Active discussions

Meet the Other Phone. Child-safe in minutes.

Meet the Other Phone.
Child-safe in minutes.

Buy now

Please or to access all these features

Talk
AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

..to think living in the countryside is more anti-social than living in a town?

51 replies

wellbessiewatson · 10/02/2018 14:35

moved to rural farming location 12 years ago and finding the lack of friendly people a real challenge, I have tried to make friends and have 2 good pals but is it just me or are towns much more sociable and friendly?

OP posts:
derxa · 10/02/2018 15:25

You will always be an outsider, even if you stay for 30 years. It depends. Where I am I'm as 'insider' as you can get since my family have been farming here for over 100 years. But if you get stuck in and join things and make an effort there is no reason for you not to meet people and make friends.

DullAndOld · 10/02/2018 15:27

" there is no reason for you not to meet people and make friends."

absolutely agree. but......

Original poster
wellbessiewatson · 10/02/2018 15:28

thanks derxa, I do make an effort and join in, it just genuinely seems the majority of people in the village have their quota of people in their life (family / old school friends) and aren't looking to make more friends.

OP posts:
barefoofdoctor · 10/02/2018 15:29

I find the reverse of what
you say to be true OP.

Scrowy · 10/02/2018 15:30

Disagree sort of.

The countryside still runs on respect and traditions.

The only 'incomers' that struggle in my experience are the ones that turn up in the countryside and expect it to be like living in a town but prettier and safer and don't realise that it is a working area and not just a playground.

We like new blood in the countryside (stops there being as much inbreeding Grin), providing they don't try and change what the countryside actually is for those who already live and work there. They also need to remember that they have probably pushed up house prices for local young families, and that although people won't hate them for it they won't have a huge amount of sympathy if they start twining about their perceived imperfections of the area.

If you turn up and moan about the smell of cow shit, next door's chickens or the lack of Starbucks then people will roll their eyes and politely cross you off their list as people they could be friends with.

thetemptationofchocolate · 10/02/2018 15:30

When I moved into a rural location I had some work done on the house. I said to the man that I was going to get a pony, and he said, you'll soon get to know everyone if you have a horse. And it was true :)
I am not naturally very sociable though so not seeing lots of people suits me just fine.

Original poster
wellbessiewatson · 10/02/2018 15:32

I will stick with my 2 good pals and keep trying!

OP posts:
DullAndOld · 10/02/2018 15:33

" If you turn up and moan about the smell of cow shit, next door's chickens or the lack of Starbucks then people will roll their eyes and politely cross you off their list as people they could be friends with."

that is true. We had some neighbours from Kent (West Wales deep country) who would walk around the village looking for things to report to the council. Needless to say they were generally hated.

They reported me for having a noisy cockerel...Grin I daresay the sheep were also bleating too loudly for them..

we used to call them 'the Kents'. with a special Kentish accent..Grin

As I said, it will be the other incomers who are the worst..

derxa · 10/02/2018 15:35

I said to the man that I was going to get a pony, and he said, you'll soon get to know everyone if you have a horse. And it was true Anything to do with animals will lead you to meet people.

Bluntness100 · 10/02/2018 15:38

I also find the reverse. I live rurally, everyone is really friendly, been here about three years, if I go to thr local shop they say "ooh where have you been then, haven't seen uou for ages". I get invited to things by locals. Everyone says hi because they recognise you. I'm scottish and in the south east, so clearly vocally I stand out. People Chat to us in the pub.

In towns there are more people, but again I find people friendly. Just you only see the same ones if you visit the same places.

I think what I'm trying to say is location doesn't impact people, they are who they are and in my experience, people are generally friendly with a few wankers interspersed.

Mol1628 · 10/02/2018 15:39

It was true for where I lived. People were very rude and unwelcoming to outsiders. I was looking for jobs and they always went to someone local because there was always someone that knew someone who worked there that applied. Local shopkeeper just looked at me funny when I went in for months till I was a ‘regular’
It was hard work. I wouldn’t move back.

cardibach · 10/02/2018 15:44

Dull you have really odd attitudes. I don’t need to ‘trust you’ about the types of people in country v town as I currently live rurally and have lived in towns. Then you say something like this: a lot of people will have moved to the country from London because they are vile racists
This is absolute bollocks! I don’t even know where to start... Not everyone starts in London (I don’t know anyone in my but of rural who has ever lived there). Not everyone who leaves a city does so because of racism. You have no idea. If you show your ignorance in this way in the country, then people will not want to socialise with you. It is not, however, them who are anti-social...

petbear · 10/02/2018 15:45

It's too much of a generalisation to say rural folk are hostile and town folk are friendly.

We live in a tiny village, 2.5 miles from the nearest main road, with one Church, one pub, a Parish Hall, a little infant/primary school (with 33 kids,) and a dozen farms within 3-4 miles. It is, by a country mile, the friendliest place we have ever lived.

The cities and big towns are OK, but are often crime ridden, polluted, and noisy, and sometimes cold and hostile, and no-one has any time for anyone. And the suburbs are full of snooty people who think they're middle class, with their ludicrous 4WD 'Chelsea tractor' that they don't actually even need.

