People Who Moved From Large Cities To Small Towns Are Opening Up About The Culture Shock They Experienced, And It's Giving "We're Not In Kansas Anymore"
When people discuss culture shock, it's usually in the context of an American moving to a foreign country or vice versa; however, there are also moments of culture shock when someone who has lived in a "big" city their entire life moves to a small town. While there are common changes, such as a slower pace of life and fewer options for shopping or dining, there are also surprising differences that no amount of research can prepare a new resident for...
So recently, when Redditor u/MrSocPsych asked, "People who moved from cities to small towns, what was the biggest culture shock?" Current and former small-town transplants were more than happy to share the aspects of rural living that shocked them to their core. Without further ado, here are 16 stories from people who realized living in a small town wasn't for them:
Also, feel free to share your own experience with small-town culture shock using this Google Form!
1."The dating pool is ankle-deep. When a couple breaks up, we all move over one."
"I’m from a small rural town, and my partner is from Baltimore.
He was shocked when I told him how people have to date their friends' exes and that it was no big deal. My sister fooled around with an old boyfriend of mine, my friend ended up with her sister's ex, and two of my sister's friends basically swapped partners.
He thought it was messed up, and I had to tell him there were no other options when you lived there. It was either Billy down the street or Joe up the lane, and your BFF said Billy was the better kisser — so Billy it is."
2."Not being able to get a library card was a strange experience. I had just moved to a small town in Arkansas and thought I'd get a library card — however, they wouldn't issue a card without a letter from someone in town vouching for me."
"I had just moved there and didn't have family or friends nearby, and I worked in a completely different city.
I wrote to the mayor explaining that this was a ridiculous policy given that I'm a resident who pays taxes and should be able to take advantage of a public institution without having another person vouch for me. No dice. To his credit, the mayor at least wrote back, but I still didn't get a library card."
3."My culture shock moment was when I was in a small town in China, and people would either come and ask to take a picture or just straight up start taking pictures of me."
"For context: I’m a 6’2 woman, and I guess they thought I was a model (or a mutant). People think my height is odd where I'm from, but they don’t come up to me and say: 'You’re tall! Can I take a picture?'
Once, when I was at the zoo, a guy stopped taking pictures of animals in the zoo to take pictures of me. Other people thought I was great and started walking over with their kids. I must be on many people's social media and family photos in China."
4."When you enter a restaurant or bar, everyone turns to see who’s come in. At first, it was off-putting, but you later realize they’re looking to see if it's someone they know."
"I've lived in a small town for a while, and I do it now, too — turn to look and see if it’s someone I know. There's usually a good chance that it is.
I’ve also been in situations where a person was talking smack about someone else in town and turned around and saw them standing there. It’s gotten to the point where if you want to just grab a cup of coffee with a good friend to talk about life and personal stuff, you need to whisper or keep it to small talk because if anyone hears anything, it takes about a week and a bad game of 'telephone' before everyone knows your business!
I hate it."
5."For me, it was the accepted level of incompetence. And this wasn't a tiny town; there were over 35K residents."
"Here's my favorite anecdote about it:
At the time, I lived in an apartment. I was up late one night, probably around 3 a.m., and the cable and internet went out. It wasn't a big deal; I just decided to go for a walk; the company always got it sorted eventually.
While on my walk, I saw the cable truck and an employee standing next to it. He had every cable in the town disconnected, so I casually asked how long it would take until the cable was working again. He said: 'Oh, the cable shouldn't be out.' I probed him a bit more and found out he legitimately did not understand that when he disconnected the cable, it stopped working for people.
And he wasn't unique; this happened with everything. Sometimes, the postman would just drop everyone's mail and leave it. We often found our neighbor's mail dumped in our yard. Once, I had to explain to a cop why I stopped when he turned on his lights.
It was wild."
6."I moved to a small town when I was nine years old. I thought the weirdest thing was when all the kids asked what church I went to and whether or not I was saved."
"The next weirdest thing was being told by my fellow nine-year-olds that my parents' chosen denomination of Christianity was wrong and I would be going to hell because of it.
I am now an atheist."
7."I moved from New England to a VERY rural and conservative county in Kentucky. This was September 2019, and things, of course, got weird after that."
"What shocked me was how uptight folks were; this includes the family I was staying with whilst getting situated. The Southern hospitality was refreshing, but I had a hard time trusting people once the mask came off. I felt I had to be careful about sharing my progressive views and couldn't be my true self. During a holiday party at my new job, our marketing manager (who was also a local pastor) was capturing Boomerangs to post on our company's Instagram. I did a very simple, subtle shimmy and was instantly told to tone it down — I felt a part of my soul shrink at that moment.
I was not accustomed to this fake 'niceness,' especially after spending 25 years of my life in New England, where people are blunt, and you know right away where you stand with them. These people cared too much about their public persona and how their peers perceived them. As someone who couldn't care less about the opinions of others, it was a lot of pressure for me.
I moved to the nearest big city after getting another job offer and found my community. I am MUCH happier and able to be my true self. Shimmy and all!"
8."I wouldn’t say I lived in a 'big' city, but I lived and grew up near Chicago (we got all their TV and news channels, but weren’t in what you’d call the suburbs)..."
"When I moved with my wife back to her rural hometown, the first thing I recall was people driving by the house and waving at us.
I kept asking her: ‘Who is that?’ Since she grew up there, I thought she knew them. No one waved or said hello to strangers where I was from — there was just too much hustle and bustle.
