Utterly bored and frustrated by living in a small town

[saltnpepa]

We live in a small town and I am so bored and frustrated by the mundaneness of it. I'm from inner London and here I am in the middle of effing nowhere and all the families are white and middle class and wear Boden. There is no crime and no bad behaviour from anyone at anytime. Nobody swears or cracks jokes, there's no vibrancy or creativity, everyone is the bloody same. The mothers are polite and very decent and the husbands are all doing the right things and I only know of one single mum. I stick out like a sore thumb and am sick of rubbing people up the wrong way unintentionally just because I'm different. My kids love it here as does my rather conservative husband, I feel like running down the street naked covered in talcum powder and jam just to cause a stir. It is a 'nice' life but unstimulating and I worry that my kids will grow up to be just like the locals.

[OnlyLovers]

avoir, I don't think what you describe is racist, necessarily. But I don't understand why you do not wish to live among other languages and cultures and I would just like to know. Out of interest.

[Ruperta]

Avoir I don't judge people based on which 'community, culture or language' they have.

I think you need to have a hard look at your attitude. Fair enough you don't want to live in London but if the reason for that is soley because you would be among people with their own communities, cultures and languages - well that is racist.

[cardibach]

OnlyLovers this: I think London and maybe some other cities are anomalies and most of the UK is still pretty scary and League of Gentlemen-ish. is astonishingly superior and offensive, not to mention ignorant. I keep seeing posters suggesting Londoners are being insulted, but I don't see anything as offensive as this about them. Perhaps some of you lack self awareness and can't see when you are being insulting...

[ragged]

I can walk from one side of my town to the other and not see a single person I know

I can't!! It's rare I can walk even 5 minutes without seeing several people I know. I'm foreign & exotic, I suppose (still WASP as they come). I have mild facial blindness & people are always saying hello & want to stop & chat when I can't fathom how they know me.

I find it alarming that we're so white here (& monolingual obv) because the rest of the world isn't like that and neither was my childhood. Don't want DC to find non-white people to be curiosities. I don't notice racist remarks here maybe because my threshold for 'offensive' is a lot higher than OP's/most MN threshold.

It is very manageable & convenient to bring up kids here, though. Can't fault our small town for that.

[OnlyLovers]

cardi, well, I'm finding that I don't much care what people on this thread think of me, TBH.

And I think that suggesting that lots of languages and lots of 'national communities' (which sounds awfully like a polite euphemism to me) are a problem is rather more offensive than my flippant LoG comment.

Well, I mean, based on how I'm assuming those comments were meant, seeing as no clarification is forthcoming. Still.

[CheesyDibbles]

Nobody swears or cracks jokes, there's no vibrancy or creativity, everyone is the bloody same.

It is so depressing that you have written off a whole town in this way. You come across as extremely narrow minded.

[Bunbaker]

Perhaps all the lively, funny people who swear and are vibrant avoid you.

[cardibach]

OnlyLovers it may be offensive, and if it's meant as you think it certainly is, but it isn't offensive about Lononers. It's not suggesting, as the bit I quoted is about non-Londoners, that they are laughable freaks, for example.

[LondonRocks]

How nice that Londoners are being called unfriendly, racist and the ones who have the temerity to set foot elsewhere are dubbed things like 'DFLs'...

SunnyB I'd heard that about Lewes and the evil DFLs. Insular, much? Funny how the devoted locals bite the hands off the nasty Londoners when they see how much filthy London lucre they could pocket.

I'd be bored stupid seeing the same people day in, day out. And I find London friendly on the whole. If you treat people well, wherever, they generally reciprocate. Unless they can't get past stupid generalisations. I've met some racist morons in the sticks and in cities.

[Gilrack]

these people who say that in small towns "everyone knows everyone" and "everyone is related to everyone" are taking nonsense. Do you know ten, fifteen or twenty thousand people?

This town has a population of 12,000 including outlying villages. The entire county's population is less than most London boroughs. 12,000 residents belonging to the same extended families equals fewer than 1,000 families.

So, yes. They do know everyone.

[Bunbaker]

I don't know that many people. I am not related to anyone else round here as we are incomers.

[avoiretre]

That made no sense at all Gilrack, but I'm impressed that you know 12,000 people. Maybe you're the only person in the world who does.

[tobysmum77]

Nothing like a bit of stereotyping from all sides, its pretty simple

• Some people who live in small towns are nobs
• Some people who live in London are nobs
• Some people like living in London, most think it's just somewhere to visit
• only one person at the school gates has made a gypo comment to me ever, she got short shrift.
• only mnetters wear boden, in fact I first heard of it on mnet

[Bunbaker]

Well said tobysmum77. As far as I know I have never come across anyone in RL who wears Boden. I wouldn't even know how to recognise the "Boden style" anyway.

[nattarji]

If what the OP says is completely true, then she sounds scared and lonely to me. Perhaps you should look into moving back to London? Would that be possible?

[ggggllll]

Small fairly culturally homogenous or monocultural rural communities Northern Europe tend to have relatively low crime rates, be relatively harmonious and clean and, in a few countries (England included) to be quite tolerant of other people's eccentricities and foibles, as long as you keep the bits of your land that affect other people clean and tidy! People still get up to all sorts of naughty stuff but they don't end up shitting on each other's doorsteps quite so much. Even the drug addicts will tend to bugger off somewhere they don't stand out so severely. It is when you get denser, more urban conditions that things change, even though there are plenty of extremely low income workers living in the country.

