SF -> Florida here. Yes. Publix is a bizarre surreal experience. I was used to buying food at CVS hoping to not step on a needle. If you asked a CVS employee where something is - they roll their eyes and mumble something. At publix, I asked an employee where the peanut butter was - they smiled, asked how my day was, walked me over to the peanut butter. When I checked out they told me the peanut butter was "bogo". I said excuse me? They proceeded to tell me I get another free peanut butter - for absolutely no reason. I fell in love.

Friendliness is another dynamic I’ve been totally surprised by. People waving and saying hi while you’re walking. The McDonalds cashier telling my wife she liked her dress. Kids on the playground seeing my son fall and coming over to help him up and see if he’s okay.

We (myself and my girlfriend) still find it surreal sometimes. We moved to North Carolina and people just… wave, they just wave and say hi and will talk to you. It’s really nice.

Another anecdote:

I'm driving near my home. I see some teenagers hanging out alone by a river. My immediate thought: "what are they up to..." as I'm used to shenanigans in SF. As I drive by I take a look and...they're fishing...fishing! "Well..." I say to myself, "...what a wholesome activity...good for them"

This is a most ridiculous comparison and anecdote. You fell in love because the cashier let you know peanut butter was buy one get one? Your new home is better than San Francisco because the local major grocery store is better than a pharmacy in SF? Come on.

No, because the people are actually friendly and outgoing. I noticed that going from San Diego -> North Carolina too.

I am from the American south. The friendliness is almost entirely superficial. Let these people find out you're gay, or liberal, or not a churchgoer ... you'll generally encounter a completely different experience.

I think you're making an unfair generalization. As a person who lives in the south (in a strongly blue city), I've never encountered this.

No more unfair than the original positive generalization.

Sure, fair enough.

That contradicts my experience. Generally if you're not a dick and don't try to shovel your vegan stuff into people's throats, noone gives a shit about your views or orientation.

People may not talk to you about politics anymore, but anything else - work, kids, cars - is a fair game.

They’re aware I’m not a republican voter and don’t go to church, no one has had an issue still. Is it possible things have changed since you left or you’re being fed the media version of it still and choose to see that? I’ve had respectful disagreements over even vaccination here.

What I am relaying to you is based on personal experience growing up in the lower middle class / poor American south. It's still that way when I go back to visit. As far as "the media version" of the American south goes, I have no idea what you're even talking about. Perhaps you're in a high socioeconomic status bubble and you need to drive 45 minutes in any given direction and re-test your conclusions.

At any rate, I live in the bay area now and I very rarely encounter issues with un-friendliness in the contexts mentioned in this thread. The lack of effusive friendliness that I do encounter for the most part is cultural. Which makes sense, as the bay area is extremely diverse culturally.

Same logic on why chic-fil-a does so well.

I want a burger. I Think about the unmotivated and borderline rude cashier I would have to deal with.

Then the smiling and upbeat workers at Chick-fil-A. Well guess it’s chicken yet again.

Chick-fil-A workers make me sad. They seem like they desperately want to scream at somebody but are forced to stuff it down into a fake evangelical pastor smile. I'd rather go somewhere where the low paid workers can at lease let out some of their frustrations via passive aggressiveness.

I still go to Chick-fil-A because the sandwiches are good, but I feel guilty about it afterwards.

Chick-fil-a tends to be staffed be cheerful, productive teenagers when I go there. I’m not religious, and don’t generally like religious corporatism, but Chick-fil-a seems to almost use employment as ministry. They care about being a good place for good kids to make a buck.

Never once gotten that impression. Sounds like projecting your hatred for Christians onto others.

My daughter worked there for a while. If she had any work-based frustrations that she desperately wanted to let out, I never heard about it at home.

So, yeah, I'm with treeman79. I think you're projecting.