…people who say they won’t go to parties or events outside Dallas or outside Fort Worth, as if there’s some forcefield running down the middle of the metroplex with special cootie contaminators just waiting to attack people from the Other city. I haven’t understood it since I’ve been here, and I don’t think I ever will. It just seems so limiting. These are two very different cities. Each is distinct. Each has special things to offer. Personally, I like elements of each, and one of the reasons we live between them is that this way we didn’t have to choose.

I don’t remember this kind of divisiveness in California. I’m sure it happened. I know there are jokes that there’s a battle between L.A. and San Francisco that only the folks in SFO seem to know about, but there’s a difference of about six hours between SFO and L.A., whereas Dallas and Fort Worth, whether the residents of either care to admit it or not, are part of one overlapping urban sprawl.

For much of my life, I lived in San Jose, which is roughly an hour away from San Francisco. Like both Dallas and Fort Worth, it is a city in its own right. It has theatre, music, restaurants, movies, it’s own neighborhoods and suburbs, and it is also part of the massive urban and suburban sprawl that is Silicon Valley. But I’ve never encountered any of my friends complaining that they won’t go to a party or event because it’s in San Francisco (or, for that matter, Oakland, Berkeley, Sunnyvale, or Palo Alto (well, perhaps parts of Oakland)).

This isn’t a judgment thing. And it has nothing to do with special circumstances. I understand that there are people who CANNOT go much further than their own neighborhoods for various reasons. But for those who can, to refuse? I don’t get it. I honestly don’t get it.

Someone please explain it to me?