Fox-and-Sons t1_j27ed1i wrote on December 30, 2022 at 4:27 AM

How much time have you spent in other places? Seattle is certainly more grey than other places, but we also rarely get extreme weather -- go east and it'll get more sunny but it'll regularly go north of 100 degrees in summer and can go below 0 in winter. Obviously further south along the coast the weather is often pretty idyllic, but it's even more expensive down there and often has worse options career wise. Then you've gotta factor in how much of the country is just small towns where there's nothing to do and driving anywhere interesting is going to take you two or three hours, compared to the Seattle/Bellevue area which has a lot of state parks within half an hour if you get lucky with traffic.

I know people who've become way more happy after moving away from here, for sure, but I've also known a lot of people who moved here for a reason.

[deleted] OP t1_j27f4mb wrote on December 30, 2022 at 4:34 AM

[deleted]

Fox-and-Sons t1_j27g2ql wrote on December 30, 2022 at 4:42 AM

>The heat doesn't really bother me so much. With AC these days you either just stay inside or you stay in your car while you're driving somewhere

This feels weird to me, because I'd so much rather have a grey day where I can go out and live my life than be stuck inside because of the temperature. I'm not trying to convince you you're wrong, just explaining why I wouldn't want to live elsewhere.

And I also won't try to convince you that it's not too expensive to comfortably live here as a regular person -- it is! When I was waiting tables most people I knew had multiple jobs. That said, I've also lived the small town lifestyle in eastern washington and it's incredibly isolating. Way cheaper, but there's nothing worthwhile to spend your money on either. Also, cool places are expensive. There are places I'd consider living other than Seattle, but they're almost universally more expensive, or have a job market that's bad enough that they're functionally more expensive.