I’m also a Chicagoan. I can’t imagine moving out there, because things are bad enough here. I couldn’t tolerate them being any worse.
I didn’t have friends until I reached high school. There was maybe two people I’d hang out with any given year, but they weren’t really friends, as in I couldn’t really trust them with personal stuff. And, as it turns out, most of the friends I made in high school weren’t really friends either. After my ex and I split, they all decided that they preferred him, even though we’d all been a cohesive group from freshman year until a bit over seven years later. The 2008 election made things worse, because I’m a Libertarian and they were all Socialists, even the one getting his masters in history.
The other friends I had, including my only close lady friend, introduced me to my husband. They’re a good bunch, and most see eye to eye with me on politics, though we try not to discuss it at gatherings. It’s not polite conversation.
I personally don’t understand this business of ghosting people due to political beliefs. I never blocked anybody on social media (when I still used it) based on their ideology, at least until they became abusive. My ex’s friends blocked me in the middle of debate when I called them out on biased sources, but that’s just as well.
I had met this woman in Chicago thru a theatre company I was in. She was from Florida. We remained friends for years while I was in Chicago. After I moved to Los Angeles she moved there a few years later. We would run into each other from time to time out in LA. Years later we went out to dinner with a group of friends from Chicago. So this female friend of mine and I were talking about the differences between people in Chicago and people in LA, and she said it was much easier for her to have close friends in LA than in Chicago. I asked why is that? She said because you guys from Chicago still have all your friends from grade school and high school and I could never ever be in that group. I thought that was interesting, because I’m still very close with several friends I grew up with from grade school as well as high school. We still get together on a regular basis.