The Emerald City is Frozen
The Seattle Freeze Phenomenon
“When the sun comes out, everybody stops and smiles.”
This was a phrase I heard repeatedly within the three days I spent actually experiencing Seattle culture, yet Seattleites are proud of the fact that they don’t use umbrellas for “just a little rain.” I found myself hating the slight presumptuous tones that went along with the notion and felt myself being silently judged on the first day downtown as I pulled out my umbrella so that my hair wouldn’t get wet. I felt immediately singled out as an outsider.
Walking down the streets under a gray sky, I felt a strange sadness growing inside. It felt lonely without the hustle and bustle despite the fact that I normally love being alone. The city was not what I expected, but what had I been expecting? I distinctly remember the anxiety gripping my stomach as I sat 10,000 feet up in the air, a mixture of excitement and nervousness for the unknown clouding my mind. After days of preparation, I had finally found myself face to face with my flight en route to Seattle. As an avid lover of gray overcast skies, I was eager to see what the city of Seattle had in store for me.
Needless to say, I hated Seattle on my first day. Alright, well the public transit was pretty sweet by American standards and there was obviously less pollution than there always is down in Los Angeles, but I couldn’t see what was so attractive about the place. The rainy weather, which always looks beautiful in London and Paris and even LA, looked drab and colorless in the “Emerald City.” My first day exploring was marked by walking alone in the rain with a leaden emptiness in my heart.
The peak of my disappointment happened when I walked into Chihuly’s Glass House. I felt an immediate heaviness weigh upon me. It looked exactly like it did in pictures and it strangely depressed me. The first word that came to mind as I tried to describe his art was “impersonal.” Chihuly himself said he often had no idea what he was going to make until he got into the workshop. While some may admire the spontaneity he expresses in his art form, all I could think about was how far removed his vulnerable self was from the glass. Art as I’ve known it must always tell a story, otherwise, how could anyone connect with it? I vowed that I would never become a form of art that remains pretty on the outside but lacks real depth and raw emotion.
This picture actually does do the real thing justice.
Fortunately, I had friends who had friends up in Seattle that were free and willing to meet up with me. I ended the first night with a delicious burger with one of them after a long day of disappointment and found to my surprise that I craved the company. (This indeed is surprising for an introvert.) Something I later discovered called the “Seattle freeze” was probably what made these encounters with familiar faces a necessary part of my trip (in order to leave with a positive experience anyway). My next day visiting her at Microsoft was probably the most fun I had the entire week.
So what is “Seattle freeze?” People keep to themselves, are polite to the point of passiveness, but mostly are polite for show because deep down they don’t want to get too personal:
It’s not that people here are unfriendly, they will hold the door for you and wave you into traffic and stuff like that, it’s that everything is maddeningly impersonal. The attitude is “have a nice day, somewhere else”. It’s easy to get along but making friends is almost impossible.
- Urban Dictionary
What caught my eye in these Urban Dictionary entries was that they used the word “impersonal,” which is exactly the feeling word I used and intuited from the culture based on my visit to Chihuly Garden. Everything made sense now. The lack of hustle and bustle, the inexplicable loneliness of an outsider, the sudden craving for human contact…It felt comforting to put a name to the iciness I felt; plus, it added to their uniqueness and I could appreciate that—really, I could.
Thus, once this phenomenon was pointed out to me, I realized I could learn to fit myself into this culture in my own way if I were to ever stay here. It’s not entirely as horrible as I thought once I could identify the exact issues I found with the culture although I still grieve that it’s difficult for outsiders to make friends. If I ever moved to Seattle I would have to find ways to thaw the ice, though thankfully little signs of warmth did reach me before I left for good: free museum day at SOMA was fairly crowded, Pike Place was bustling on Thursday, and a cute guy at the chocolate store mildly flirted with me. And despite the disappointment I initially felt on the first two days, these little tastes of delight left me lying in bed the night before my flight partially longing for just a few more days to wander in the Emerald City.
Until next time, Seattle.
