Expectations vs reality for those who moved from a city to a small town?
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- **Less Police Presence**. Crime rates drop inordinately as the population decreases, and with that, you see a lot less "boys in blue" - furthermore, because it's usually just a few people, you get to know them and have less anxiety with interactions.
That’s not the impression I got from Twin Peaks 🧐
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How small we talking?
Around 2,000 people
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Around 2,000 people
Oh wow, yeah, truly small. It depends on your own outlook and how willing you are to assimilate, or if you're okay with being kind of an outcast who sticks to themselves. If for instance you're a young progressive atheist moving to a rural Tennessee town of deeply religious conservatives, yeah that's not going to be fun. Small Vermont ski town? You'll fit right in. Alaskan town? They'll be conservative, sure, but given the weather and isolation, people have a tendency to rely upon each other and that brings the community closer together.
I grew up rural just outside a town of about 30,000 that was just transitioning to a formally-designated small city. You could go to the grocery store and not see people you knew 2 out of 3 times, I'd say. It's not always bad. We're social creatures and the internet has gotten us away from that, somewhat detrimentally.
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Bar culture is a waste of money anyways.
You can get more variety at a cheaper price from grocery stores. It doesn't make sense to pay more money to drink at a bar with people who you're not close enough to visit each other's homes.
Anyone who spends $7 on a shot when an entire bottle costs $12 isn't using their brain.
Meeting people at the grocery store:
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The slutty farmer’s daughter is usually ugly but always a great lay.
Yeah. She will always be there when nobody responds to your booty call. Sluts are the real friends in your life.
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The pond gets small really fucking quick. You will run into someone you know almost every time you leave the house. You can't just blend in and get away from anything. Including whatever reputation you develop.
It's honestly fucking awful.
wrote last edited by [email protected]Y'know, that's the primary thing people cite as being nice about a small town. Interesting it was a nasty surprise for you.
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Meeting people at the grocery store:
Yeah, I'm a pretty cheap person, but I don't go to a bar to save money, I go to relax and socialize.
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Y'know, that's the primary thing people cite as being nice about a small town. Interesting it was a nasty surprise for you.
He couldn't hide his reputation enough lmao
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Meeting people at the grocery store:
wrote last edited by [email protected]If you're not living a boring life, then you should naturally come across plenty of different people with plenty of different opportunities to make connections.
"Meeting people at the grocery store" is a lazy and ignorant excuse to justify going to bars. If you think those are your only two options, then you're the problem and I pity anyone who gets caught in your web.
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Y'know, that's the primary thing people cite as being nice about a small town. Interesting it was a nasty surprise for you.
"Why don't you go to church?" gets tedious after the 14,000th time.
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I'm mostly referring to liquor because it's the most economical way to get drunk.
My local Walmart has a decent selection of beers, but I've been to HEBs that have entire sections devoted to craft beers. It may depend on the grocery store in question.
You can still get a better selection at a cheaper price at liquor stores than bars.
If you think the only use of a pub is to get drunk then I think you're using them wrong...
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If you're not living a boring life, then you should naturally come across plenty of different people with plenty of different opportunities to make connections.
"Meeting people at the grocery store" is a lazy and ignorant excuse to justify going to bars. If you think those are your only two options, then you're the problem and I pity anyone who gets caught in your web.
And you don't understand that some people prefer the bar. But I guess you have the only right way to do things.
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I'm mostly referring to liquor because it's the most economical way to get drunk.
My local Walmart has a decent selection of beers, but I've been to HEBs that have entire sections devoted to craft beers. It may depend on the grocery store in question.
You can still get a better selection at a cheaper price at liquor stores than bars.
I’m mostly referring to liquor because it’s the most economical way to get drunk.
Why not bathtub moonshine? That is even more economical.
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Here’s the thing about “groceries in town”. You will find deals at the deli/bakery and possibly the butcher areas of the store. Sometimes. That said, 80% of it is ridiculously priced.
What often happens is people store more food and bundle their drive into town for stuff.
I will, for example, do most of my grocery shopping after my last shift in a run. Less gas and bother and it’s on the way.
We have a large garden. Two freezers. Cold storage. Two fridges. Fruit trees. If a snow storm dropped and we were stuck for a month we’d be fine. The food would get boring, but we’d be fine.
