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Dads-To-Be Reveal What Happened When The Baby Turned Out Not To Be Theirs

Dads-To-Be Reveal What Happened When The Baby Turned Out Not To Be Theirs
Yoshiyoshi Hirokawa/ GettyImages

Few moments can top the birth of your child. That is, if it is your child. As high as your heart can soar holding that child in your arms for the first time, the depths to which it can sink when you learn that the baby isn't yours can only be written of in Greek tragedies...so let's look at some!


Reddit user, u/MurkMunny, wanted to hear to know if it was a boy or a girl when they asked:

To any redditor who's wife/SO had a baby that clearly wasn't yours, what's your story?

Huh...There We Go

My dad is half Japanese. Bit strange since both my grandparents are white russians

Edit: I should add that I was born after my mom and dad broke up. So my grandmother came to visit me in the hospital, but then went back and told my dad that I couldn't possibly be his because I was black.

I'm so white I glow in the dark.

LilithImmaculate

A Mix Of Feelings

Was in a long-distance relationship with a girl in college. After going two months without a period, she took a pregnancy test which turned up positive. After informing me, I had to keep myself from panicking (I hate kids, and didn't work during college to avoid burning out). While she refused an abortion, she agreed to adopt out the baby when it was born.

A week goes by and I get a massive wall of text from her in Skype that basically boils down to "I'm leaving you, the kid is not yours as my ex and I had a ton of unprotected sex, and the doctor confirmed that the date of conception isn't when you and I were together. I'm not sure why you didn't realize this already, but I'm sorry for everything."

It's a weird mix of feelings to both go "yay I'm not a dad" and "OMG, the girl I intended on marrying is pregnant with her ex's kid".

TheMohawkNinja

Bad Family

I have a cousin that cheated on her husband while she was abroad, she has the kid and her husband divorces her after he found out the kid is not his and that she was staying with the father of the child.

Couple of years later, when I was visiting her parents, I asked what happened and they told me the baby-daddy wasn't some big shot business owner but a junkie that has to look for new jobs because he is always fired. The now ex-husband was the one that paid for her and the kid's airplane ticke and the kid's immigration papers. She now lives somewhere else, where hardly anyone knows her while the kid is looked after by his grandparents.

To clarify, the woman f-cked off somewhere because of the shame and her kid is with her parents because they believe she can't raise a child well, the kid is doing well. The ex-husband still talks to them and is cordial but he is more of a big brother figure to the kid.

illogicalfuturity

A Long Process Just To Hear "No"

I am now in my 50s. Back in my 20s, I was really desperate and dated a woman who was about 12 years older. About 9 months into our relationship, I go away to another state for a weekend trip. Come back and found out that she had given birth to a child.

I was perplexed because she didn't seem pregnant and no one around us knew she was pregnant. She even said that she didn't know that she was pregnant. I'm black, the woman was white and the kid was powder white. But, I do have white in my family. I didn't believe the kid was mine because, 1) I would have had to impregnate her in the first month (possible, but I don't remember ejaculating) , 2) she looks nothing like me and 3) she's too light to have my genes.

My mom convinces me that this has to be my kid because the woman says it is and that I have a mixed background. I want to believe it because not believing it means some other guy is the dad. But, my rational side says there is no way she's mine.

So, we move in and eventually get married. The relationship doesn't last and we separate. I decide that I have to find out the truth, even though I know it. I get some money together and get a DNA test. Sure enough, I'm 99% excluded.

I show the results to the mother and she says I'm wrong and the test is wrong and that I just don't want to be a dad. I tell her that I do, but I'm done paying child support. However, I give her the option to pay for another DNA test or go through the courts. She declined.

Stuntedatpuberty

No Matter What

I always wanted to be a dad. I was SO excited and happy when my girlfriend told me she was pregnant. I fell in love the instant she held my thumb the day she was born. Fast forward two years and two months when I found my daughter wasn't mine. I was crushed and beat to the ground but I got back up. I left her mom but have never for a second thought about leaving her, she turns four this summer and she is my world, she's my daughter no matter what a test tells me. I love her more than I've ever loved anything.

dirtdee

Like A Living Sitcom

I have a friend from Sudan. Hooked up with a white girl at a college party. Just a one night stand, until 9+ months later she tracked him down for a paternity test.