You sacrifice all of the wonderful enrichment and wonderful diversity, the people trying to sell DCs crack outside your local tube station, the night life, the shops being open late at night and on Sundays and the ready availability of companionship and entertainment at all times to live in a more wholesome environment, but I don't think it can be all that bad from the London side of the fence, since I (and lots of other Londoners) have jumped ship and headed for the country at the first opportunity. The only thing I have to say to those that follow me is that there is no point moving if you bring the bad stuff with you, if you see what I mean. I am like the other poster here who was like a "fish to water" and have become a country person over time, and really the way I see newbies now, I didn't realize that was how it came across - people really do move in and ruin places, setting up little enclaves of urban life, or buying up half a village then not living in it, or parking giant expensive people carriers through the middle of the village like a blockade, shit and rubbish littering the floor around them which used to be pristine, or just thoughtlessly "developing" community focal points like pubs, shops, post offices etc. into nice glass-fronted buildings for themselves, which I have to say leaves the pre-existing community gutted, a shell.

I think there is a community-breaking failure of integration when some people come out to the country, and that creates imposing ghettos and displaces local culture. Which is ironic because if you speak to people and they tell you why they wanted to raise their kids in the country, it seems like that is exactly the sort of thing they chose to get away from in the first place.

[Bonsoir]

Quite a lot of people move to the country wanting a larger house, more tranquil environment and better views without realizing that all that comes at the cost of their usual urban entertainments and that, if they import those entertainments, they will lost the tranquil environment and better views quite quickly.

[gotthemoononastick]

Classic case of'birds of a feather want to roost together'in spite of what people are fed by social engineering.

[phlebasconsidered]

I live in the middle of nowhere in a market town. It really is rural, yet we still manage to have people who swear. In fact, we have an art gallery in a pub, a vibrant art scene, 3 pubs, 2 primary schools, a secondary school and a great library and museum. There are festivals, galas, and community action groups, youth clubs and a great skate park and BMX area.

If I bother to drive 45 minutes I can access two large cities. I can get more culture there.

We also have lots of lovely Polish and Lithuanian people who have opened Delis and other shops, including a much needed butchers on our previously dying high street and enriched our schools and some are dear friends. We also have some other racial groups, notably 2 Chinese families, several Indian families, and various others including Eritrean, Nigerian, West Indian and several families who have mixed with Americans from the surrounding airbases.We have a large Romany community. I know this because I teach here too.

We also have our fair share of bigots and idiots, plus the Boden brigade and what some people would call Chavs. i suppose if you were to move here and not bother to scratch the surface, you wouldn't see all that.

My point is: try harder.

[Gilrack]

This market town has a large Romany community, too. They suffer extreme and very open bigotry. Alongside the public transport, diversity of free facilities and cultural stimulation, what I miss most about London is the 'letting people get on with their lives'. Now I live here, I can really see how this equates to 'not caring about people' in many people's eyes. And it's true: the difference in perspective is that I don't see people caring any more here. Knowing everything about everyone (and surmising what you don't know) doesn't equal caring. It's just gossip and prejudice.

This isn't an unfriendly town. It's just insular - which is the complete opposite of a cosmopolitan city.

[phlebasconsidered]

I never found London to be friendly in the 15 years I lived there! On the two occaisions when I got mugged and nobody helped at all, despite seeing it happen and my nose / head pouring with blood. Or the time I got spat at for breastfeeding in the park. Or the time when my bike got nicked right in front of me and nobody helped, despite my shouting.

That was very cosmopolitan.

Admittedly, the country is full of arseholes too, but the one time I have had something happen to me here and needed help, I was helped by two passers by immediately( very pregnant and faint with a toddler).

I can't think of one kind thing that any stranger did for me in London at all. Not even one seat giving up when 9 months pregnant on the Central line.


I do miss buses that came more frequently than every hour though. They were lovely.

[chrome100]

I grew up in Hebden Bridge, a small town in West Yorkshire. It's full of left-wing, vegetarian, "right on" types, with long-haired children, wooden toys and clothes hand knitted by Peruvian shepherds. There is a sense that it's a very open-minded community, it's not. Unless you are a vegetarian, Peruvian jumper wearer too. I now live in a what is considered a fairly rough part of a city and much prefer it. There are lots of different kinds of people, some are rude, some are nice, some messy, noisy, some eat meat (!) but what I love is the mix. I might not be able to buy an over-priced artisan loaf on the street corner but I feel that's a small price to pay.

[SunnyBaudelaire]

oh gosh yes I know those types chrome - tree hugging fascists the lot of them.

[phlebasconsidered]

Did they make you join the Woodcraft Folk? That's what they usually do.

[LondonRocks]

And, what's this continual shite about Boden wearers? If you really judge people solely by their clothes, you're in no position to call others bigoted.

Are we really judging people because they wear certain clothes?? FFS, it's as bad as saying people who wear wellies in rural areas are idiot bumpkins.