I made the mistake of moving to a small town which seemed nice, but turned out to have a heavy isolationist attitude (extremely nice to tourists to their face, disdainful to everyone else unless you’ve lived there for many years). It’s not that people are unpleasant — most are perfectly civil, but not friendly in any sense unless you’re a paying customer in their business (the only exception was the local gun shop, super nice guys there even before I signed up for their charity raffle). It’s clear after a year here that nobody in my family is making any friends, despite reaching out (volunteering at the local food bank, donating to the local senior center, etc).
It’s frustrating and very discouraging. I chose this town because it was the same type of industry-based town I grew up in, but wow, some of the attitude I’ve gotten after trying to reach out on the FB community group! It’s as though there’s an attitude of “we don’t care what your history is or what you think you know about Topic X, we are special in this regard so your experience doesn’t matter.”
My best friend of 35 years lives a 2-hour drive away, not far from where we both grew up, and I’m hoping to move very close to her (within a few miles) sometime in the foreseeable future. I just hope the S doesn’t HTF first!