What are some things that you can’t do in a small town that you wish you could?
The controversy around Jason Aldean’s “Try that in a Small Town” got me thinking. What are some things that you wish you could do in a small town that you just can’t?
I was in the mountains, Hendersonville NC I think, trying to find a place to eat after 7 pm on a week day. Was impossible.
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Oh man, having grown up in a small town (one stop light, baby!):
Be visibly neurodivergent
Be visibly gender nonconforming
Not have worry about someone at the doctor's office/hospital who knows your family breaking HIPAA
Be able to just be an anonymous person in public, and not Jody-Anne's cousin's kid
To not be reliant on owning a car
It's bad enough dealing with crippling depression in a small town, where everyone's going to tell you that A: your condition is a moral failure rather than an illness with physiological underpinnings, B: religion is the answer to your condition, C: (for males, anyway) your condition makes you weak and effeminate, or D: a combination of the above or more likely all of them. Adding those things on top of it is a recipe for suicide.
Don't forget that if you're not in the in-group, people will try to drive you out of the area. I've lived in small towns most of my life, and while there's exceptions it's still common.
And this isn't even race based. Just not being related to one (or more) of the main 3-4 families in town will get you on the shit list, especially if you're not from the area. Going to a different church than the one in town will do it too
You've heard this right?
https://piped.video/BzoVLDdHwW4
I hate that for you. But you speak to the lack of social services that are typically not available, which is a pro of living in a large city.
Two light town here. It's not just social services. Hell, with sizes, sometimes (not always) they have it a bit easier in certain regards for the common services due to reduced workload (YMMV: it's been a while since I've been back).
The bigger issue is lack of exposure to anything non-conforming. Not enough people simply being people in slightly different ways. Makes it easy to fall into tribalism, as well as no one wants to shake the boat when someone says something racist (for example).
Damn coming in with that small-town passive-aggression.
Sorry? Can't tell if joking, sorry if this is woosh. :)
Ahh, I'm used to "I hate/love that for you" being a disingenuous statement. Kinda like "bless your heart" and other south-isms
I can see why you’d think that. For me it’s just a plain spoken expression of empathy, but I know I’m the south we use bless your heart to mock people gently.
Some of these you can't do in some cities either.
I grew up in New York City, my pops is fairly well known, we're part of a large family, most people knew me as his son or one of my female cousins cousin.
Also I've seen LGBTQ folks get bullied, same with "neurodivergent" and other folks with mental and physical disabilities.
The only difference is that in a city you can find your "people" because in a small town there may be one or a few of you, in a large city there are many, but there are also many many assholes there too. Also public transportation is an absolute "plus" when it comes to a city.
Now I live in a coastal area of Florida that likes to think of itself as "small town" while being incredibly busy traffic-wise and having more population than Iceland, and that HIPAA thing is a real problem. My kid took in a friend who wanted to escape her crazy and abusive Jehovah's Witness parents, well the mother works where my kid went to the doctor a few times, she looked up my kids medical records and then showed up at our house. I gave my kid so much shit about how the mother violated HIPAA and how she should get her fired, and my daughter wouldn't, she just didn't want to get her friends mother in trouble, but that was a serious breach of trust and this woman shouldn't be working in the medical field if she can't follow the regulations governing the field, if I did similar in my career field I would be completely unhirable.