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Comment by numpy-thagoras | Hacker News Reader

I live in the PNW, but come from Croatia. When I went back after a long time away (about 7 years) and having grown up, I observed something with complete disbelief:

My friends from there, would go to their friends' ice cream parlour, grab some coffees and a beer at 8 PM. For the next four hours, they would do nothing but tell funny stories and laugh until they couldn't laugh any more. These guys literally spent 4 hours laughing together.

They did this the next day, and the next, and many more until I had to reluctantly go back to the airport and fly back to the PNW.

Nothing even remotely like this has happened since last going back. Every time I think back to it, it seems like some impossible other reality.

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This is what I miss the most. I moved to the US 12 years ago, also from Croatia, and while I have friends here, the lifestyle there is just conducive to spending time hanging out with people.

It's really like a different reality.

Coffee before work? Sure thing. Another coffee after work? Absolutely. Drinks in the evening? Definitely.

The thought of not seeing your friends for a month or longer is just absurd over there. If you don't see them regularly they're not your friends. The whole culture is built around spending time with people, and I only realized that after I left.

I enjoy living in the US, but man, I do miss having such a social life.

I moved to the US in 1992, also from the Balkans. America has an entirely different way of life. I have been "best man" at 5 weddings and have christened 11 kids. I hardly see any of them. Everyone is "busy" running around, work work work, then errands etc etc... in most of Europe this would be unheard of, there is higher value placed on social aspects of life. Hence the myriad of studies and stories and... about general loneliness in America (these studies often include people that are married and have children).

Another personal example - my sister is highly educated, has two PhD and I consider her the smartest person I know. Years ago we were discussing something and I mentioned that one of my dear friends is seeing a psychiatrist. My sister scoffed... And I was taken aback to say the least. How can someone that smart and that educated dismiss someone who is basically a Doctor and spent years educating themselves in this field. After talking through it I realized that if you have robust social life, myriad of friends, different friends to talk to about different things (as well as family) you just might not need a psychiatrist to talk to... Just an entirely different kind of life/existence...

Yup. All of this sounds eerily familiar.

Well, if you’re ever in Arizona, let’s grab a coffee and talk about the old country.

> grab some coffees and a beer at 8 PM. For the next four hours,

I feel like very few people in America could afford this in the places the vast majority of the population lives, especially multiple days per week. Even a couple hours of hanging out at a commercial establishment seems like it would cost $20, and many are designed for higher turnover so that you aren’t sitting there for 4 hours while nursing a couple coffees.

Not only are land/rent costs high in the places central to where people can meet, but labor costs at 8PM to 12AM are high too.

PNW is Pacific North West I take it?

At first I thought it might be some part of Papua New Guinea

Google gives first result as "Purdue University Northwest". But assume that's not what OP meant, or did they? Pacific North West is the second result.

This seems to be a very American thing - using acronyms that is American only but then that's what HN must be - mostly American in terms of members :)

It is Penge West railway station (PNW) in the London Borough of Bromley in South London.

Ubiquitous initialism in the area, generally living here a few years i find the climate and culture to be relatively homogenous from far northern california through seattle (and presumably vancouver BC). Very different (for still American) from the other areas Ive lived or frequent (Northeast, south, parts of Cali). Mild, wet climate; passive, introverted, polite culturally (very generally speaking).

HN loves their acronyms. They sometimes say it's because they were on mobile but I don't believe it.

I think acronyms (or initialisms) are a form of community enforcement. If using jargon to reinforce that people in the group understand.

Or maybe that’s my best interpretation. As it’s also just faster to type PNW than Pacific Northwest and someone who lives there must need to type it quite a bit.

But either way, HN is a community and many people value efficiency and, more specifically, code systems for efficient communication.

The frequent flyer community is so into this.. F / J / Y for classes, 3 letter airport codes, 2 letter airline codes etc. It's annoying really.

Community enforcing as in shibboleet? https://xkcd.com/806/

> I think acronyms (or initialisms) are a form of community enforcement

aka jargon or lingo meant to exclude outsiders. Not nice.

