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Why Don’t People Smile as Much in Our Nation’s Capital?

May 27, 2010 by B. Daniel Blatt

The three things I have most noticed about DC since returning for only the third time since I lived here in the 1990s is how few people smile (compared to LA), how many more smokers there are and how oppressive is the humidity.

Perhaps, oppressive is a bit harsh, but it does take some getting used to when you’re walking around downtown, especially when wearing a jacket and tie and toting a laptop.

It is weird to be back, a stranger in a city which was once my home.  I remain familiar with many of the places I pass, but they all seem different in some way.  Not to mention the new construction.

The oddest thing though is how easily I have been able to navigate the city’s streets.  I quickly remembered how things fit together.  When driving in, I didn’t need look at a map to find my way from I-95 South to central Arlington.

Why is it, I wonder, that people don’t smile as much as they do in LA.  Is it just the weather?  Was it like this when  I last lived here (in the Clinton era)?  Or does everyone now take themselves far more seriously now that a new man’s in charge.

Filed Under: Dan's Cross Country Odyssey, Random Thoughts, Travel

Comments

  1. ThatGayConservative says

    May 27, 2010 at 5:28 pm - May 27, 2010

    I’ve found that not many people north of the Mason-Dixon smile much at all. There must be a correlation between that and driving 40 MPH on the interstate with the left turn signal on.

  2. PatriotMom says

    May 27, 2010 at 5:48 pm - May 27, 2010

    I think perhaps they know how dreadful the president is and see no way out

  3. The Ugly American says

    May 27, 2010 at 5:53 pm - May 27, 2010

    Yeah but Californians still don’t smile as much as Southerners.

    Whenever I arrive back in L.A. after an extended trip home to N.C., I notice people here rarely smile and say “good morning” to one another.

    Most of the time, they’re too busy either typing or yelling into a cell phone.

    Give any kind of salutation to an Angeleno and they’ll usually look at you like, “why the f__k are you talking to me?”

  4. Leah says

    May 27, 2010 at 7:01 pm - May 27, 2010

    government towns are never happy places. The bureaucracy drains out the soul. Last time I was in DC was 6 years ago, after spending 10 days in Maine, New Hampshire and Boston we ended up in DC. Just watching the people- they were all dull, dressed in Khaki and uninspiring. Even on Dupont Circle, the hip part of town.
    Unlike the gal I saw in downtown LA this weekend with a poodle she had dyed pink.

  5. GayPatriot says

    May 27, 2010 at 9:35 pm - May 27, 2010

    It is the Capital of Mediocrity.

  6. Neptune says

    May 27, 2010 at 10:26 pm - May 27, 2010

    It’s the commute. It’s draining and it sucks out your soul. I had enough of it after 4 years there. I don’t know how my father has done it for 30+.

  7. The_Livewire says

    May 28, 2010 at 6:41 am - May 28, 2010

    Then I’d be perfect for washington!

    (my second wife got my soul in the divorce) 😉

  8. V the K says

    May 28, 2010 at 8:04 am - May 28, 2010

    Neptune is right. If I couldn’t telecommute twice a week, I’d have quit my job years ago.

  9. Houndentenor says

    May 28, 2010 at 6:42 pm - May 28, 2010

    Jefferson and company picked the location for the capital precisely because the weather was so bad. It’s humid and swampy and Jefferson hoped, in vain it would turn out, that the weather would be so horrid in the summer that it would encourage everyone to go home and preclude a year round legislature. (The deal was made with Alexander Hamilton in exchange for Jefferson agreeing to support federal funds to pay for repairing damage in northern cities during the Revolutionary War. PS the meeting happened on Maiden Lane in lower Manhattan. The house where Jefferson lived was torn down long ago but the street is still there.)

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