The one danger to this move you’re making will be the sounds or lack thereof. Once you go rural you may have a very hard time going back to hearing people and their vehicles all the time. As in they become a point of grating stress until they stop.
I don't even live in a rural area and am thinking of more ways to store/preserve food. Want to get a bunch of jars to preserve things in. Along with getting an allotment so that I can grow more although currently most fruits I forage from publicly accessible trees/bushes. Recently came back with a sack full of apples and cooked that down to about 5L of unsweetened apple sauce.
I was going to try dehydrating it but the first 2L batch has got me deciding fuck that, it will take so much time/energy to dehydrate it all. Storing it in jars should be much easier in comparison.
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I'm in the process of doing the above and would like to hear about your experience. Were there any surprises? What was as you expected?
My experience- YMMV. Be careful who you talk to and what gossip you engage in. Basically everyone knows everyone to some degree. Everybody is somebodies cousins friend or something. Its a good thing when you get used to it, more security and whatever, but it does mean that any social damage you do (cheating on someone for instance) will have far wider consequences than you realise.
Job hunting is extremely difficult for the same reason unless you're trained in some in-demand specialist skill. Every job goes to someone's cousin. In my last factory job we had an idiot working there, constantly on the verge of getting sacked, he attended a funeral one day and discovered that his dead cousin was also cousins with the manager. He was team leader the very next week for his overall diligence to duty.
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If you're not living a boring life, then you should naturally come across plenty of different people with plenty of different opportunities to make connections.
"Meeting people at the grocery store" is a lazy and ignorant excuse to justify going to bars. If you think those are your only two options, then you're the problem and I pity anyone who gets caught in your web.
Why do I need to justify going to a bar?
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Do you have any stories to tell about that?
No specific stories come to mind, but my neighbor who is a very chill live-and-let live dude knows everything about all the other neighbors. He's probably in his late 30s so he's not a retiree sitting around watching people come and go.
I think it might be more that people get to know each other more and make more observations about people because there are less data points, if that makes sense? Whereas in the bigger city people are aggressive about not remembering you/not paying attention outside of certain situations (like getting to know people at the dog park).
Maybe the thing that sticks out are people in shops striking up convos and remembering you. One woman at the hardware store remarked that it was weird to see us because it wasn't Sunday.
I'm also curious about what this is like. I'm probably a bit more "alternative" in appearance than the average person up there, but I think I could also blend in if not for the fact that they won't recognize me as being from there. Are you talking about things like tattoos and piercings?
Tattoos are very common here but there is also a lot of military so it might corelate. I have tattoos and piercings but for the first time in my professional life my boss had tattoos as well lol. I'm an engineer who works mostly with the trades but maybe 10% of the time I'm dealing with "fancy" office engineers so maybe they do have more of a problem with my tattoos, piercings, and field gear wardrobe than I initially thought.
In my specific situation I think the fact that I'm not as formal or deferential as they were expecting. I am very straightforward and I expect people to be straightforward with me too. The field staff really appreciated it because they thought the big city girl would be pretentious and stuffy, but for others I didn't follow the niceties they were expecting and I'm way too outspoken for a woman lol. In the bigger city there was less of a divide between the blue collar and white collar workers. I'm not used to that and the expectation to be "professional" meaning anything other than treating people with respect.
On the flip side of that people at all levels are way too comfortable pushing back on diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives very publicly. I haven't gotten involved in that kind of stuff here because I'm still trying to get used to the job, settle in, etc. In the bigger city they might grumble a bit but would know better than to keep up the behaviors they were told wouldn't fly. I gave positive space training to a group of millwrights back home, but I'm not sure I'd put myself in that situation here. It just feels 10 years behind. That's not to say everyone is out there being problematic, but people are a lot more comfortable being a passive bystander and that's allowing bullshit to continue.
Live and let live has a different vibe out in the sticks.
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Doesn't surprise me that the main thing city people complain about is they need more places to spend their money.
wrote last edited by [email protected]"Oh, is Mr. Bougie too good for our local pub gruel!?"
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I'm in the process of doing the above and would like to hear about your experience. Were there any surprises? What was as you expected?
I've noticed that eccentric people tend to drift towards rural areas. My in-laws live in the middle of nowhere in the West Country in the UK and all of their neighbours are similar to them: eccentric singletons or couples with few friends.
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I'm in the process of doing the above and would like to hear about your experience. Were there any surprises? What was as you expected?
I think this really, really depends on the country.
