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- You become depressed every time you need to travel to a big or even medium sized city
- You feel like you're going to have an aneurysm every time you drive in city traffic, and wonder why everyone is so angry/rude.
- Your blood pressure drops by 10 points whenever you enter a rural area
- You make comments to your city friends about how beautiful a barren, isolated piece of land is and they think you're crazy
I am a LOT happier when I get stuck behind a combine, instead of some show off driving, below the speed limit, in their brand new shaaag-you-rrr (Jaguar)they can't afford the payment on
Speaking as a person who lived rurally for half my life, urban/suburban for half...
-Even after years in a populated, urban environment, you get caught offguard when store clerks, waitstaff, service people in general are brusque and even rude, and don't engage in personable, friendly interactions like those who see the same people day in and day out and have relationships with them do.
-You see nothing odd about running into your kids' teachers and school principals while out running errands, dining out, walking their dogs, taking their kids to Little League, etc., and engaging with them socially.
-Think that people who automatically lay on the horn the instant the light changes, as if a line of backed up cars are all going to instantaneously, magically be transported through the intersection at once, versus having to wait their turn to proceed through, are insane and irritating.
-You get irritated when there is some nighttime natural phenomenon going on (meteor shower, supermoon, lunar eclipse, aurora borealis), and you have to actually drive somewhere out of city lights to actually view it properly, versus step out onto your back porch.
-You think people are funny when they are freaked out about things like seeing an opossum in their backyard, or a raccoon rooting through their compost or trash.
-You enter an area where there is little by way of retail, neighbors, limited internet connectivity, spotty cell service, street lights, etc., and your immediate reaction is to feel a little bit at peace and meditative at the solitude, versus panicky about being cut off and isolated.
Speaking as a person who lived rurally for half my life, urban/suburban for half...
-Even after years in a populated, urban environment, you get caught offguard when store clerks, waitstaff, service people in general are brusque and even rude, and don't engage in personable, friendly interactions like those who see the same people day in and day out and have relationships with them do.
-You see nothing odd about running into your kids' teachers and school principals while out running errands, dining out, walking their dogs, taking their kids to Little League, etc., and engaging with them socially.
-Think that people who automatically lay on the horn the instant the light changes, as if a line of backed up cars are all going to instantaneously, magically be transported through the intersection at once, versus having to wait their turn to proceed through, are insane and irritating.
-You get irritated when there is some nighttime natural phenomenon going on (meteor shower, supermoon, lunar eclipse, aurora borealis), and you have to actually drive somewhere out of city lights to actually view it properly, versus step out onto your back porch.
-You think people are funny when they are freaked out about things like seeing an opossum in their backyard, or a raccoon rooting through their compost or trash.
-You enter an area where there is little by way of retail, neighbors, limited internet connectivity, spotty cell service, street lights, etc., and your immediate reaction is to feel a little bit at peace and meditative at the solitude, versus panicky about being cut off and isolated.
It is interesting how a person's history and perspective changes things. I am living in what I would call a small town, actually a suburb of a small city in the Midwest. I suppose at 12k population it would be considered HUGE by some people's standards in this subforum. It is the smallest, most rural area I have ever done more than drive through on the freeway.
I am still creeped out by the way people I don't know will try to start a conversation with me when I am out just minding my own business. I still get weirded out at the way people will give you a giant smile and say something to me, a complete stranger, when I am just out walking my dog. I still instinctively check behind me and grab my wallet since it feels like they are trying to distract me for their pickpocket partner in crime.
I actually started driving into the nearby city to shop and eat out because it was so awkward for me and my spouse to run into people out in the wild that live in our neighborhood. It was so weird to be expected to chat and make small talk with people we barely know when all we wanted to do was get our errands done. I literally jumped and did a double take one day when a coworker spotted me and said my name in public. That was the first time ever that has happened to me. I crave the privacy and anonymity of city living in a big way.
The driving skills are horrendous. People drive below the speed limit, and are just so cautious and timid that it is like being on the road with a whole town of 90 year old grandmas. I feel like I am having a stroke every time someone takes what seems like 20 minutes to creep away from a stoplight.
The lack of shops, people, and amenities feels like something from The Walking Dead. It is like living in a real life ghost town. Even though I know there are many people living nearby, I still can't escape the feeling that I am completely cutoff and isolated in a desolate area.
