Are you sure living in Oklahoma is for you?

So, you may be hearing a lot about why people love living in Oklahoma. Well, I’m going to tell you the ten reasons why I hate living in Oklahoma. So, this video has two titles in my world. One is, “Is Oklahoma a good place to live?” And the other, in my head is “Ten Things I Hate About Living in Oklahoma.” Do I love the movie “Ten Things I Hate About You”? Absolutely! Because it came out whenever I was getting into movies and it’s just one of the best romcoms ever. So, I wanted to title this video “Ten Things I Hate About Living in Oklahoma.” I have a fun list for you guys. My name’s Marcie, I’m a real estate agent in Norman, Oklahoma with Ruya Team Realty and Keller Williams Mulinix. I live south of Oklahoma City. I grew up north east of Tulsa, so I have kind of a different outlook because I’ve lived in two parts of the state. So, let’s jump right into this.

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1. Creepy crawlies & flying things

Number one. I probably hate about living in Oklahoma, which this may not be the top of my list all the time, is mosquitos. So, we have a saying like they’re our state bird – and they’re a bug, not a bird. So yeah, if you’ve never encountered a mosquito, which most of you probably have, then uh, you know what I’m talking about.

But I can go outside in the summer, especially in July, and August, and September and get swarmed and be covered in mosquito bites. Can I spray myself with bug spray? Yeah! and I do! Sometimes they still bite me anyway. Plus, you just hate the buzzing that goes on in your head because they’re just all around you.

You never know if they’re biting you or not, because you don’t realize it until way afterword. And then of course, people mistake chiggers also for mosquitos, which are a totally different bug, live in the grass, get on your ankles and just make itch like crazy! So, mosquitos are definitely things that I hate about living here, in Oklahoma.

2. It’s a trap!

The second thing that’s really hard for me about living in Oklahoma is that we’re landlocked, meaning that to get to the ocean or the Gulf of Mexico takes around 14 hours’ drive time – it’s a long time. I love the water and so that’s really hard for me. However, one thing that people really love about Oklahoma is that we have a bunch of lakes. So, while we’re landlocked, we do have a lot of lakes. You have an easy drive to Eufaula, you have Broken Bow, Lake Murray, of course. In Norman, we have Lake Thunderbird, and there’s Lake Heffner, which is in Oklahoma City.

There are a ton more lakes, and it’s just not my scene, but I know a lot of people really like going to the lakes. When I say it’s not my scene, it’s because I’m not like a boat person, I’m not like going to go out in a boat. Not everyone parties when they go to the lake, they don’t, they don’t for sure, but that is a big thing to do and crowds just aren’t my thing. I prefer other forms of entertainment for my weekends, but a lot of people frequent the lakes during the summers and they go every single weekend. And I get that – it’s a great escape from our normal life that’s easy to get to.

3. Are we there yet?

Number three. The number three thing that I hate on my list about living in Oklahoma, is the drive time. Now that’s going to sound weird, because like we don’t have traffic really. Traffic, in terms of what you see in like L.A., or Atlanta, or Dallas, or Huston. We don’t have that kind of traffic. However, sometimes it can just feel like you’re driving forever in the middle of nowhere to get to somewhere. Our land area is not populated that much. Of course, we have cities, but there’s just not really much in between those cities. We have small towns, and those are fantastic and can be really fun to visit, but sometimes it just feels like you’re driving in the middle of nowhere forever to get to somewhere.

You could drive 50 miles and see a decent number of cars, but not any towns; just open pastures and flatness. You know they say Texas is really big, and it totally is. Like whenever I’m driving in Dallas or Houston, which Dallas more than Houston because it’s closer, but the roads just feel gigantic, right? You’re like 6 lanes across and going over these huge overpasses and we don’t have those types of roads at all. However, the roads can feel big because of how long they go for. And especially out in the panhandle of Oklahoma we actually have one; we have the straightest road in the whole United States!

Another thing about driving is that you literally have to drive everywhere. We don’t walk places. That’s one of the hard things about like not being an urban area. We just, we don’t walk. And we don’t because it’s really far to get to anywhere. You can walk if you’re in the middle of downtown or maybe your neighborhood walking to your friend’s house. But outside of that, we just don’t walk very much.

4. Literally, towns & country

Alright, number 4: lack of urban areas. So, we have Oklahoma City and we have Tulsa. I actually made a video comparing Oklahoma City & Tulsa and you can check that out. Oklahoma City and Tulsa are two urban areas and sometimes they don’t even feel that urban. We do have downtowns of course, in both. They’re beautiful cities, very different. Very different in ages, as you’ll see when you go a watch that video.

With the lack of urban areas, we get lack of other things like lack of shopping, lack of diversity in some areas, lack different restaurants to go and eat at. And I’m a city person – I really love to be in the city, even though I grew up in the country. I mean, I like both, but sometimes you just want to go to a big city to get that feeling of the hustle of bustle, right? So that’s one of the things I really don’t like about living in Oklahoma.

5. Not my type

Okay, number 5. The style of homes. As you heard, I’m a realtor. Our styles of homes, I think the biggest thing that kind of drives me crazy is how young they are. We’re a young state. Oklahoma became a state in 1907, so yes, it’s been more than 100 years, but compared to a lot of areas, that’s just not very long. There hasn’t really been settlement as long here. So, we’ll see that especially in for those living in Oklahoma City. I mean yes, you’ll have some houses that are 100 years old, usually not in great condition, but they’re there. And there’s just not very many of them.

