Question about my new town

[Cornstock]

Hey gang. So here's my story. I recently moved to Sioux City, IA for my job. The tough thing, as many of you know, about moving to a new town is making new friends. The first few months of living here I was able to visit college friends nearby and was content. But now, its summer and they're all gone.

In an attempt to make friends I've joined a gym, started going to church again, tried going to bars, and tried hanging out at hip places like coffee shops for long periods of time. Tried going to Target, WalMart, etc. and striking up a conversation, but I get the "mind your own goddamn business" look.

I think the gym still holds promise, as does church. Bars, however, going solo without any friends just seems weird. When talking to guys, they won't give me the time of day (I think mostly because they're too focused on trying to get some or slummin with the frat buddies) and with the girls they just take it as I'm hitting on them (ok, ok, I was.)

Funny thing is, I don't consider myself socially awkward or anything. I'm a perfectly normal, decently good-looking, gainfully employed, 23 year old guy. I've had no problems meeting people in other places. Even abroad, its been easy (I think because people are always interested in the American, so having that as a prop helps).

I'm not asking for advice to get laid or anything. But just plain making friends would be nice. Any thoughts or advice?

[Cornstock]

Originally Posted by rageeumr

You have any hobbies? I like to run, so if I were ever to move I could always find a local running club.

I think most of the clubs and team stuff is done through the rec center downtown. I need to go check out what sports they have coming up.

[BWillie]

I went to high school in Sioux City. I dont miss it, but I would just join clubs. Do you golf? Hang out at Green Valley Golf Course at the 19th hole and strike up convo of other golfers. Maybe hit up the casino. Theres usually the same group of guys that do poker night at certain bars around there and its all free.

[Cornstock]

Originally Posted by BWillie

I went to high school in Sioux City. I dont miss it, but I would just join clubs. Do you golf? Hang out at Green Valley Golf Course at the 19th hole and strike up convo of other golfers. Maybe hit up the casino. Theres usually the same group of guys that do poker night at certain bars around there and its all free.

Ya, I golf. Joining a club would be a good idea too. If they weren't so damn expensive.

[bevischief]

Maybe we could meet up to watch a game.

[TribalElder]

Golf is a great suggestion

[PunkinDrublic]

No offense to the Iowa people, but I would save up and get the hell out of Sioux City. Lifes too short to spend your 20s in Iowa. Move to a bigger city and get out of your comfort zone.

[DaFace]

Originally Posted by BigRedChief

Meetup.com

You can find groups in your area that share your same interests. Thats how our chiefs group here in the Tampa area found each other.

I'll second this. Not sure what kind of participation there is in Sioux City, but around here there are tons of groups to join. The nice thing is that you can find groups based on your interests (rather than just going to a bar), so it's more likely you'll find people you actually like being around.

[Cornstock]

Originally Posted by bevischief

Maybe we could meet up to watch a game.

I'd be down. Are you in Fargo though? Thats a long ass ways away.

[COchief]

Originally Posted by PunkinDrublic

No offense to the Iowa people, but I would save up and get the hell out of Sioux City. Lifes too short to spend your 20s in Iowa. Move to a bigger city and get out of your comfort zone.

Seconding this, I got the F out of Sioux Falls the second I could and have lived all over Colorado, and did stints in Southern Cali and Tampa. That area of the country is depressing and everyone gets fat because half the year there is nothing to do but sit inside, drink, and eat. I had a friend move back to SF after taking a similar path to mine who still had a lot of good friends there and considerable lady skills, he was absolutely miserable. Start working on your exit strategy immediately, especially if you have no friends there. Make your next city at least a million plus and preferably somewhere further South, however Minneapolis is pretty cool but still windy, cold, and depressing in the winter.

Also Sewer City smells like shit, literally.

[patteeu]

Originally Posted by Cornstock

Hey gang. So here's my story. I recently moved to Sioux City, IA for my job. The tough thing, as many of you know, about moving to a new town is making new friends. The first few months of living here I was able to visit college friends nearby and was content. But now, its summer and they're all gone.

In an attempt to make friends I've joined a gym, started going to church again, tried going to bars, and tried hanging out at hip places like coffee shops for long periods of time. Tried going to Target, WalMart, etc. and striking up a conversation, but I get the "mind your own goddamn business" look.

I think the gym still holds promise, as does church. Bars, however, going solo without any friends just seems weird. When talking to guys, they won't give me the time of day (I think mostly because they're too focused on trying to get some or slummin with the frat buddies) and with the girls they just take it as I'm hitting on them (ok, ok, I was.)

Funny thing is, I don't consider myself socially awkward or anything. I'm a perfectly normal, decently good-looking, gainfully employed, 23 year old guy. I've had no problems meeting people in other places. Even abroad, its been easy (I think because people are always interested in the American, so having that as a prop helps).

I'm not asking for advice to get laid or anything. But just plain making friends would be nice. Any thoughts or advice?

There's your key. Develop an Australian accent and a backstory and you'll have more friends than you can shake a jar of vegemite at.

[Rain Man]

Originally Posted by patteeu

There's your key. Develop an Australian accent and a backstory and you'll have more friends than you can shake a jar of vegemite at.

I think he should go Sikh. It's more noticeable.

