Virginia is For Lovers? Think Again

So the Washington Post Magazine has a weekly feature called Date Lab, in which two people essentially go out on a blind date and then report how it went.

The headline on this past weekend's piece: There was just one tiny thing that bugged her.

Hmmm. What might that be?

Well, here's what Charlotte Pattison, 25, had to say:

"He said he was from Vienna and I was like, Austria? I had to dial that back a second to not sound completely stupid. That’s the type of thing that only a diplomat brat would accidentally say. I don’t have a car, and I don’t go to Virginia very much for anything, really. So it seems very far."

And then this:

"I’m weird about Virginia. I’m from Maryland; I live in D.C. I kind of associate that area with being, I don’t know, there’s certainly a lot of ex-government and ex-military in that area. He was very artistic, and he had all these cool hobbies. … I had to give myself a little wrist slap for being so judgmental about the Virginia suburbs."

It brought to mind a Style section piece the Post ran 10 years ago: NoVa and RoVa: Welcome to a State Of Disagreement.

In this case, RoVa stood for Rest of Virginia, as opposed to Northern Virginia.

An example:

"In RoVa, they hope the South will rise again. In NoVa, they hope the souffle will."

"In NoVa, a "fur piece" is something a woman wears on a special occasion. In RoVa, a "fur piece" is unit of distance."

In both features, of course, Virginia didn't exactly have a chamber of commerce moment.

Do you live in Virginia and work in the District or Maryland? Ever experienced anti-Virginia bias, however subtle? Let us know. Leave a comment here or respond on our Facebook page.

Photo: Virginia Department of Transportation