I saw my first opossum ever in my backyard this year, I had no clue what it was but it freaked me out bigtime. I described it to a coworker and they told me what it was, lol.
In a nutshell, I have discovered that small town life is not for me.
-You enter an area where there is little by way of retail, neighbors, limited internet connectivity, spotty cell service, street lights, etc., and your immediate reaction is to feel a little bit at peace and meditative at the solitude, versus panicky about being cut off and isolated.
So true!
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In a nutshell, I have discovered that small town life is not for me.
Nobody is judging you for it either. It's all good.
- You become depressed every time you need to travel to a big or even medium sized city
- You feel like you're going to have an aneurysm every time you drive in city traffic, and wonder why everyone is so angry/rude.
- Your blood pressure drops by 10 points whenever you enter a rural area
- You make comments to your city friends about how beautiful a barren, isolated piece of land is and they think you're crazy
Any others?
LOL, your list fits me to a T. I literally heave a sigh of relief when returning from a city/large town/bustling suburb and then pass that Invisible Line, the one beyond which lies a whole different world.
Despite being born and living the first few years of my life in a big city, and despite spending more of my life in an urban/suburban setting than not, rural places exerted a strong pull ever since I was a young kid. I used to tell my parents I was going to move to Wyoming when I grew up, back when the myth “More cows than people†circulated.
Well, it ended up being one state south of WYO, but the part of it where we live now probably does have more cattle than people! It feels like I have found home, MY home—not the one my parents chose.
Another one that frequently applies to me at least
- You hear about all of this talk in the news of diversity/inclusion/safe spaces/etc. and wonder what planet these people are living on because in your small town people of all races/religions/sexes get along just fine. People leave their doors unlocked. No riots, no protests, no nothin'... just people enjoying the simple life and not getting wrapped around the axle over politics.
Another one that frequently applies to me at least
- You hear about all of this talk in the news of diversity/inclusion/safe spaces/etc. and wonder what planet these people are living on because in your small town people of all races/religions/sexes get along just fine. People leave their doors unlocked. No riots, no protests, no nothin'... just people enjoying the simple life and not getting wrapped around the axle over politics.
Can you explain the leaving doors unlocked thing? Is that for real or just a metaphor for a different lifestyle? Why would you leave your door unlocked on purpose, is it really a major ordeal to use the key?
Can you explain the leaving doors unlocked thing? Is that for real or just a metaphor for a different lifestyle? Why would you leave your door unlocked on purpose, is it really a major ordeal to use the key?
Nobody's likely to walk the seven mile driveway to your front door to see if it's open.
It is interesting how a person's history and perspective changes things. I am living in what I would call a small town, actually a suburb of a small city in the Midwest. I suppose at 12k population it would be considered HUGE by some people's standards in this subforum. It is the smallest, most rural area I have ever done more than drive through on the freeway.
One thing I've found is that proximity to an urban center makes a big difference. The community I live in now is population approx. 9k. It is, however, urban/suburban, as an inner ring suburb of a large metro. It might have nine thousand people living within its limits, but it butts into and shares indistinguishable borders with, other (in some cases, much larger) communities on all sides. On paper, you might think it is a small town, based on population size, only. In practice, it's part of large suburban sprawl. It does retain bits and pieces of a small-town feel, remnants of when it was a stand-alone smaller community, versus having suburbia gradually grow up and out around it....it's old-time downtown, for one. But it's in no way remotely rural, even with its small population. It's just a little enclave in a much larger metro. My kids will never think of themselves as growing up rurally, because they're not.
I also think your origins matter, as far as what you adapt to well and when, as life progresses. Though rural in upbringing, I started living in urban environments, on and off, relatively early in young adulthood. Adapting was much easier for me than it would be for my dad, who has lived in the same farmland for 70 years, if he, for any reason (having to move in with a child comes to mind), had to relocate to an urban-suburban area at this stage of the game. He would likely be miserable and never feel as if he'd found his place.
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I am still creeped out by the way people I don't know will try to start a conversation with me when I am out just minding my own business. I still get weirded out at the way people will give you a giant smile and say something to me, a complete stranger, when I am just out walking my dog. I still instinctively check behind me and grab my wallet since it feels like they are trying to distract me for their pickpocket partner in crime.
