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   Adrianna Tan (skinnylatte@hachyderm.io)'s status on Monday, 08-Sep-2025 06:50:32 JST Adrianna Tan

   When I first moved to San Francisco, I really struggled for a few years. I was not used to living in a ‘small’ city. I was not used to living in a place where there was no food after 2am. (Or where people didn’t go out after 10pm, unless you’re into drugs or a scene or kinks)

   I learned that growing up in many major big cities, I had mostly derived my stimulation from the outside world. I had no tools to ‘be alone’ or ‘just chill’. Where I grew up I didn’t even like eating the same cuisine twice in a week. It was very challenging for me to be somewhere calmer.

   Over the past 7 years I’ve developed more tools and hobbies that let me cosplay as a Californian. I like the outdoors, sleeping early, the calm and quiet of some of our most beautiful places. I like how accessible all of those things are. But it’s hard to escape my intrinsic programming. I like the pace and frenzy of big cities that never sleep, I like the diversity of major global cities with people from places I have never heard of.

   I don’t think it has to be an either / or. But my life in SF also overlaps with the time in my life where I did the least international travel (because of Covid, jobs, immigration). I miss the rest of the world a lot.

   • Embed this notice
     Adrianna Tan (skinnylatte@hachyderm.io)'s status on Monday, 08-Sep-2025 10:41:04 JST Adrianna Tan

     in reply to

     • lonely extrovert

     @rothko yeah, lots of trade offs in either direction.

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     lonely extrovert (rothko@beige.party)'s status on Monday, 08-Sep-2025 10:41:06 JST lonely extrovert

     in reply to

     @skinnylatte duluth MN (~89,000 ppl) is the smallest place i've lived since i left home (= middle of nowhere MN). it's taking some getting used to.

     went to college in st.paul/minneapolis, which was enormous then and even more so now. then i moved to boston, and then austin TX, which was smaller than boston at the time, but in the 20 years i lived there, multiplied itself by at least 10 times.

     so now that i'm back in minnesota -- in a much smaller city than i was before, it's lovely but also annoying. what do you mean i can't just go get some random item at a local store any time? what do you mean they don't even have that kind of store here?? i seriously have to drive 2.5 hours to minneapolis to get decent indian food? (there is only one place here and it's super meh.) why did i come up here again?!

     ..... oh, right. the trees. and Lake Superior.