Small Town

[Cougarwolf]

I was just wondering if anyone else has to deal with the small town rumor mill when trying to date a paramour. Honestly, I have met people over 100 miles away that know some of my family.

Of course, I am not out to my family, for various reasons, so I kinda dread the phone call saying, “So & so told so & so that they saw you out and about with some woman, and it didn’t look like your wife.”

 

[Bobbi]

I moved away from small town mentality. I hated it there. Everyone knew my business and acted as if they were entitled to it and to tell me what they thought about my life.

 

[kdt26417]

Hi Cougarwolf,

I live in Albuquerque, it's by no means a small town. For a while there we lived in Yelm, Washington, which is much more a small town. But we didn't know that many people there, so there wasn't much of a rumor mill to worry about.

If we really wanted to torture ourselves, we could move to Utah, where most of my family and friends live. But we're not going to do that, and the rumor mill is part of the reason.

Regards,
Kevin T.

 

[SquishyHusk]

Yeah,the town I live in is one of those where everyone knows everyone. The first time I took Pumpkin to dinner all of the old ladies were talking about it the next day. It wasn't a problem - we don't keep it a secret that she lives with us - we just don't advertise that there is a relationship. The original reason that Pumpkin moved in was to help with childcare and we just leave it at that. So as far as anyone knows, she's just a friend.

 

[Sunshine79]

I'll see your "small town" and I'll raise you "evangelical south of the mason dixon line" christian town. My state voted for Trump. TWICE.

And, one reason we moved to the city where we now populate the still very safe and very convenient suburbs is because it is small enough for traffic not to be a nightmare, but large enough to have SOME diversity. There's a huge arts community here and my family is moderately involved in the local theater scene, via the most queer friendly theater we have of almost 5 local theaters.

The queer community here is also larger than other southern communities of similar size and every single one of our many gay friends (and single-straight friends) has lamented that this city is IMPOSSIBLE TO DATE in. There are dozens on dozens of very cool bars and breweries and outdoor and indoor cool spaces for music and good food, but very few clubs. It is the most family friendly place ever. And that's kind of why people land here. To raise a family. Queer and straight families, truly.


BUUUUUTTTTT, generally speaking, traditional monogamous families. (I won't go into my actual thoughts on this when it comes to the divorce rate, but I digress.) One of the bigger connections everyone starts with for making friends around here is, in fact, church. Open-mindedness is this adorable buzzword everyone wants to pretend they can handle. And some genuinely try. But even one of my very best girlfriends (who is also very close to my husband) admitted when we came out to her: "This makes me very worried for your marriage."


So - Cougar - you are a man. I will throw this out there: my husband has far less fear of judgement in public than I do, and he's been smart about it but far more open in our town with dating. I tend to leave town for first dates and will only meet people I know and trust if we're going out locally - because I think there is a point at which a deep friendship with the opposite sex (whether or not it also includes sex) is something that can be necessarily explained to anyone who wants to be nosy. But like you, I am not as comfortable in that space with a "new friend." I'm just not.

Not sure if children are also part of your picture - but I've got 4. Two in public high school and 2 in private-religious elementary school (because we value education more than our state is willing to pay for, unfortunately). I've already been confronted once by a parent in our school when someone on a dating app screenshot my profile and sent it to her. She, a stranger at the time, called me *weeping* and asked if she could "walk with me through my darkness" because she was "deeply deeply concerned" about the damage this was revealing and also causing on my marriage and my kids.

You can imagine how I proceed these days in light of that.

 

[Magdlyn]

Sunshine, I know there are some cool(er) cities in the South or Southwest, such as Asheville NC, Nashville TN and Austin TX. But it only takes you so far. I have a good friend I've known forever who ended up down there, in Hendersonville, just outside of Asheville. She's rather alternative, artistic, into gardening, and her hubs is an Elvis superfan/lookalike, but she become a Christian in her 30s, and she's straight and married. So she fits right in. They have a wide selection of older straight friends who enjoy her "kookiness."

Off topic: I'm so lucky to have ended up in Massachusetts. I'm in a smaller nondescript city in Metro West, but of course we have queer/alt enclaves all over, such as Northampton, Cambridge, Salem and Provincetown! Even though our town isn't cool by any means, New Englanders (even transplants) tend to be non-judgmental, or at least they mind their own business. The older ladies on my block assume my (younger) female partner is my daughter, and we let them enjoy their delusion. We have our boyfriends coming and going, and they can make of that what they will. No one says anything, no one hassles us.

(Strangely, though, the only couple that did hassle us was the lesbian couple around the corner who didn't like it when we used to tie our [now passed] dog out in the rain now and then. Our dog loved cool/cold weather, and she had a thick wiry coat of hair, and would beg to go out and check out the scene, then would bark to come back in, and we'd let her in lol They have a precious tiny dog and their own ideas about how to treat dogs. *rolleyes*)

 

[Sunshine79]

The older ladies on my block assume my (younger) female partner is my daughter, and we let them enjoy their delusion.

Asheville is super cool. Austin is one of my favorite places in Texas. (I actually went to Baylor for undergrad, hah!) Savannah is a fun party town. I hear similar things about Charleston, but on a date last night with a musician, I was told that Charleston is something like 70% FEMALE (weird?) and also weirdly judge-y, despite the amount of basic cool city amenities it boasts of (beach, music scene, restaurant situation, etc.).

I think maybe you nailed it though with the "no one hassles us."

I think about this all the time, especially because while I was steeped in church culture, the war on homosexuality and the Christian Nationalist agenda to de-humanize anyone and anything that doesn't look like White American Jesus, it became weirdly clear to me that our sex lives ARE no one else's business, and why should any of us care what our neighbors are doing when naked?

Why?

I don't judge any of the MULTIPLE women who will laughingly and openly admit to "never wanting and basically never having" sex, now that they have kids. (I extend deep regret and encourage them that maybe they might like it if they gave it another shot.) Why is this the culture I've been so consumed with? The "Sex is a chore, but we *should* probably do it once in a while to keep our partners happy...." crowd.

Interestingly, this was my 30s, because, we all had little kids. NORMAL. And fully acceptable. I was also there.

But little kids aren't little forever. And can be left home alone. And can fetch their own gd cups and food. And suddenly, motherhood became A LOT EASIER. And I turned 40, my sex drive returned with a vengeance, AND tons of my friends started getting divorces. All of it revolved around, you guessed it, sex.

If I accomplish nothing else in this life with all 4 of my children, I hope I am providing a safe space in which to be as open as they want, to seek/chase/receive pleasure on multiple levels (not specifically sexually, but that too), and to be comfortable speaking about things I was definitely taught were taboo topics.