Do you notice people staring at you when visiting a provincial town?

[himbw]

I was born and raised in a market town in Cumbria. Moved away when 18 and go back to see parents every few months. I now live in central London.

My partner agreed with me that he feels people stare when we are walking around town. He feels the same way when he visits his folks in a small town in rural north Wales.

It’s not anything malicious, I don’t think, but it does feel like people can tell you’re not a local.

We don’t have pink hair or dress in any odd way. I guess the only difference might be that we might have different fashion choices or clothes, i e, m&s is a basic for us.

Does anyone else notice this? We don’t feel the same when visiting somewhere like Suffolk or maybe Devon. What is it?

Agreed, they stick out like a sore thumb. Spotted a few last weekend - I stared.

Is this you?

That's not why people in cities don't look at each other. There's because there's just too many people and you can't look at them all. Ive lived in cities and not the nice bits, my entire live and never been a victim of crime.

Probably because they're not, being major cities.

The only place I can remember being stared at was Madrid, so the very opposite of a 'provincial town'.

But it was probably because they didn't realise that human skin came in such a pale colour.

Oh, you do. There's 5 speeds.

Home village speed.
Stannary town speed.
Nearest city speed.
London transport zone speed.
Warp factor 9 Central London speed.

All of which are completely confounded by tourists, who don't know the standard paths/equivalent of the driving line or the prevalent pace; the OP is following the standard paths for a local but probably not at the usual speed, which looks wrong.

So what?

Proud to be provincial.

I'm going to get it put on a t-shirt.

The same issue exists in rural areas, busy locals juggling work, kids etc, and tourists enjoying their holiday. I live on a very scenic road (with a fantastic sunset view, one of the best in the UK), and often get slowed down on my way home from work by non-locals. People living in rural areas have busy lives too!

Well, the 5 speed concept/joke came from DP whose village population is smaller than a lot of secondary schools - I thought his comments regarding grockles complete with the description of the Man Proudly Striding Out into the Wilds of the 303 with his wife carrying everything including two of the children complaining that they are hungry 20 yards behind, the dog walkers/oh, he's just playing with those sheep it's sadly illegal to shoot and the groups of somewhat baffled by the lack of detail on google maps walkers who should by all rights be renamed mitherers, whilst funny to me, weren't quite so pithy as his five speeds description.

Man Proudly Striding Out into the Wilds of the 303 with his wife carrying everything including two of the children complaining that they are hungry 20 yards behind

I think I saw that family at the airport the other day. He was sauntering through the security queue watching videos on his phone. She was juggling a baby in a pushchair, a toddler with a Trunki, another small trolley case and all their boarding passes.

It was only when she dropped the trolley case and I offered to wheel it along the queue for a bit while she sorted the boarding passes that he finally realised that perhaps it might be a good time for him to participate in family life for a bit. Dickhead.