And then we go into like what people built until the 1960’s which was kind of this bungalow style of home, that was usually like a 2bed/1bath or a 3bed/1bath or something like that; pretty small. You’ll find a lot of those in the center of small towns and even in Oklahoma City and Tulsa. And then after the 60’s, they started building this kind of what we call a Dallas-style of home. A Dallas-style home has this kind of low roof line, and a very small front porch, and it’s brick. Like we just, we build with a lot brick here, living in Oklahoma.

Check out our video about the Cost of Living in Oklahoma!

You’ll find some art deco stuff, especially in Tulsa, you know when Tulsa started booming as the oil capital of the world, and then you’ll find some modern homes in different areas, maybe some midcentury, just depending. But for the most part, I feel like our homes really aren’t that diverse in the way that they look. I don’t know, just something about that. I love visiting other states to see the diversity of homes. And maybe you don’t feel that way. Maybe you’re living in Oklahoma and you like that – and that’s great. And I’m sure other states probably say that about their states too because we just see the same style of homes in most places.

6. Stay in your lane

Number six for me is the lack of public transportation. As I said, I really do like visiting cities, for the most part, being in cities. I travel a lot overseas, especially in Asia and their public transportation is just awesome- like it’s awesome! But here, living in Oklahoma we just don’t have great public transportation and I get it because we just don’t have the population to support that kind of public transportation.

We’re very car-centric state, much like people say the same thing about California; very car-centric. We like our cars. It’s a very American value to drive the country-side, right? I just like public transportation because, first of all, you can get to places cheaply and it’s fun! It’s fun to have that experience with other people and it’s just not something you can really do here, living in Oklahoma.

We do have a bus system of course, in the big city centers like Oklahoma City, Tulsa, and Norman. We have a great bus system. And there’s a trolly system now in downtown Oklahoma City. You can take a bus from Norman to Oklahoma City and get around with the trolly or a bike, or whatever you want to, but just remember weather is a thing too, in this area.

7. It’s pretty dirt-y

Okay, number 7: red dirt. So, I’m going to get a little bit country here on you. We have this clay; it looks like red dirt. In the summer time whenever it doesn’t rain, it feels on your feet like the desert. Like it is hard as a rock. Whenever it gets wet, like really wet in our strong rains and then in our winter storms… okay, I grew up with horses and I’ve seen my horses hoof go into some wet clay and then come out without the shoe on. Guys – the shoe is NAILED on the foot! And they clay just sucks it right off!!

This clay becomes an issue with foundations, especially. We have that issue a little bit in Norman, where I’m living in Oklahoma because it dries and then gets a lot bigger whenever it’s wet and it’s muddy. So, we see houses kind of shift because of that. So red clay is, is not always the best.

8. No fun allowed

Okay, number 8. I’ve heard a lot of people say this and I think it’s true. Many times, it’s very boring here, living in Oklahoma. We don’t have a ton of people so; things don’t come here. We don’t have a lot of activities that other states may have. Honestly, at this point I can’t really even think of what that might be. I’ve never lived outside of Oklahoma, outside of like a little bit of time in the Middle East and there’s totally different activities there because it’s always 120 degrees six months out of the year. But here, living in Oklahoma people definitely say that it’s boring.

I grew up in a small town living in Oklahoma and I’ll tell you that what people did on the weekends, because we didn’t have clubs or anything like that, not even late-night restaurants. Things just aren’t open late nights, especially in small towns. So, what is the one thing that was open 24 hours a day? Walmart. We would go to Walmart late at night, even in college I did this. And that’s just one of the things that people living in Oklahoma do in a small town. Got to go to the store, got to go to Walmart because nothing else is open and if you want to have a late-night activity, that’s what it is.

Oklahoma has improved greatly in this area in the past decade, depending on where you are. Tulsa and Oklahoma City do have a lot of like weekend/late-night activities, depending on what you like. Just know that if you’re moving from a city center, like I mentioned L.A. or San Francisco, Chicago, Atlanta, Dallas, Houston, we don’t have as much to do.

9. Ain’t no beauty queen

Number nine. It’s pretty ugly here and this is a personal opinion I have from living in Oklahoma, but traveling to many other parts of the world. Some parts of Oklahoma can be very pretty, absolutely. But it’s not like driving around Colorado just in awe of the scenery at every turn. Now if you have a different opinion, I totally understand that. Northeastern Oklahoma, as I’ve mentioned in previous videos, is a lot hillier and has a lot more forests and has a lot more water and creeks and lakes and stuff.

The middle and the west of Oklahoma is just flat land, so sometimes you just feel like you’re driving off the edge of the planet. We do have mountain ranges which are pretty old, so they’re a lot a shorter than what you imagine like the Rockies, but you do have to drive to get to them. They’re not visible from anywhere.

10. This is not a drill!

Number 10 – the severe weather. Most people around the United States know Oklahoma for our severe weather. What does that mean? Well, I’m actually filming right now in April, which means that our tornado season is right around the corner. I made an entire video about weather in Oklahoma, you can check that out. Is it scary? Yeah, it’s just like unpredictable. It’s really unpredictable when we get severe weather. If you grew up living in Oklahoma, you kind of know because the pressure changes, temperature changes like winds and things like that. It can be really harsh.

We have our tornado season from about middle of April to June or May to June. I’ve seen some tornadoes like outside of that time, but mostly it’s in those few months that we see big tornadoes. We don’t get a ton of snow storms living in Oklahoma. However, like this year in 2021 has been totally different on that front. The snow doesn’t stay on the ground typically for more than a week or two at a time. We do have ice storms and those, to me, are more frequent than snow storms, especially in the last couple of decades. So, there you have it – my ten reasons why I hate living in Oklahoma.

Have something to add to the list? Or want to know more about what it’s like living in Oklahoma?

Give me a call or send me a message and I’d love to answer any of your questions!! Marcie Billen: [email protected] | 918.691.8982