Doesn't creep me out at all. It's a norm for me, since I grew up with mostly people who actually knew you personally being the people you interacted with day in, day out, professionally and otherwise. It's not weird or a put-on, since we were anything but complete strangers, in reality. To me, it's far more weird if I go to the same coffee shop every single morning for five years, and am looked at blankly like a complete stranger each time by the same people who wait on me every day. It isn't that likely, because even businesses in populous areas do tend to see the merit in recognizing their regulars, but it does happen, and it's always weird.
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I actually started driving into the nearby city to shop and eat out because it was so awkward for me and my spouse to run into people out in the wild that live in our neighborhood. It was so weird to be expected to chat and make small talk with people we barely know when all we wanted to do was get our errands done. I literally jumped and did a double take one day when a coworker spotted me and said my name in public. That was the first time ever that has happened to me. I crave the privacy and anonymity of city living in a big way.
And, see, where I'm from, living in the same neighborhood is synonymous with not being strangers. This is actually the case in my current specific neighborhood, now, even though it is urban/suburban. All of us on the same block are friendly with one another, chat, talk in passing, come over and visit if somebody is hanging out on their porch, backyard decks, garage, yard, etc....our kids know one another, and we prefer a community feel to anonymity.
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The driving skills are horrendous. People drive below the speed limit, and are just so cautious and timid that it is like being on the road with a whole town of 90 year old grandmas. I feel like I am having a stroke every time someone takes what seems like 20 minutes to creep away from a stoplight.
My husband is more akin to roadraging out (even just in his own head) when people aren't driving the way he thinks they should. It's not really my bag. He'd probably lose his shyt if he got stuck behind a combine and wagon heading to a grain elevator at seed corn harvest, with nowhere to turn off except at mile increments. To me, eh.
For me, as long as someone isn't driving recklessly, it isn't worth it to me to get all hypertensive about it. Not worth the blood pressure spike...if somebody's going too slowly for my liking, I'm either gonna wait for them to turn off, or, if they don't, pass them if I can, or turn off on an alternate route. Either way, it is what it is, and I'm not going to get to freaked about it. And, unlike heavy urban gridlock, you CAN get away from somebody who is driving annoyingly...you're not just stuck on an expressway, bumper to bumper because somebody (or a lot of somebodies) is a jackass.
As noted before, I don't see the logic in laying on your horn out of frustration when you're 15 cars back, and the light just turned. Odds are, you're not going to make it through that pass, no matter what, and will have to wait another cycle. You're 15 cars back. No matter what kind of jackrabbit start the first vehicle in line does, your honking and making racket doesn't make 15 cars magically able to pass through the intersection at the same time. Congested roads take time to navigate. Laying on the horn doesn't fix that. All it does is annoy people by adding to the noise and sense of frustration.
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The lack of shops, people, and amenities feels like something from The Walking Dead. It is like living in a real life ghost town. Even though I know there are many people living nearby, I still can't escape the feeling that I am completely cutoff and isolated in a desolate area.
The funny thing about this is that it in some ways directly contradicts the complaint that people are overly familiar in less densely populated areas, and with the complaint that there is no privacy/anonymity. It's always interesting to me when the complaints are BOTH that "People are so in your business! There's no privacy! But also, it's so isolated ,and I feel so cut off and alone! But people should mind their own business and leave me be and quit being so weirdly friendly!"
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I saw my first opossum ever in my backyard this year, I had no clue what it was but it freaked me out bigtime. I described it to a coworker and they told me what it was, lol.
It is seriously so foreign to me to really not know what an opossum (etc.) is on sight, regardless of whether you grew up seeing them in the wild or not. I mean, there are loads of animals that aren't native to where I was raised that I still know by sight, from other exposure - literature, TV, travel, heck, even kids' picture books.
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In a nutshell, I have discovered that small town life is not for me.
Probably not....which is fine. People have way different thresholds for where they're comfortable. I'm pretty equally comfortable across all population tiers, but different environmental feels get to me. The only atmosphere I've found that I really didn't warm to is that of an EXTREMELY dense metropolis. And it's not even an inner city versus, well, not an inner city thing for me. I had no qualms about living in inner city Chicago...my years in that setting were some of my favorite years. Living for any period of time on the island of Manhattan, though? Kill me now. I've never spent any time anywhere I was less comfortable, and it had nothing to do with the size of NYC, but everything to do with massive numbers of people being densely packed into a tiny geographic space, and the way that affects people's attitudes and treatment of one another. No, thank you. Not so much. Similarly, I don't enjoy smaller communities that are very closed off and unfriendly.
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