In addition, in the cul de sac we used to live in, 3 miles from a main town centre, (with homes that were privately built in the 1990's,) a bunch of frankly quite dodgy, rough people who sold their right to buy council house, move in up the road.

Sadly, they carried on living like they were on the sink estate they came from. Playing loud music, doing up cars on the lawn, having parties til 3am three or four nights a week, and yelling and screaming at each other, and anyone who gave them a look they didn't like.

People who had been there since the houses were built, started moving out, and private landlords bought the homes, and they turned into private let. Some private let folk, (like some social housing folk) are perfectly nice and decent, but some are dreadful and don't care about the house, or the area, or anyone who lives around them. Sadly, there were enough of them to ruin the area.

Our little suburban cul de sac was ruined by these entitled cunts. So we moved... And this happened to us twice. We now live in a tiny village full of mostly elderly and disabled people, and middle to upper class. Zero crime, zero break-ins, zero chavs. And the friendliest community you could possibly imagine. It's beautiful ... I will never ever move (As long as it stays like this obvs!)

So I disagree with the OP; rural folk are much friendlier. Definitely a class thing. The middle and upper classes are definitely better, more considerate neighbours...

I would suggest if you are not getting on with people in a little rural village, it is probably you, not them.............

And I agree with the posters saying that some suburbs on the outskirts of towns are soul-less. A few are OK, but many that are a cul de sac within a cul de sac within a cul de sac are just drab. And as I said, full of people who think they're middle class.

DullAndOld · 10/02/2018 15:45

also, some people might not even notice how hostile people are to new incomers.

Applying for a job in the local shop and having to go in there while they whispered about me in Welsh was just embarrassing. But then I have been to Welsh classes..

I would have had no idea just how rude the girls in the local Polish shop were if my son didnt understand Polish..
and yes there is a Polish shop in the middle of nowhere before anyone starts.

Cannot wait to get back to the city tbh.

DullAndOld · 10/02/2018 15:46

oh yes the Polish girls started spreading it about that my 18 year old son was 'my young lover'. Sick fuckers.

DullAndOld · 10/02/2018 15:50

I am 53 btw.

Scrowy · 10/02/2018 15:54

Oh and I wouldn't judge all rural people on the characters you meet via village Hall/ parish council stuff. They are their own particular breed of local Grin

SluttyButty · 10/02/2018 15:55

I think we must have lived in the same village Wink. I really tried to get stuck into village life but in the end I was so miserable I packed up and moved back into a town. Village life and me will never be friends.

MrsJoshDun · 10/02/2018 15:57

Unsocial possibly. Not antisocial.

I have not taken to beating the sheep up or stealing tractors yet.

DullAndOld · 10/02/2018 15:59

I think OP means 'unsociable'..:)

Bluntness100 · 10/02/2018 16:00

Actually to be fair, we did have one bad experience. The day we moved in, we dashed to the local pub in the evening for something to eat as we had no food and were unpacking.. The staff were off with us. We were told to sit in a dark chilly little nook. Whilst none of the main tables were booked or taken, and staff took ages to take any orders from us, and served literally anyone else first, and just left us standing there at the bar like twats.

Others got table service, we had to order at the bar and they'd just ignore us. I asked the barmaid if I could have another glass of wine when she delivered our meal and you'd honestly have thought I'd asked to take a shit on her head the look she gave me, before she told me to go to the bar. Where the other bar maid did everything in her power to ignore us and not take our order.

We never went back. We use the other one now, which is lovely and friendly and was from the get go, but yes, that first night we were made to feel very unwelcome. I recall we came out saying "god how rude were they, what a shit place".

The weird thing was when we said to other locals that it was a shit unfriendly place they all said it was weird because ir was usually so welcoming and had a great reputation.🤔

Eolian · 10/02/2018 16:03

I've lived in a few cities (incl. London), a few not very rural villages, and now live in quite a rural village. I've found that the more rural, the more friendly people are.

raindropsandsunshine · 10/02/2018 17:50

I think we're friendly! In villages with shops and in towns people speak in passing, we chat in queues etc even if we don't know each other. It's nice. Not sure if that happens in cities? It probably does too.

I live in an area where I know loads of people from school, they still live around. I like the familiarity of that, but really enjoy speaking and getting to know people from outside the area. We have lots of people who are here having moved from Kent and London, I never see any unfriendliness towards them.

vampirethriller · 10/02/2018 22:33

I lived for a while in a very isolated village- you have to get a ferry to it, there's one bus five times a week, one shop, mostly survives on tourism. It's beautiful but I've never been so unhappy in my life. People ignored me for months. Stared at me in the shop. Laughed when I spoke in my own accent and said they couldn't understand me.
They were really proud of the fact that an outsider had bought the local pub and by boycotting it, they'd forced him out of business and he'd had to leave.
Not every village is like that (I grew up in a lovely one!) but yes, they can be.

vampirethriller · 10/02/2018 22:34

I tried to fit in and some of my family actually already lived there, so it wasn't like I was expecting something extraordinary!