By Michelle Konstantinovsky
A few weeks ago, while sipping from a plastic cup of kosher wine at a singles mixer (i.e., what you do when you’re single/hope to feel terrible), I fell into a familiar conversation:
Stranger: Where are you from originally?
Me: Here.
Stranger: Here-here? Like, from San Francisco?
Me: Yes (sips wine for an uncomfortably long beat).
This happens a lot. I understand the incredulity — natives are a rare breed. Or at least we appear to be, given the influx of out-of-towners steadily migrating here.
Maybe it’s due to this ever-inflating population of newbies or because I’ve branched out beyond the high school friend group I daintily chugged 40s with in Glen Park circa 2001, but the disclosure of my homegrown status has recently been met with one follow-up:
Stranger: And you never wanted to live somewhere else?
The first few times this popped up, I breezily cited family, friends, and a clinical dependency on hoodie weather as reasons for staying put. But the more people asked, the more defensive I became. Despite the harmless curiosity, it always felt like an accusation implying that because I never left, I am, in fact, a townie.
It’s difficult to define “townie” outside of Boston or the short-lived Molly Ringwald series no one remembers. The term takes on different meanings depending on where it’s said, but it bears a vaguely negative connotation: someone who lacks ambition or a sense of adventure; someone who’s complacent; someone who got too comfortable.
I’ve ventured out of my bubble a little bit. I traveled to the far, exotic reaches of Davis for college and crossed an entire bridge for grad school at Berkeley. And I’ve done stints in LA and London and explored a few continents, so I’m not really a townie, right?
But I guess the more I think about it, the more I realize I am exactly that — a townie. I’m still in my hometown. I still troll Geary Mall with my mom, digging for discounts at Ross. I still hit Stonestown like I did while cutting gym class at Lowell (admiring age-inappropriate wares at the same Wet Seal). I still choose the same seat on the 38L, the temperamental line that served as my only ticket out of the Avenues until the early aughts. And I don’t plan to change that.
But are the rules different here? I may be a biased native with an inordinate amount of hometown love, but SF certainly seems to attract newbies from all corners of the earth. Can you really be a townie in a town that so many people want to call home?
Can you really be a townie in a town that so many people want to call home?
It’s really not that bizarre to be a native; plenty of families have been here for generations. And they have more bragging rights over this place than I do. I boast about being a native as if I had anything to do with it, but it’s really due to one bullheaded Russian woman, otherwise known as my grandmother.
My parents were townies too, happy to stay put in Odessa, Ukraine. But when the government allowed for a Jewish exodus in the late ’70s, my grandma urged them to pack up. I was born here a few years later into a life they risked it all for. I’ve always had a pervasive awareness of their sacrifice, which has undoubtedly influenced my resolve to stay rooted in the city they gave up everything for.
But it’s not just loyalty that’s kept me here (though the magnetic pull of immigrant guilt is quite powerful). My early-instilled appreciation for the city is continually reconfirmed by the stream of newcomers. Sure, many are here to further their careers, but the same newbies who question my townie-ness tell me they see real magic in this city.
There are the obvious reasons everyone’s in love with SF: it’s the kind of stupid-beautiful reserved only for artistic representations of stupid-beautiful cities. There’s the food, the ocean, the history, the attitude. The ease with which one can incite jealousy in less-fortunate friends with one well-timed, unfiltered shot of the Golden Gate Bridge.
But I’ve never even ridden a cable car, so there must be something beyond traditional, tourist-wowing charm that keeps me here.
Of course, I’m painfully aware of gentrification and woeful acts of newcomer douchebaggery. I don’t agree with all the ways SF is changing, but I hold onto a naïve hope that the changes can’t permanently tarnish the city’s soul.
Maybe that’s what keeps me here. The potentially unrealistic belief that SF will continue to be what it’s always been to me: a city comprised of an infinite number of San Franciscos cobbled together from a spectrum of experiences, backgrounds, and stories. I haven’t given in to the fear of losing my city because my version of it is an inimitable combination of family history, nostalgia, respect, and straight-up fan-girl love that’s remained intact through three decades of change.
I don’t agree with all the ways SF is changing, but I hold onto a naïve hope that the changes can’t permanently tarnish the city’s soul.
I’ll always love the super-uncool parts of SF. I’ll always prefer Geary Mall to the hottest bar. And I’ve never felt bad about my love of the uncool, because that’s what I want to believe this city is: an endlessly evolving place that simultaneously (in the most authentically cheesy way possible) remains a haven for a million unique, personal versions of what SF is.
While walking down a stretch of Clement Street last week that was once occupied by nothing trendy or chic, I stopped in one of several absurdly cool boutiques. I immediately gravitated toward a shirt that read “FROM HERE” in block letters. I’m thinking of scrawling “NOT LEAVING” underneath.
