San Francisco is an amazing city to grow up in. Full of vibrant culture, opportunities for adventure, and abundant diversity, San Francisco has had a huge impact in shaping the person I am today. For the most part, I feel extremely fortunate to be able to claim the rare title of “Native San Franciscan”. I have grown up with a balance of nature and industrialism, hippies and capitalists, gluten and gluten-free – basically, everything that can be asked of a city. There are, however, a few drawbacks to growing up and living in the City by the Bay that would make it difficult to live as successfully in any other city in the world. Here are 10 ways that growing up in San Francisco has ruined me for other cities:
1. I don’t have a driver’s license.
In most cities, getting a driver’s license means freedom. You no longer have to rely on parents or friends to get to places. The world is your open road. In San Francisco, however, having a driver’s license and, likely, a car, means your world revolves around finding parking, and paying for parking, and remembering where you parked. You can get absolutely everywhere in San Francisco by public transportation, and since public transportation has always been easily accessible to me, I never felt trapped. This made getting a driver’s license not a necessity. If I were to live almost anywhere else in the world, besides maybe New York and those cities in Asia where everyone gets around by pedicab, I would be screwed, tethered to those who would feel pity on me and drive me places. Here in SF I am free.
2. I am virtually unshockable.
San Francisco is a town of eclectic characters. Walk down any street in the city, and it is not uncommon to find men jumping out of bushes, drug-addled couples screaming at each other in the middle of the street, people who you think are crazy but are really street performers, people who you think are street performers but who are really crazy, and, of course, naked people. Growing up in San Francisco has made me numb to a lot of the fantastical personalities and oddities that would shock, or at least be noticed by, any visitor from a small town. The other day a friend tried to scare me by running up behind me and yelling in my ear. He got zero response from me. I just continued on my way downtown, navigating the streets, stepping over feces that might be human, and over homeless people that might be dead, just like I have my whole life.
3. I don’t know what weather is.
Remember #hellastorm? Or those two weeks during the Indian summer when it was superhot? My delicate San Francisco flower self could not handle it. This city has made me the Goldilocks of seasons. Too hot, too cold – no thank you. Give me some temperate weather and fog, please. Every time I think about moving to New York, I remember that they have seasons, and I can’t.
4. I live on a visual diet of cute dogs.
As I have mentioned, I do not drive; therefore, I walk almost everywhere. The best thing about traveling in the city by foot is how many adorable dogs also occupy our sidewalks. On the daily, I probably see and accost a half dozen of them. That is my minimum. As a result, if I go a whole day without seeing a puppy, I get physically ill. I mean, probably.
5. Living by the ocean has made me claustrophobic.
This is not specifically related to San Francisco, but living by the ocean for my whole life has given me the deep, irrational fear of living anywhere landlocked. I feel like if life ever gets to be too much, I can return to my true mermaid form and simply swim away,Splash-style, into the sea. I could never do this in Colorado, and thus I must always live where the waves can call to me.
6. I can’t read books about or watch movies set in San Francisco.
This is a problem many people who were raised in big cities seem to have. Too many writers who set books and movies in real cities don’t do their homework to make sure the descriptions of the location are believable for locals. I once read a book set on Haight Street in which the author wrote something like “As she slept, she heard the distant sounds of the cable cars,” and I was like, there’s no way she can hear the cable cars from the Haight, and then I threw the book out the window.
7. I am directionally challenged.
I love this city more than anything, but it sure is confusing to navigate. There are avenues, and streets, alphabetically arranged blocks that start and end arbitrarily, dead ends, and one-way streets pointing in all kinds of directions. I’ve lived here for my whole life and still get lost. Living in such a strangely planned city makes it harder for me to navigate anything else. I’m accustomed to things not making sense, so when they do, I get even more confused.
8. It is impossible to hide the fact that I am from San Francisco.
Not that I would ever need to, but I will never look or sound like I am from anywhere else. Between saying “hella” before every word and my reflexive tendency to cheer whenever anyone says “Giants” (even if they aren’t talking about the baseball team), I will never be able to fully acclimate culturally to anywhere else. Being from San Francisco also affects your wardrobe. A good 60% of my clothes have “Giants” or “San Franpsycho” or “The Sunset” on them.
9. My roommate’s names are Mom and Dad.
One of the major drawbacks of living in San Francisco is the ridiculous expensiveness. I can choose to live in a tiny house with five million roommates, or I can stay in my nice house with my nice parents and have zero rent. While I currently enjoy this setup, it has absolutely affected my ability to be completely independent. If I had grown up in a small town, I would have felt a strong pull to move away to a big city to find my freedom, I would have taken the midnight train going anywhere, but since I’m already in the big city, moving now would only force me to be more broke and less comfortable.
10. I am spoiled by an abundance of local, sustainable, organic, gluten-free, blah blah blah…
I don’t need my foodstuffs to be anything other than delicious, but I’m glad that, here in San Francisco, I at least have the option of being a picky and insufferable food purist. I would hate to live in a place where I couldn’t find vegan chocolate chip cookies, even if I think they’re super-gross. I could not, however, live anywhere without fresh sourdough bread. Are there people who live without this? How do they live?
11. If there’s a line, I get in it.
If there is one thing San Franciscans love, it’s standing in line. For concerts, pastries, burritos, sandwiches, anything, we love it. Sure, we’ll bitch and moan about there being a long line, but does that stop us from hopping right in? Nope. Growing up here has conditioned me to want things at the end of long lines – the longer the wait, the more awesome the thing. I once stood in line for an hour at Outside Lands just to get some sparkly stars put on my face. And you know what? Totally worth it.
12. I can be pretty snobby.
It’s really not my fault that I grew up in the greatest city that ever was, or has been, or ever will be, times a million. If I ever lived anywhere else, I would be getting into San Francisco–related fights daily. I am all for everyone being proud of where they are from and representing, but unfortunately, everyone else is wrong, and for some reason when I tell people that, they get upset. The fact that I am ill prepared to live anywhere else, while slightly disheartening, has not affected my deep love for San Francisco. You can pry my area code from my cold, dead hands, phone company. If I ever leave my heart in San Francisco, I’ll just go back and get it because I won’t be too far away. I probably just left it on Muni; I’m always leaving shit there.