PORTLAND HATERS EXPLAIN THEMSELVES

Portland haters on twitter get to the point in roundabout ways:

Real time, not the other time? That’s not a good start.

Let me tell you about real time.

Don’t come to Portland looking for your dream partner, your dream girl, or dream guy.

Why? Because they don’t want to meet you.

So go home, Portland hater, and tell your little friends you struck out in easy town.

Less of you with your disappointment in keeping Portland weird your kind of weird is better for the rest of us.

This is especially true for a bearded creative guy who looks like a Portland stereotype, but somehow didn’t find a way to fit in.

How sad is that?

Just because you didn’t meet a West Hills girl with off the scale style slum-walking down NW 23rd doesn’t mean you should condemn the whole city.

Her rain-kissed face saw your itchy looking beard and brown stained smile and kept walking?

Is that any different than other pretty girls you see in cities you love?

Work on your look brother, or try another part of the city.

Cruise SE Hawthorne where NW 21st moved when the rent went up in the 80’s.

Who will you meet there? People who live the life they dream, not as part of an extended Portland family.

The East side of town is more Oregon than the West Side.

You might meet a real Oregonian instead of transplants who stuck around after their parents’ job was transferred out of town.

That Oregon, That Portland

If you have any game at all you’ll meet young professionals beginning their adult lives.

They want someone they can count on, not some dippy character ready to bail at the first sign of disappointment.

Oregon likes people who know how to stick, although sticking in Portland isn’t as hard as sticking in New York City.

Or Philadelphia.

Those are the two cities I bailed on, but I don’t hate them.

I just didn’t want to live in New York or Pennsylvania. Nothing against them, but they’ve already got enough transplants who pretend they’ve been there all along.

Two years out of thirty isn’t a lifetime.

Unlike Portland which is surrounded by suburbs full of people who avoid downtown because they hate Portland, fear Portland, and won’t go near it, NYC and Philly have surroundings full of people who say they could never move away from their city.

But they avoid it, too.

Portland haters get their backs up because Portland was supposed to be a better city than any east coast megalopolis surrounded by megaregions.

It almost feels like Beaverton and Gresham and Vancouver don’t get any respect.

If you hate Portland it means is you never found your footing.

Your impatience turns to anxiety and all you want to do is run.

If that’s you, then listen: If you don’t find your life, it will find you, and it won’t be what you wanted.

But can’t that be said about most everything across the board?

Not when we’re talking about where to live your best life.

Find Yourself Before Portland Haters Ruin That Too

Check your resume. Are you good enough for Portland?

If you rag on REI, you’re making a mistake. For clothing, Portland likes Columbia Sportswear.

If it’s camping gear people buy and don’t use, good eye genius.

New people want to embrace the great Oregon outdoors, the rivers and lakes, the beach.

They buy the gear, read the set-up manuals, then forget about it all after the first rain soaked outing that was supposed to be fun.

That is a weak argument for Portland haters.

Why not refresh with a new attitude and better agenda?

Move things around and get comfortable enough to stick.

If you’re looking for someone to settle down with, Portland is just the place, but you can’t force it.

Transplants need to dig in and sink roots.

They need to accept that they’ll never know the joys of Quality Pie, original Rose’s Restaurant, or the grocery store on 21st and Lovejoy that turned into a Starbucks.

They will never ride a bike up through Washington Park to the top near the radio towers and fly down Burnside with no brakes and no worry about stop lights.

But you can still feel the city turn to you with welcome arms a little at a time.

You might walk up a city street and meet someone special; you might be special to them.

If that happens you’ll never want to leave.

Keep the door open for love, Portland haters, you need it.

And so does Portland.

Got a Portland love story? Leave it in comments.

Got a Portland hate story? Sure you do.