Welmer

Seattle has come to be known as a very difficult place to break the ice. Penetrating the tightly woven social cliques in the city frustrates newcomers and natives alike, and a number of theories have been proposed to explain this phenomenon. Some blame the ethnic composition of the city, which includes many Scandinavians and East Asians — particularly Norwegians and Japanese. Others say it is a result of a sudden influx of newcomers, or even the desultory weather. Whatever the cause, Seattlites are increasingly expressing frustration about the chilly social environment in the city.

One of the alleged paradoxes of the Seattle social scene is that Seattlites are said to be “polite,” despite being notoriously flaky and difficult to befriend. This is actually a contradiction in terms: there is nothing polite about blowing people off or withholding hospitality. In fact, this behavior is downright rude and cruel. Is it polite to smile in someone’s face as you shove them out the door? No, that just adds insult to injury, but sadly it is all too common in Seattle. Why do people behave this way in Seattle? I offer a few possible explanations:

• Seattlites are conformists: Seattlites have a strong need to feel accepted by their peers and surrounding society. Newcomers can upset their sense of belonging in their (usually tiny) social groups by introducing new, possibly scary, opinions, ideas or even styles of dress or tastes in music.
• Seattlites crave group stability: Without having a place in a social group, as insignificant and meaningless as that place may be, Seattlites feel lost — like a wildebeast who looks up from the watering hole, notices his herd has vanished, and suddenly sees tawny, hungry eyes peering out from the tall grass. Anyone outside the social group is seen as a potential lion who could scatter the herd and devour the solitary, hapless Seattlite.
• Status is extremely important to Seattlites: Over years, Seattlites carefully cultivate credentials and status symbols, jealously guarding them as though they were stores of food in the depths of winter. Just as the cute, inoffensive chipmunk will become a snarling, vicious beast when his nuts are threatened with removal, the Seattlite will unload his arsenal of backstabbing, malicious gossip and rumormongering upon anyone who threatens the integrity of such credentials, if only because that person has no idea what they are or how important they are to the Seattlite. To avoid such socially unpleasant scenes, the Seattlite will discourage the outsider from approaching the location of this treasure-trove of “cred” by snubbing or otherwise purposefully excluding the outsider from the social clique in which it is stored.

There are a couple of approaches to dealing with the Seattle Freeze. The first, and most commonly followed, is to simply give in and join the herd. The benefit to this is that one will eventually find a social group to call one’s own and no longer worry about anything besides losing one’s place. The drawbacks are that it takes a long time, one’s social options are inherently restricted by conformity, and one may eventually tire of one’s place and have to start all over, which is a serious pain.

Another method for dealing with it – one that is ultimately more glorious – is to become the lion that scatters the herd. If one can get beyond the fear of social rejection, and it isn’t too hard once you realize how small and insignificant Seattle’s social groups (not to mention Seattle itself) really are, this provides much more freedom of choice and self-expression. Getting into the group in the first place may be tricky, but like cracking a walnut, it is possible when leverage is correctly applied. I have recently found that turning the tables on the passive-aggressor can work quite well. Call them on their flakiness and rudeness. If they snub you, say what you think of that kind of behavior in front of their (preferably opposite-sex) friends. Learn to identify the source of most resistance and outflank him or her. Also, keep in mind that nobody is totally satisfied with their place in life, so just a hint of something better and more exciting will intrigue all but the most fearful and timid groupie, who probably isn’t exactly the type you want around anyway.

There are undoubtedly a great many techniques that would help break through the freeze in Seattle, and any effort to do so should be considered an act of civic responsibility. Not only would warming up Seattle’s social scene help to raise the city out of its cultural mediocrity, it would give some relief to the thousands of frustrated and isolated people out there who simply don’t want to give in to Seattle’s awkward social rules.