I tried the move to a small town thing. I had a good job making close to $150k and bought a 3 bedroom /w attached garage house for $250k. Really nice yard.
I moved within 1.5 years because it was impossible to make friends or meet people. No one went out. Everyone knew everyone already. All the smartest people from the town moved to the big city for university when they graduated high school then never came back. Everyone else was already married or was a single mother. I got the sense I wasn't welcome and was distrusted. A couple people told me something to the effect of: "what's wrong with you moving here?" because in their mind, anyone of quality wouldn't be stuck in their town. I ended up in 3 bar fights within a year just because the locals didn't like me because I stuck out like a well-to-do city guy and they were all depressed that they were too stupid to get out of their shit town and were stuck there for life.
Most young people are in bigger centers with high costs of living because these areas are superior, that's why the cost of living is so high there (generally).
Yeah I can't argue, it's an uphill climb. I live in one but I'm an hour from the city and I keep to myself. People around know me but that's about it. I'm also not young and trying to build a life. That would be difficult. I don't stick out that much either, but I've got enough country credentials from the past to shut any of that up.
I do think there's still some places (like the aforementioned OKC) that could work, but they are few and far between.
I've very much taken the approach that was perhaps different from my past mindset is to get to the family building stuff early and young. The ones you want aren't waiting around and by the time you're 30 in the big city women have gone from "mother of your children" to "getting some pussy". Maybe I'm right or wrong on that, hell I don't know. I've long since moved on.
I'm going to be single the rest of my life. I think the truth of that is that is if you haven't found someone by 25yo (on average), it's game over. It's worse in smaller areas though. If you didn't go to high school there, you basically have 0 shot. Any woman who'd make a pass on you as a newcomer has a reason for being single and it won't be a good one. But the fact of the matter is there hardly are any to begin with.
The thing is, I, like most guys, still enjoy the idea of fucking girls from time to time without traveling to Thailand or Columbia and you have a much higher chance of that in the bigger cities. Some guys don't care and perhaps the life of solitude in the smaller, cheaper areas suits them but it's definitely not for everyone and hardly a solution for many.
Give every man a 100 pound, hot, obedient, 20yo sex goddess who'll follow them around anywhere they move to and you'd probably find a lot more people trying the cheaper areas to live but they're very boring and depressing to most people because of how solitary of a lifestyle they are. There's no "hope" in these areas. You exist to go to work, pay your taxes and never get anything you want out of life. That's what you're admitting to yourself when you go there. Might as well commit suicide (for some) at that point.
Yeah I'm definitely the latter life of solitude category. I've always been that way though, but it's set in a lot more in the 40s. Just a personality trait. I'm hardly a hermit though, I have friends, family, business acquaintances, etc. Just not a woman.
I don't know how I'd do as an outgoing social person in such a place and I struggle to relate to that at times anyway. It's very much a hindsight is 20/20 thing but all my advice to the younger people I know is figure it out early. That's counter to what almost everyone else tells them with the whole figure your life out and go to college and shit before you even think about it, but I've never been one to go with the popular train of thought anyway.
I don't remember "you have tons of time, don't worry about it" ever being a thing that was truly told to young people for very long. I doubt young people even think like this. Most young people I talk to are upset they don't have everything now and feel life is race they're losing and it was like that when I was young too. That's probably where the "whoa, slow down" idea originated from because in some sense, some young people were putting too much pressure on themselves.
The problem in today's world is you can't just snap your fingers and have everything figured out. Some people simply will never get what they want in life no matter how "figured out" they have got things because a lot of the problems facing people today are, especially young people, are systemic.
A guy might have his whole life figured out at 18 years old. He's going to go to college, meet a woman, have kids, get a good job, buy a house, settle down, live happily ever after. Then he starts his journey and absolutely nothing goes as planned despite his effort. University didn't let him into the program because he get knocked for a diversity spot. Every woman he met just wanted to sleep around and didn't want kids. The only women that wanted what he wanted were fat and ugly so he passed. Before long he's got 50 different women under his belt, he's in a completely different career path and he can't advance his career either because H1Bs are taking over the industry. Before he knows it he's in his 30s, single, no house, no great career and has moved around 5 different times to different cities hoping for greener pastures but can't find it. You can tell young people to "figure it out early" as much as you want but some problems can't be solved even if you've figured things out because of the nature of our society.
