I lived in a very small town for the first 18 years of my life, but I now go to a college about an hour from Portland. Coming from a rural area, I often find myself referring to any area outside my hometown as “the real world.” And out in the real world, things are different. Here are some dissimilarities I’ve noticed:
1. When you say, “I’m from a small town,” people imagine somewhere with a population of around 20,000 even though you’re really from a place with only 1,081 people.
2. When you want to cross the street, not only do you have to look both ways before going, you have to cross at a crosswalk, and you have to press a special button that tells you when to go.
3. Traffic lights are a thing.
4. Taxis are a thing. And they're actually yellow.
5. A traffic jam actually involves thousands of cars piled up for miles, and not deer, elk, cattle or any other animals being on the road.
6. As it turns out, not every road with multiple lanes and a median is automatically a freeway. This was a sincere surprise to me.
7. No one knows what a “swather” is, and you certainly won’t come across one while driving.
8. Apparently, not everyone has gone to a demolition derby… or even knows what a demolition derby is.
9. Police officers usually drive cars, not pickup trucks.
10. Overall, cars are actually more common than pickups.
11. Businesses are open past 6 p.m. on Sundays, and, in general, you don’t have to constantly be concerned about closing hours.
12. There are more than five places to eat out. The options are honestly limitless as far as restaurants.
13. Eating out at a franchise isn’t a special occasion. It’s a regular occurrence.
14. Most businesses aren't locally-owned.
15. The next closest town is probably less than an hour away. In fact, it's probably less than 15 minutes away.
16. You have to drive somewhere to get to nature.
17. The nearest mall is closer than the nearest hike-able mountain.
18. If you go to the grocery store, you probably won’t run into anyone you know personally. (True story: one time at a Levi's in an outlet mall 30 miles from campus, I happened to run into a friend, and I still haven't shut up about how much it tripped me out.)
19. It’s not realistic for you to know the first name, last name, and parents’ names of everyone you go to school with.
20. A strong sense of community is lost in a bigger city. People often bad-mouth small towns for the fact that you literally know everyone. But I've learned that "knowing everyone" is actually a pretty comforting, homey experience. You just can't get that sense of close, family-type community within a city.
