Iowa Culture: Accepting an Outsider

[Dport7674]

Without the sauce their called maid-rites/loose meat sandwiches. With the sauce they are sloppy joes and manwiches.

[capitalcityguy]

Originally Posted by Dport7674

Without the sauce their called maid-rites/loose meat sandwiches. With the sauce they are sloppy joes and manwiches.

That is spot on.

[capitalcityguy]

Originally Posted by my54ford

Hard to do...Just as hard to move back.....I was born and raised there and left 5 days after I graduated highschool moved back 16 yrs later with a wife and son.... You're never known for your self always someones brother or son. You don't live in your own house it will always oh you live in __________ house. I live in Minnesota now.... Close enough to visit but I'll never live in Iowa again.....

So how many towns/cities in Iowa have you lived? What is the largest?

[duster1979]

I think the issue is that there are so many people in small towns - not just in Iowa, but nationwide - that never live anywhere else. So the circle of friends of the typical small-town person is often the same at age 35 as it was at age 15, and it's very hard to break into a clique like that. Not that they aren't genuinely friendly, but their social network is so firmly established that they can't conceive of the idea of expanding it to let someone new in.

[NDak15]

In general I would characterize Iowa as being "insulated." People in Iowa generally don't move out of the state nor do they move in. While there is some necessary movement to places like Des Moines or the other major cities (due to a lack of jobs in many of the small towns), it seems to me that people in Iowa. while generally friendly and down to earth, do not seem to like to leave their comfort zone so I can imagine it is difficult to make friends. Most of my family in the state fits this bill perfectly. This is not meant to be a slam on the people in the state, it is just my observation.