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.
AIBU?
Utterly bored and frustrated by living in a small town
saltnpepa · 14/06/2015 17:56
If you feel better than everyone else, and look down on people for what they wear (Boden or whatever), and their ethnicity (white) you are being a snob and no wonder you find it hard going.
Still 
ate cardi saying she has nine racist friends 
typo?!
ragged - the "everyone knows everyone else and is some way connected" took a lot of getting used to after the whole "couldn't pick out my neighbour in a police line up" lifestyle of SE London!
I'm a little cushioned from the worse of it as this is a commuter town for London having great train links, so there's a lot of 'outsiders' who don't have family connections, and the London invaders (like us) have pushed up house prices so many local people are pushed a bit further out into the villages with crapper train links. But still it's a small place, and when I fainted on the train 8 wks pregnant with DC2, told a nice lady who caught me that I was pregnant and she loudly announced it to get me a seat in first class (I'd been standing). When I got to church on Sunday, 2 different people came up to quietly congratulate me as their DH's were commuting into London offices on the same train carriage. (Hadn't even told my mum yet at that point!)
DH talks about our local "mum mafia", and it amazing that most woman are connected in some way.
OP - if you have a busy job that keeps you away from a lot of the school gate stuff, it could be equally you wouldn't fit in with a SAHM culture in an area in London, but then if you had more going on in your life, you wouldn't notice it. When you say there's nothing going on, is it just that you don't konw about it, or it's stuff that's happening while you're at work, I know certainly where I am, it's much more common for events to happen in the working day as there's a large SAHM and retired community, and if you are working FT you might well miss out. Plus as things are less well advertised and rely on 'word of mouth', if you aren't more than 'smile and nod' relations with most of the local SAHMs, then you might be missing out. 
I would say you need to put more effort in with groups, societies and trying to find a bigger group that suits you. Give yourself 6 months of being a "joining in sort" and see if you find a wider group of the community you do get on with - the school gate mums are really only a small part of any community and it's only a small period of your life when you'll come into contact with them. If after all that you don't find yourself feeling more comfortable, then look at moving to different towns/large villages in the area, London isn't an option, but there's not just "London" and a homogenious "everywhere else".
I'm now wondering whether I do live in the same place as ragged. "Lorry stuck under railway bridge" is a very regular occurrence here 
.
Never mind op, with any luck you'll fall victim to a terrible crime and/or lose your house/job and be forced to move to a really scummy but interesting city where you can be truly happy.
This reply has been deleted
Message withdrawn at poster's request.
Isle of Wight Creme...tis lovely. Mainly cause of the ferry prices keeping it quiet.
OP are you me? Sounds exactly like where we have just moved away from (except the crap takeaway, it's the only thing I miss). We moved back to the city (not London) ...I drift off to sleep to the sound of traffic and am happy.
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