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.

An area without crime sounds great to me!

I am a Londoner of immigrant stock, and not left wing.

Guess OP should just move back if she loves crime that much.

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?!

Ninky, where do you live, it sound like bliss!

OP said that the look on her face gives her thoughts away rather than puts people off.

If she's not engaging or looking depressed/pissed off at the casual racism that she's experienced, I can see how this would put people off though, as generally people like people who share similar views to their own.

As this thread demonstrates quite nicely, in fact.

You just need to live there longer, OP, to get a bit of excitement.
My sleepy town is in lowest crime county in England.

The town has had in last 10 yrs (to my knowledge): one brutal rape, one fatal assault, prominent (on every committee) woman left husband to run off with her son's teacher, massive planning controversies (we lost), feuds with neighbours, feuds between school governors, cannabis dealing, ASBO notices, a bus on fire, lorries regularly stuck under rail bridges... it's all there. Just give it a good scratch. And I don't even talk to people if I can help it.

Trick or treating is good. Fantastic community event.

2+ teachers at the primary grew up locally & I sometimes hear gossip about their school days. "Ooh, she used to be very anorexic!" (sigh)

Of course, silly me, that's where I've been going wrong, when people say racist and ignorant things I ought to smile and nod along. Will try better to fit in!

I can honestly say that I have never come across any racism in our village.

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".

If you love inner city life so much why did you move then?

Of course you can move back, OP, you just don't want to move to a smaller house having moved out of London. If all the 'crime and grime' is so amazing, I'm sure there are some pretty cheap places still to be had for rent where you'll get plenty of that on your doorstep in the city.

FWIW, I had never heard of Boden until I moved to the sticks. When you have to make a day of it to go clothes shopping - suddenly mail order looks pretty attractive. And yes, I do lack fashion imagination because it's not half as important what you wear around here - people do the school run in everything from business suits to farming overalls because just like your cultured mates, we're quite busy. When you do a lot of socialising outside (seems a shame to stay indoors when the view's so nice) people tend to keep their jumpers on anyway.

Embrace it or move - your choice. But don't judge.

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 .

"Embrace it or move - your choice. But don't judge."

This ^^

I's say that I support OP for judging her experiences of casual racism tbh.

Specifically her saying that she doesn't want to be part of it, and how every time it happens and isn't challenged by anyone else (either explicitly by confronting or implicitly by not engaging) it confirms her 'square peg in a round hole' feeling.

I don't hear OP judging other peoples' choices, although I can see that her description of her experiences seems to be getting some peoples' backs up.

And if the responses she receives to any challenge to the commonly expressed views and opinions are 'either embrace it or move', I'm starting to empathise with her more and more.

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.

OP, you have my sympathy. I love living in a city and having a hugely diverse school community and thousands of cultural activities on the doorstep.

I love the countryside and peace and quiet too - have just got back from a lovely family weekend - but small town ie neither views nor culture nor peace nor diversity? No thanks!

Isle of Wight Creme...tis lovely. Mainly cause of the ferry prices keeping it quiet.

I was born and brought up in the Cotswolds in a small town. Everyone knew each other and their business. I couldn't wait to escape to uni to get away from it all. A lot of my friends stayed there or moved back there when they had their children in their 30's. I have lived all over and live in a big city in the other end of the country now which I love, but a little bit of me is ever so envious of my friends who are bringing their children up there. It's beautiful, friendly and I really miss not knowing everyone and everything about them! So I kind of know what you mean op, although be careful what you wish for - You might miss it more than you think. And there are plenty of intelligent an interesting people around, wherever you go.

All together now, and to the tune of the Pastoral Symphony:

The country, the country, the country gets you down
There's nothing like the country to make you want the town!

But Christina, it's not like you don't get casual racism in London, is it? The problem may be that in London or any big city, you can choose to be part of a community that suits you, perhaps you live in a 'creative' quarter or hang around the cultured' pubs, whatever. Further out, all life is here but there are fewer of each type and they all live together. So, racists probably don't move in the same social circles as OP in London. It doesn't mean they don't exist. We should all be challenging racism wherever we find it, surely. OP is not the only non-racist outside the M25, promise.

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.

Sounded - one point though about 'you can be part of any community you want' in London - yes to a fashion, however, friends who stayed in London are finding it rather different once they have DCs in school - London schools have even smaller catchments than outside London, and tend to have small 'school gate' communities. If it's one you feel great to be part of, fantastic, but for friends who don't, are finding themselves forced to socialise with people they don't have anything in common with, other than they live within 0.3 miles of the school. (At that point they are finding the "no one knows me round here" thing disapears - schools being so small catchments means the other parents are super local to you and probably will bump into you at the points you really wish to be anonymous)

"I am in the middle of effing nowhere and all the families are white and middle class and wear Boden"

Just imagine if that sentence said

"I am in the middle of effing nowhere and all the families are black and lower class and wear clothes from charity shops"

OP you are a bigoted racist.

I live in a very small town, very rural. Have lived here all my life, as have most people. I love it and wouldn't live anywhere else, but i know that if id been brought up in a city and moved here id probably find it extremely difficult, its so quiet here.

We are not multicultural at all, i cant think of a single person in this town who isn't white British. In fact, ive never actually seen a woman in a Burka in real life (burkas where mentioned up thread) its quite sad as I'm interested in other cultures