I tried the move to a small town thing. I had a good job making close to $150k and bought a 3 bedroom /w attached garage house for $250k. Really nice yard.
I moved within 1.5 years because it was impossible to make friends or meet people. No one went out. Everyone knew everyone already. All the smartest people from the town moved to the big city for university when they graduated high school then never came back. Everyone else was already married or was a single mother. I got the sense I wasn't welcome and was distrusted. A couple people told me something to the effect of: "what's wrong with you moving here?" because in their mind, anyone of quality wouldn't be stuck in their town. I ended up in 3 bar fights within a year just because the locals didn't like me because I stuck out like a well-to-do city guy and they were all depressed that they were too stupid to get out of their shit town and were stuck there for life.
Most young people are in bigger centers with high costs of living because these areas are superior, that's why the cost of living is so high there (generally).
Yeah I can't argue, it's an uphill climb. I live in one but I'm an hour from the city and I keep to myself. People around know me but that's about it. I'm also not young and trying to build a life. That would be difficult. I don't stick out that much either, but I've got enough country credentials from the past to shut any of that up.
I do think there's still some places (like the aforementioned OKC) that could work, but they are few and far between.
I've very much taken the approach that was perhaps different from my past mindset is to get to the family building stuff early and young. The ones you want aren't waiting around and by the time you're 30 in the big city women have gone from "mother of your children" to "getting some pussy". Maybe I'm right or wrong on that, hell I don't know. I've long since moved on.
I'm going to be single the rest of my life. I think the truth of that is that is if you haven't found someone by 25yo (on average), it's game over. It's worse in smaller areas though. If you didn't go to high school there, you basically have 0 shot. Any woman who'd make a pass on you as a newcomer has a reason for being single and it won't be a good one. But the fact of the matter is there hardly are any to begin with.
The thing is, I, like most guys, still enjoy the idea of fucking girls from time to time without traveling to Thailand or Columbia and you have a much higher chance of that in the bigger cities. Some guys don't care and perhaps the life of solitude in the smaller, cheaper areas suits them but it's definitely not for everyone and hardly a solution for many.
Give every man a 100 pound, hot, obedient, 20yo sex goddess who'll follow them around anywhere they move to and you'd probably find a lot more people trying the cheaper areas to live but they're very boring and depressing to most people because of how solitary of a lifestyle they are. There's no "hope" in these areas. You exist to go to work, pay your taxes and never get anything you want out of life. That's what you're admitting to yourself when you go there. Might as well commit suicide (for some) at that point.
Yeah I'm definitely the latter life of solitude category. I've always been that way though, but it's set in a lot more in the 40s. Just a personality trait. I'm hardly a hermit though, I have friends, family, business acquaintances, etc. Just not a woman.
I don't know how I'd do as an outgoing social person in such a place and I struggle to relate to that at times anyway. It's very much a hindsight is 20/20 thing but all my advice to the younger people I know is figure it out early. That's counter to what almost everyone else tells them with the whole figure your life out and go to college and shit before you even think about it, but I've never been one to go with the popular train of thought anyway.
I don't remember "you have tons of time, don't worry about it" ever being a thing that was truly told to young people for very long. I doubt young people even think like this. Most young people I talk to are upset they don't have everything now and feel life is race they're losing and it was like that when I was young too. That's probably where the "whoa, slow down" idea originated from because in some sense, some young people were putting too much pressure on themselves.
The problem in today's world is you can't just snap your fingers and have everything figured out. Some people simply will never get what they want in life no matter how "figured out" they have got things because a lot of the problems facing people today are, especially young people, are systemic.
A guy might have his whole life figured out at 18 years old. He's going to go to college, meet a woman, have kids, get a good job, buy a house, settle down, live happily ever after. Then he starts his journey and absolutely nothing goes as planned despite his effort. University didn't let him into the program because he get knocked for a diversity spot. Every woman he met just wanted to sleep around and didn't want kids. The only women that wanted what he wanted were fat and ugly so he passed. Before long he's got 50 different women under his belt, he's in a completely different career path and he can't advance his career either because H1Bs are taking over the industry. Before he knows it he's in his 30s, single, no house, no great career and has moved around 5 different times to different cities hoping for greener pastures but can't find it. You can tell young people to "figure it out early" as much as you want but some problems can't be solved even if you've figured things out because of the nature of our society.