It’s ok to have groups of people with common interests that not everyone likes. It’s not about excluding people, it’s about including some people.

Would you complain if the backgammon club doesn’t play polo? Is that excluding polo players?

HN is extremely US-centric in general so it's hardly surprising that US acronyms are used without elaboration.

I have never heard of PNW and I live in the US. Also, this person is from Croatia.

Edit: I guess that doesn't disqualify this person from picking up US lingo, but thinking about it further, someone who didn't grow up in the US might be more likely to use regional abbreviations in general contexts.

Someone used MIL which from context must be mother in law.

Also phrases. "If I recall correctly", "In other words", and all eight different slightly different variations like AFAICT... like what.

(room full of programmers. apparently none of them using any high tech like abbreviation expanders)

My favorite is IANAL because of how ungodly it looks.

MIL makes me think we’re missing MILILF.

i too have witnessed this in many places outside the USA. seeing people of all ages, just talking for hours. whenever i’m in one of these situations, i feel like living in the USA has made me an unskilled conversationalist in comparison.

Four rounds of beers for three people anywhere on the west coast is like $100 now. Even in Copenhagen you can find a tall Tuborg for $1.50. Very sad

Yeah nah. Twelve beers in a bar in Copenhagen runs to $100 too, just like in Seattle (at 60 DKK each).

Of course you can get it 5x cheaper in the supermarket, but the same is true in the US.

Yeah I don't think any of them spent even so much as €8 on everything, mostly coffee, some ice cream, literally a beer and that's all they needed.

First time I saw "PNW"

It probably means Pacific Northwest.

Curiously there’s someone else in this same comment thread also using PNW without explaining the abbreviation.

It’s giving me Baader-Meinhof phenomenon vibes.

Anyway, for the benefit of non-Americans, the “PNW” is basically Seattle and Portland, and it’s mostly like California but with winters.

It’s the SF Bay Area to British Columbia, and every once in awhile, the PNW gets reminded about what its other names would be: I.e cascadia or ecotopia.

SF?

What even is to the north west of the pacific ocean, do they mean Korea/Japan?

> to the north west of the pacific ocean

that's simply not what the phrase "pacific northwest" means. it's "the northwest" (of the U.S. in this case), modified by the word "pacific".

As far as HN goes, it really just means near Seattle or Portland WA.

It goes even into Idahoe and into Vancouver, BC.

Western North America, bounded by the Pacific Ocean.

But doesn’t include California.

Yes it fking does. The Bay Area and coastal Northern California is practically identical to Portland climate wise. Check a map of the PNW, nor cal is usually included.

Crescent City is the only town in California that I would consider part of the Pacific Northwest with a Walmart. [1]

Which is to say the technical definition doesn’t conform with most people’s experience because relatively few people know of Crescent City.

[1] Eurika is in Humboldt County and Humboldt County is not the PNW, it is Humboldt County.

I never understood why people say SF is NorCal. It's only halfway up the coast. I know of Crescent City because I drove up 101 once, and we stopped there. We were amazed at the size of the redwoods around there. Each time we drove around a switchback our headlights illuminated another one which we would collectively gasp at. Later on we got a traffic ticket on our way to Grants Pass. It was worth it though, as Crater Lake was similarly impressive.

It's because there is no major city north of the larger SF area. It's weird though

Also because the micro-climate of the penninsula, SF proper, and a decent bit around the bay is almost identical to the rest of the PNW. The culture is also nearly identical.

I went to a bar in SF that had some graffiti all over it. One of the graffiti said "Itching to get out of Portland". I asked inside about it, and they said it's because at the time Portland had a bedbug infestation.

No it fucking does not. No one refers to California as the PNW they refer to California as California.

it's an informal area of North America, roughly the states of Oregon and Washington + Canadian province of British Columbia

on the pacific coast, and north relative to... the earlier european settlements, i guess?

It also includes southern Alaska apparently.

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