She was living with her white boyfriend and his parents. They threw her a shower, built a nursery, were at the delivery..... and in true sitcom-esque* fashion she didn't give any indication it wasn't his until her little fro popped out of her.

My Sudanese friend and his current wife have primary custody of the lovely 10 yr old girl and one of their own. Birth mom continues to make poor choices.

Dystopianpresent

Strange, Must Be True

Both my parents are brown with black hair and brown eyes. I came out white with blonde hair and blue eyes. My dad didn't believe I was his.

My brother was born white with blonde hair and blue eyes. We look like our dad so there no denying we aren't his.

HakixJack

Look Into The Eyes

So I'm mixed black and white, and my ex is black as night. Our oldest had blue eyes at birth and blond hair, pale as hell.

There were several occasions where her mom as asked if she was the babysitter.

Or the one time when all of us were walking downtown, our daughter 2 at time, with curly white-blond hair, and some guy we pass by says "I can't believe they dyed that baby's hair" quickly followed by the woman with him saying "that's natural you idiot" to him....

her eyes eventually turned green at 9 or so...

evilcj925

Double Check Your Calendar

Not me but my husband. He lost his virginity then 2 weeks later the girl claimed she was pregnant with his child. After measuring the fetus, the doctor changed her original due date to a month earlier. Which means her conception date was a month earlier. She still swore she hadn't been with anyone else for months before him and him being in love and naive, he actually believed her. They even named the baby after him.

As a newborn he could pass for his kid, and I honestly thought the kid was his back then (we had a mutual friend). We started dating when the kid was 2.5 years old. Looked absolutely nothing like him. Her friends started telling him things, that she would ask them if her son looked like different guys she had been with, and that she had been cheating on him.

So at 3 years old he finally bought a DNA test kit and found out the obvious truth. He was DEVASTATED to say the least. Ugly crying, depressed, etc. He continued to take care of him but stopped paying child support. Kid is 10 years old now and we still have him every weekend.

m0mmyneedsabeer

Best Friend Betrayal

Years ago, when I was in high school, my gf told me she was pregnant, even though we hadn't had sex in several months. We already had a 2 year old daughter by then, and things were just not going well between us...Fast forward approximately 9 months, to the time she was ready to deliver the baby. We had broken up by then, and moved into different homes. I drove her to the hospital because no one else was able to help her...

Later that day, she calls me and asks when I'm going to "see my son." I drop by the hospital that evening after work, and there's a little baby boy with the unmistakable, very distinct facial features of my best friend/roommate.

Of course he denied all of it. We weren't really friends after that. This little boy was my responsibility until the court-ordered DNA test were done a year later, which proved I was not the father. My old best friend/the father of the little boy wasn't around and didn't help out. So I raised his son, along with my daughter, as my own child.

YepThatLooksInfected

No Matter What, You're Mine

Had a very on-and-off relationship. Child was born during an off period, about fourteen months after the last time GF and I had sex, so clearly not mine. But kid was beautiful and sweet, and bio-father disappeared after about a year, so she became mine.

She just graduated from college, lives with me, and we haven't talked to her mother in almost ten years. "How to become a single parent the weird way."

LowerSeaworthiness

Even The Grandparents Are Getting In On The Action

My grandmother is the result of an Irish boarder staying with my great grandmother during the war. Great-grandad went off to war in 1939 and came back in 1945 to two extra kids.

I'm not sure what happened after that tbh.

Damn_Captcha

A Guilty Conscious Weighs On You

I was 21 and just had my second kid with my high school "sweetheart". We had our first Daughter right out of high school at 18. After our second daughter was born my girlfriend began showing signs of severe depression and had to be sent for observation to a psych ward. After the second day there she said there was something weighing on her she had to tell me.

She said that there was a high possibility that our first daughter wasn't mine and that she had been seeing someone else at the time of conception. I was floored to say the least and it greatly affected our relationship eventually ending it 5 years later. We/I just couldn't seem to get past it. The most messed up part about it is that my daughter is now 16 and her mother told her that she was raped and impregnated that way...I mean really WTF?

