Clarice wrote: ↑Mon Feb 18, 2019 12:04 pm
"being around long-term ... lover(s)"
If you don't mind answering, what is your definition of "long term"?
Umm… I don’t really have a short definition. Mainly a relationship that lasts a significant length, where we get to feeling ‘settled-in’, know each other very well, establish a lot of trust, etc. I don’t mean a relationship that lasts forever (because I think that unlikely), but one that could or does last (many) years. For a person traveling, one way to measure is how we feel about that woman when I go back to a place. If seeing her is like ‘coming home’, or if it’s a feeling of joy and comfort to see them again, it’s probably more in the long-term realm, where if it’s more like getting to know one-another again, it’s not. (I realize that example is also touching a different scale - something like ‘depth).
m741 wrote: ↑Mon Feb 18, 2019 10:49 am
If you don't mind my asking, why weren't you interested in living in the South? I feel like I've been dismissive of living there mostly based on political leanings, while there are some strong selling points (low cost of living, some beautiful land in Kentucky/Tennessee) - and I'm curious if you had a different perspective.
I’ll list some reasons below, being quite blunt. To some they will seem judgmental, dismissive, un-nuanced, etc. I’m sure there is more nuance and good things about the south than I was there long enough to understand
- The summers are both hot and humid. I’m cool with hot. I’m cool with humid. Both at once can be tough. I spent last summer in Oklahoma. It actually wasn’t all that bad and I wouldn’t mind living in that climate. I think it is worse further south.
- Lower average and mean intelligence (or education level and quality)
- Higher obesity rates and lower fitness
- (MUCH) higher rates of serious Christian faith
- Higher birth rates (not sure about this… higher than some areas at least)
- Way more gender discrimination, misogyny, patriarchal norms (for example, my brother and his wife lived in NC. They’d hired people to build a fence on their property. The wife gave them instructions on where to build it. The worker looked at her blankly and asked “is your husband here?”. They needed to hear the instructions from the man of the house)
- The western half of the US has way more public land with really beautiful and fun landscape, mountains/rocks/canyons, plants, etc. Also, the public lands in the south are so full of trees that I like them less. I prefer more wide-open places where you can see off in the distance.
- Ticks. LOTS of ticks. Some with lyme’s disease, thought not as much as the northeast. I’d rather not get that, and I guess I prefer my dangerous animals more like rattle snakes, which give you a warning so you can usually avoid them easily.
- Some southern cities have high racial tension (ex: St Louis, Memphis, and probably many more)
- Pretty high amounts of racism. (though other areas are high too, like rural PNW, cities like Boston (form what I read), etc.)
Here’s one example of how those come together: when I first got to Oklahoma City and was using Tinder and Bumble, I met a handful of polyamorous, bisexual, very liberal women and though ‘wow, I did not expect this’. After a couple months, I was mostly meeting conservative christian divorced single mothers (and often feeling like they are basically all the same, which is a little boring for me). I realized that probably why I met those more liberal ones at the start was that there are so few of them in OKC, so when somebody new pops up on Bumble that is not the same ol’ conservative, christian, divorced single father, they jump on it.
Another example: I spend a little bit of time in Texas. Rural Texas has both some of the southern happy-go-lucky charm, and also a big time ‘sovereign individual’ vibe. I like those. When I’d meet a stranger, they were usually really nice, and I’d be thinking “wow, people are easy to make friends with here”, and then they hand me a business card for some Christian thing or invite me to their church and I think “oh… that’s why he was being friendly”
I haven’t totally written off the south. I could still end up there. I feel like it’s a place I might like when I’m older - in large part because I have a probably very inaccurate expectation that I’ll be less social then and won’t care as much about what the people are like where I live. For now, my feeling is that I’d rather live somewhere that I like a bit more and be willing to pay like $30-50k more for a house. (though certainly
not $300k more for a house in Portland, Seattle, Denver, or CA)
Augustus wrote: ↑Fri Feb 08, 2019 7:10 pm
Nice van build! What do you think of promasters vs ford transits?
I've only been inside one a Transit for a couple minutes. I don't have an opinion on this.
suomalainen wrote: ↑Fri Feb 08, 2019 5:45 pm
Re: Tucson/Portland, why not snowbird it? Tucson in the winter and Portland in the summer with flexibility around the shoulder seasons? At least until you find yourself wanting more permanent roots. You'll have more experiences in both places to help you make a decision.
theanimal wrote: ↑Fri Feb 08, 2019 6:08 pm
Somewhere I hear the ghost of Dragline saying, "Do both."
Yeah, I might do something like that. The possibilities I’m thinking of are to either have a main home base with my friends in Portland, and go south during winter. Or have a home base in the south, and go north during summer.
For now, I’m going back up to Portland to live with my friends, because fuck it, it sounds like fun. Also, if I’m going to live with them for a straight period of time (the Portland home base thing), I figure I should do that one now while I don’t have any housing situation set up somewhere else that would have ongoing expenses or complexity.