[Rain Man]

I thought this article about Sioux City's airline code was kind of funny. It's odd to me that we can't get a personalized license plate with a curse word on it, and yet the feds force an unsavory word onto this innocent city.

http://www.cnn.com/2013/05/05/opinio...x-city-airport

Sioux City SUX, and that's OK
By Bob Greene, CNN Contributor
updated 8:57 AM EDT, Sun May 5, 2013

(CNN) -- "We don't really care what the federal government wants to call us," Aran Rush was saying the other afternoon. "We know that we're a good place."
Rush is the executive director of the convention and visitors bureau in Sioux City, Iowa, and we were discussing what has happened to the little airport with the big problem.

The problem was never the airport itself. By all accounts, Sioux Gateway Airport, serving Sioux City and the surrounding area in northwest Iowa, northeast Nebraska, eastern South Dakota and far southern Minnesota, is a fine facility.

But the three-letter identifier -- the three capitalized letters that appear on baggage-claim tags, that are used nationwide to refer to the Sioux City airport, that pilots and air-traffic controllers use to designate Sioux City -- has long been a headache for the town.

Every city, in this era of marketing and branding, likes to present itself as something special -- a destination that is sparkling and inviting, a wonderful place for families to settle in, or for businesses to set up shop.

So, to the dismay of Sioux City, it has not been especially helpful that, for as long as there has been commercial air travel into the town, travelers have glanced at the tags on their checked baggage and have noticed that the official designator for the town is:
SUX

Yep. Generations ago, federal aviation regulators gave Sioux City that identifier. It was a shortened version of "Sioux." That was in the years before those three letters took on a somewhat unfortunate tone.

Los Angeles International Airport was LAX; O'Hare International Airport in Chicago was ORD; LaGuardia in New York was LGA; Sioux City was SUX.

No big deal.

Until it was.

No city, no airport, wants to be connected to those letters. It's not a great calling card, not an ideal howdy-do to the world beyond the town's borders. Many people find the word (however you spell it) offensive -- and if you, by chance, think the word is not very nice, try to consider how the proud citizens of Sioux City have felt.

On two occasions -- in the 1980s, and again at the beginning of this century -- Sioux City earnestly and formally petitioned the Federal Aviation Administration to change the letters. The word just wasn't doing the town any good.

On both occasions, nothing happened. I covered Sioux City's second attempt to get rid of SUX; a spokeswoman for the FAA at the time signaled to me that the town's odds of getting three new letters were slim.

The Sioux City airport director at the time told me the FAA informed him that the only reason it would change a three-letter identifier was for safety considerations. He conceded that he didn't know how SUX could be construed as a safety issue, "unless pilots are laughing so hard when they hear it that it distracts them from doing their job."
The reason I got back in touch with Sioux City's leaders last week is that recently the federal government has shown it will speedily get involved in aviation-related issues when it wants to. Congress stepped in to ease air-traffic delays caused by federal spending cuts; the Department of Homeland Security and the Transportation Security Administration, to put travelers' minds at ease, backed off on its plan to allow passengers to bring small knives onto planes.

So I wondered if Sioux City was still trying to persuade the government to allow it to get rid of those three dreaded letters

"We decided to go completely the other way," said David Bernstein, president of the airport's board of trustees. "The FAA wasn't going to change it, so it wasn't going to do us any good to whine about it."

Thus, the town made a bold decision:

It would embrace the SUX designator. It would make it part of Sioux City's charm -- a whimsical part of the civic personality.

T-shirts were printed up with those three capital letters on the front; hats and postcards and coffee mugs and balsa-wood airplanes and silver-wing pins were manufactured, all jauntily bearing the letters. On I-29 between Sioux City and Omaha, Nebraska, a big billboard was rented, displaying, in huge type, those letters, as a way to lure passengers to the airport in Iowa instead of the one in Nebraska.

"In warm weather, you can walk around Sioux City and see people wearing the T-shirts all the time," Bernstein said. "At our coffee shop in the airport, between one-third and one-half of net revenues come from the sale of items with those three letters on them."
The city -- in the words of tourism director Rush -- has "very successfully made lemonade out of some lemons. Our treating the situation with good humor has emblemized the spirit of Sioux City -- one of grit and determination, something no label from the government can change." The airport commission's Bernstein said that "it's better to be memorable than to have three initials no one can really recall."
In fact, in the spirit of all this, the town ended up renaming the official website for the airport; it is now www.flysux.com.

And who, on a national scale, can argue with that message? These days, with overcrowded planes, long security lines and hefty fees to check baggage, flying often really does ... well, you know.

What will Sioux City do about the letters in future years? It could once have sought counsel from two of the most famous people ever born there: twin sisters Ann Landers (Eppie Lederer) and Dear Abby (Pauline Phillips), who left Sioux City to become the two most renowned newspaper advice columnists in history. But both have passed away, and are no longer available for commiseration.

So the town is on its own. The mayor, Bob Scott, a lifelong resident, told me that he wants the world to know that Sioux City doesn't do what those three letters on the baggage tags says. It is, he said, a great place to live, "and we're thankful for that."
He sends emphatic word to potential visitors that they will be warmly welcomed:

"Absolutely. We'd love to have them.

"And," the mayor said with a laugh, "they can buy a T-shirt."