Although it was largely unfun, the trip home to the midwest was a watershed moment of my life. Thanks to the weird social environment created by the game, I was thrust into a single setting in which concentrations of midwesterners, Pittsburghers, and Seattlites were easily identifiable. They were plainly labeled, making Detroit a laboratory environment, complete with experimental and control groups.
The contrast was jarring.
"Watch this," I said to some new friends, a group of Detroit natives with whom I was enjoying a fifteenth appetizer. I walked up to the counter to order a sixteenth, and, just as I had with my companions two hours before, I approached some Seattle folks with an earnest "How's it going? You having fun?"
"Uh, fine," they said, scanning my hands for weaponry. And then it became apparent that I wasn't going to stop making eye contact, that I expected something in the neighborhood of an engaged conversation, or maybe even a complete sentence. And then they visibly imploded, scurrying off.
"What was that?!" Treen laughed. "Did you molest their dog or something?"
"That," I replied, "Is the warmest person in Seattle."
As the days wore on, I repeated the routine for my own amusement. But as sterotypes continually confirmed themselves, my self-righteous amusement gave way to depression. The inner nothingness of Seattle folks will never be more empirically proven than it was in Detroit, and though I long suspected such, I now know for certain: I am in a hopeless social situation. I must move. I love the natural beauty of my Seattle home, and the job market is aces, but I cannot allow the inner ugliness of its people to change me further. Today, I called a financial planner and a realtor. I'm not going to do anything impetuous, but the days of my ridiculing the problem instead of working it are over. The soulless, joyless fucks must go.