Things are more laid back here, but there are also fewer opportunities to be had."
9."I actually grew up rural, lived in the city for a while, then went back to rural. What struck me was how many townies think they have a lot of life experience when they don't. I suppose it's easy to think you've seen things when you've never been anywhere else to compare."
"That sounds like my mother. She 'knows everything' but has rarely been more than 200 miles from the town where she grew up and still lives. She left the country once to go on vacation to the Bahamas, but that’s it. Yet she constantly lectures me that 'she knows how the world works' and gives poor advice about everything.
A recent bit of 'advice' was when she lectured me on being careful while on a trip to Singapore because it’s 'dangerous there with everything happening in China.' She didn't realize Singapore is not Hong Kong, and it’s a completely different, incredibly safe country far from China. But thanks for the pro tip, I guess."
10."I am originally from a small town, moved to a big city, and occasionally go back to see my folks — what shocks me most is the weird amount of acceptance on certain things but blatant judgment for others."
"I have to be careful about my clothes and how much makeup I wear whenever I visit because people stare. No one in town dresses like I do; I draw too much attention, etc.
But it's fine that the creepy guy from church has been randomly touching women in public for months. You'll hear: 'Oh, that’s just how he is; we just ignore it.' I’ve mentioned multiple times that this guy has a problem of some sort, and they refused to accept it: 'No, he’s just an older man,' he very clearly is not. This would never fly where I live now."
11."I moved from a very large city to a town with a population of less than 1,000 people. I was shocked that everyone there knew each other, and most were related. Any news was the talk of the day. If someone had a baby, that baby was the most famous person in the town that day."
"The day I moved in, I had no less than 60 people pull over, introduce themselves, and offer help. I had at least a dozen people bring food to me. Of course, they already knew me by name because my landlord lived in the town and told everyone he rented the place to me.
The day after I moved in, there was a funeral for someone who lived in the town. Every store (all three of them, including the gas station) closed for the day, the bar opened at six o'clock, and everyone in town stopped by.
But it was so damn boring — living in a small town is truly akin to Groundhog Day. Once, an older lady burned a pie and caught her stove on fire. She put it out with a fire extinguisher, so there was no damage, and the oven still worked. But for three days, I was involved in conversations about how 'Mrs. M must have dementia. She's normally a great baker. She won the bake-off a few years back. Her kid needs to leave college and move back home to take care of her, etc.'
The lady was 65 years old and fell asleep. The incident was nothing, but there wasn't anything to do other than drink and gossip."
12."Everyone in town immediately knows if something happens in your family."
"Once, my grandfather fell while watching the local parade, and an ambulance came to check him out. Luckily, it wasn't serious, and my mother was with him, so she texted us immediately to let us know what happened. I guess it looked worse to the other parade-goers than it actually was because everyone somehow thought he had died.
I received condolences from multiple people — even though the ambulance left the parade with my grandparents in it. Grandpa was fine but still dizzy, so the ambulance personnel didn't want him to walk home."
13."The resistance to change was a shock for me. I grew up in a small town but later moved to Tokyo. When I returned to the States, I lived in a small California town for seven years. It completely surprised me that none of the residents wanted the town to grow or have new industries and jobs come in — even though there was a huge problem with unemployment."
"At one point, the former mayor told me that she never wanted the town (which had 8,000 people) to grow to over 10,000 residents and was glad that a big business didn't open up there. It boggled my mind that so many people actively would prefer that there be no jobs because it'd keep the town smaller.
Even with my small-town experience growing up, that was new to me."
14."The difficulty of making friends: People in the city I'm from are typically friendly and open to having new and diverse friends dotted around the place."
"People always chat with strangers in the street; it's the norm. Here, people look at me like I'm unhinged if I talk to them in passing. This is especially hard when you're isolated; chatting with a stranger can be a tiny lifeline toward feeling like you're an actual human being with a connection to the world.
The small-town residents seem to have a very closed attitude towards new friends; they have established friend groups but don't seem very open to new ones.
I don't fit in with women in my age group here for reasons that matter much less in the cities where people don't necessarily want to only have friends who share their life situation (such as being married, having kids, the same type of work, etc.)."
15."We lived in the town of Sonoma, California after living in Boston and San Francisco..."
"What's interesting is that in a small town, everybody goes through school — from kindergarten to senior year — together. The roots run deep. It's a farm community, and they're all nice to us, but we'll always be outsiders.
Another thing I noticed is that when we throw parties, my wife and I are somewhat uninhibited, and we will do things like sing karaoke. On the other hand, they haven't socialized like we have at receptions, sales calls, business trips, etc. At parties, you can see them kind of close off when they have to socialize with people they don't know."
16."I was born and raised in the suburbs of Dallas, TX, but left in 1995 to live in Portland, OR — best decision ever. In 2019, I had to return to Texas for family reasons, but this time in a rural town. I've been back in Oregon since 2023, THANK GOD."
"Nothing could have prepared me for the MAGA yard signs, the MAGA parade trucks, the smug MAGA attitudes about COVID on every local Facebook group — no matter the topic. The same people who told you to 'Have a blessed day' would shame you later for daring to wear a mask at Walmart — which, by the way, is the only store in town.
The urban/rural divide is hard, real, and very soul-crushing. I'll never set foot in that state again."
Did any of these culture shock moments surprise you? Have you ever experienced culture shock when visiting or moving to another area? Let us know in the comments! (Or if you prefer to remain anonymous, you can use this Google Form).
Note: Some responses have been edited for length and/or clarity.
