What is North Carolina Like?

[GLC1968]

We didn't like it. We moved to Greensboro from the Tampa area in 2004 and lived there for 3.5 years. I LOVED my job and the company I worked for, but my husband never found career oriented work and felt very professionally stunted (we are both engineers, for reference).

Socially, it was tough. I know that Greensboro is different than Charlotte or the Raleigh/Durham area, but wow...were we outcasts. We did find a nice little cycling commuting, but we never truly had real friends. We have more friends here in Portland after just one year than we did when we left NC. I'm going to be blunt here, but we were not accepted because 1) we were not church goers and 2) we had no children. I was *this close* to lying to people to tell them when they asked (because they ALWAYS did) that I was barren or something so that they stopped judging us for choosing to be childless. And even those who didn't actively judge us, didn't really want to befriend us. Almost all social activities in the greater Greensboro area centered around families/children or church. It left us out, a lot. Edited to add: This may have something to do with our age, too. We were late 30's when we lived there so too old to hang out at bars but not accepted at family events because we had no family. Experiences would probably be different for people who weren't in the prime parenting age bracket to begin with...

We also had issues with the weather. We chose NC as a compromise because I'm a northern girl and hate the heat and my H is a southerner and cannot handle cold winters. We were wrong. The winters were too cold and miserable for him (can you say constant ICE storms???) but not nearly cold enough for me (I like snow!). Summers were miserable. HOT, HOT, HOT and because of the humidity, it didn't cool down much at night. And yes, it's humid in the summer - even for FL transplants! Greensboro also had frequent drought problems when we lived there, so our plan to do the small, sustainable farm was not suited to the area. I will say that fall and spring were spectacular, weather-wise.

And the NC mountains are wonderful - lots of interesting people, beautiful scenery, and amazing cycling!