from heavy job dissatisfaction that limited a positive response. My few friends here. Were gained from bartenders a bouncer, and someone I met at a mixer.

One other thing I'd note. Is I try and perform outside of work, event hosting, dj'ing, etc. I tried talking to promoters but got stood up a lot. Make an appointment to meet up and no show.

"for much of it I have risen before dawn to work, skipped lunches, returned home somewhere in the evenings, by and large have been unable to take vacations"

This is certainly nowhere close to the norm in europe. I only know a couple of people who work more than 40 hours a week (37.5 is standard in the UK), and they definitely take vacations.

Completely true, take everything I said and reverse it for Europe. But I'm referring to life in These United States, where we don't have health care, we don't have vacation, we don't have maternity leave, we have very little public transportation... ok, I'll just stop before I get out of control.

We have all of those things. We just have less of a "my neighbors should pay for it" viewpoint.

Yes in the strictest sense of the word "we" have it. If my neighbor can't pay for it and everyone else refuses to pay for it, my neighbor doesn't have it. If my neighbors have health insurance but can't afford the copay so they have to let smaller problems become life threatening, they effectively don't have it.

It's like you are celebrating a system that didn't take much out of you to give seriously dehydrated people water while conveniently neglecting the result that giving them a bottle of water either made them destitute or prolonged their lives by a small amount. You also conveniently neglect that many first world nations manage to have universal healthcare and spend less per person than us. I will say this though, if you are rich there are very few better places to be for healthcare than America. Hoorah, what a great system; what a great quality of life for everyone!

It's not entirely clear that American healthcare is much better, even if you can afford it, unless you're talking about, like, stratospheric levels of wealth.

It's actually the exact opposite. You have more of a "my neighbors should pay for it" view. That's why you object to paying taxes so much. You want all the benefits of living in an advanced society, but you want someone else to pay for it.

This is simply observed by noting that most people, in both countries, actually work and pay taxes. Therefore, in Europe, most people are paying for both their own services and for those of people who can't afford it. That's an attitude of "I'll pay for my neighbor" not "my neighbor should pay".

Confusing then that the US government pays more per capita for healthcare than the UK.

I'm assuming most readers are in an American context where, unfortunately, I don't think what he's describing is that unheard of.

Frankly, I am also by nature an introverted and guarded person, but I have found my life really enriched by consciously working past that to talk to people.

I live in Seattle, and I’d say that your crazy lifestyle is why you didn’t make friends here - and that it’s probably the same cause for most people who complain about the Seattle Freeze. You worked all day and hung out with family all weekend and an amazing friendship didn’t climb down your chimney? How baffling, must be the city culture to blame. (I moved here for work out of college, and made plenty of friends - by socializing in the evenings).

I'm an introvert and am an NF type, and I'd generally agree with you. It's not the city, it's how you approach it. If you don't have friends find something to do and they will come. But you have to have the courage to make the first move. If you don't, who will?

I agree with your sarcasm, particularly as it pertains to Seattle. However, my vibe of Vancouver is different. Having lived in Vancouver and visited Seattle many times for concerts and so on, I can say that Vancouver maintains a sort of freeze even with a well above average intent to expand socially. I think because such a large percentage of people (out of necessity or not) meat some of the criteria in the parent comment, it's hard to strengthen. Getting anyone (except in certain niches) out to do something is like trying to pass pro-choice laws. When you do get it to happen, they'll bail (colloquially called the BC bail) at the last second.

I've lived in six different US States (in the South, East, Northeast, Midwest, Southwest, and Northwest) and Washington State definitely stands out as having the largest proportion of socially inept people. The general pattern seems to be that they don't know how to make polite casual conversation with strangers and are either just rude or completely overshare.

Some of us end up oversharing, because we have not run into people who can have a conversation in years, and are feeling deprived. ;-)

true, I hadn't thought of that

^This! Seattle is overflowing with welcoming spirits like newfoundglory. It's your friendless, self-deserving, crazy lifestyle that's the problem. Got your own opinion? You can GTFO! /s

Disclaimer: My two Seattle visits were both welcoming and pleasant, and I've never met newfoundglory. Had I, I likely would have found them to be quite friendly.

INTP/J here. I’ve found most strong friendships created over over past decade we’re with very, very similar Myers-Briggs types.

Wanna be friends?

Also INTP/J. Up for it. How does one connect on HN?

myer briggs is basically meaningless

I don't know about that. You just shouldn't strap more meaning onto it than that it's a survey that gives you a qualitative description of the answers you gave to it -- people have some innate attraction to such things and I find it hard to criticize them for it. I just don't think it's appropriate to use for career counseling, etc.

You can't even consistently get the same results for the same person.

I'm well aware.

that applies to a lot of medical tests as well

How many of those purport to measure innate characteristics of the subject?

@mathperson - pureGuano covers my view of it too, which is why I added that caveat to my message. It's certainly indicative of personality, but not all encompassing. It's pseudo-science, but interesting and a starting place to understand someone.

I think mathperson is referring to the fact that 'big 5' is the new personality type test that psychology researchers seem to take more seriously.

My understanding is that it's a lot more, I forget the word. reliable or repeatable? I mean, two different big5 tests are more likely to give you the same answer than two different MBTI tests.

I'm actually not familiar with this exam-I'll look into it!

Educational Testing Service got interested in it long ago and then dumped it. The National Academy of Sciences did a huge project on improving human performance for the US military back in the 1980's, and they put it in the not useful category. What would you expect for an assessment developed by a team of two with no background in assessment?

I would extend your evaluation to say that it is not appropriate for use on others, but if you think that it helps you assess yourself, knock yourself out.

You know, if you are going to assert something contrary to common belief, you really should include some arguments. Until you do, I am going to simply assume you're mistaken.

Yup, it's just modern astrology. A bunch of stuff that is mostly kinda true about almost everybody or things that people want to believe about themselves. A lot of it is honestly just ego stroking. "You're usually not a risk taker, except when it's important." It's embarrassing how many people fall for it.

Meh, it's a lens. The older I get, the more I appreciate different lenses and how subjective everything ultimately is. A lot of STEM-types chafe at this, and cling to empiricism as a bedrock in the tumult of human experience, but at the end of the day whether an idea has value to me is entirely orthogonal to its scientific basis or lack thereof.