So we’re moving from Connecticut to Georgia and I’ve promised to write honestly about my experiences adjusting to a redneck state.
Before I do that, I thought it would be helpful to offer up a primer on People From Connecticut. I’m talking mainly about people from lower Fairfield County, but it’s much more fun to generalize.
The first thing you need to know about People From Connecticut is that we care a lot about what college you went to, and where you sent your children. We put huge stickers of our alma maters on the backs of our cars to advertise to the world just how smart and cultured our children are. This doesn’t just apply to colleges, it applies to any level of school, so long as it’s a private school. Andover, Exeter, Choate, Deerfield – you get the idea.
Hey Everybody! My Kid Goes to Middlebury!
Ivy League schools are probably top of the totem pole, though tier 1 NESCAC schools like Amherst and Williams are acceptable as well. Trinity College in Hartford, not so much. Stanford and a few other outliers are acceptable – Chicago, Northwestern, Georgetown. State schools, not so much. Not at all, actually. We ostracize you because you aren’t intelligent or interesting. Sorry, it’s just how it is. You may as well have a degree in VCR Repair from DeVry.
We don’t care about what kind of car you drive. Well, not exactly. We claim that we don’t understand Californians who are so image obsessed about their vehicles. For People from Connecticut, it can be just as cool to drive an old truck or a beat-up VW van or an old Volvo as to drive a new Land Rover. New and flashy isn’t necessarily better. You’re not advertising how much money you have with the car you drive, because you’re supposed to have had money for so long that it doesn’t matter anymore.
The car thing applies mainly to teenagers and college students and people in their 20’s. Once you’re over 30, you are expected to drive a luxury vehicle.
Incidentally, there are no People From Connecticut who actually live in Connecticut during their 20’s. Those people all live in New York. That’s probably the most important thing to know about People From Connecticut. WE ARE OBSESSED WITH NEW YORK. So much so that we call it, simply, The City. I’m headed into The City tonight. I just came from The City this morning. I work in The City.
If you meet a young couple from Connecticut for the first time, you will learn within the first 3 minutes of conversation (right after they tell you what college they went to) whether they used to live in The City, and why they moved out. Without fail. People are embarrassed to live in Connecticut.
A lot of people refer to Manhattan as The City, not just People From Connecticut. But we do it with such lockjawed superiority that we stand apart from People From Westchester and People From New Jersey.
Finally, lacrosse. People play a lot of lacrosse. Sometimes they call it “lax.” It’s a fun sport to watch but most of the people who play it are self-absorbed assholes. Funny because it’s true. You know who you are.