Guitardadmandm

All It Takes Is A Little Convincing

My first wife conceived her third child while I left her for a period of time i knew from the start that this boy was NOT mine. When he was only 1 year old and my boy was 4 yrs old and my girl was 5, I divorced her. She was never a good mother or wife so I ended up taking all 3 children and raising them myself as a single dad.

I knew for sure they were better off with me. She had nothing to do with them from that time on. Being that I was only 16 when I married her and I was getting married as a way of running away from home, I never considered what kind of wife or mother she would be. I just needed to get away from a very abusive father at that time.

Mathews176

The Ol' Switcheroo

My cousin went through IVF treatment. The lab got her husband and another men junk mixed up but by the time it was found out she was 18 weeks pregnant

Both cousin and husband are white German my beautiful nephew is a pretty coffee colour.

Got enough money to pay for he's education right up to uni.

toniqu19

Can't Trust The Help

My ex-wife and I had been married for 6 years and we finally decided it was time to have a second baby.

I work as a VP of sales for a popular restaurant chain, and travel extensively as part of my job.

After trying for a few months, when I was home from traveling, she finally got pregnant. Things were going great and our male Nigerian nanny who helped out with my young daughter and my wife with chores around the house when I was traveling for work was doing an amazing job.

When the baby was born, it was immediately clear it was not mine. My wife and I are both white, and the baby was very dark.

I walked out of the delivery room shocked, left the hospital, drove aimlessly for a while chain smoking cigarettes, and finally checked into a hotel off the highway when it started getting dark out.

Turns out my Nigerian nanny knocked up my wife while I was away traveling for work, and they had been sleeping together for years.

We sold the house and got a divorce soon after, and share custody of our daughter.

She got re-married to the nanny and they just bought a home together a few towns away.

I live in an apartment near our daughter's school, and started dating again recently.

TotallyMadeUpStory

Old Wives' Tales People Still Believe For Some Reason

"Reddit user the_spring_goddess asked: 'What is an old wives tale that people still believe?'"

Close up of an owl tilting their head to side, looking bewildered
Photo by Josh Mills

The old wives' tales.

They are the stories of legend.

I think we all need a big DEEP Google dive though.

Where did they originate?

WHO ARE THE OLD WIVES!

You don't hear about them as much anymore.

It's like science and logic are suddenly a thing.

But they sure are a good way to keep your kids and their behavior in line.

Redditor the_spring_goddess wanted to discuss the tall tales we've all been fed through life, so they asked:

"What is an old wives tale that people still believe?"

"Wait an hour to swim after eating."

What a crock!

So many summer hours wasted.

I want revenge for that one.

Say Nothing

Giphy

"An undercover cop has to tell you he's a cop if you ask him."

LonelyMail5115

"Pretty much most advice when it comes to cops are old wives tales. I’m not even a cop but most of the advice you hear is pretty off."

I_AM_AN_A**HOLE_AMA

Say Something

"That you have to wait 24 hours to report someone missing."

Severe_Airport1426

"I really think this one is important and should be the top regardless. As it’s a piece of advice that needs to be relearned and the only way to do that is through awareness."

crappycurtains

"This used to be true. I think they changed it after some guy named Brandon went missing back in the '80s or '70s. You used to have to wait 24 hours if the missing person was an adult because they had 'a right to be missing' and then everyone realized that was stupid and stopped doing it."

AlbinoShavedGorilla

Body Temps

"That drinking ice cold water after eating oily foods will solidify the oil and permanently remain in your body. I informed my coworker that if your body temperature ever reached that point, you’d have bigger problems than weight gain."

chriseo22

"Oh, I have a cousin who 100% believed this. One of those guys who believed every early 2000s internet rumor and old wives tale. One night I chugged a big glass of ice water after dinner and he started freaking out and saying my guts were gonna harden."

"I sarcastically told him to drive me to the hospital if that happened. Obviously, nothing happened and the next morning I said something like 'Thanks for being on standby in case my guts filled with hardened oil.' He just walked off muttering under his breath."

apocalypticradish

Arms Down

"When I was pregnant, I was told by young and old alike that I should NOT raise my arms above my head or exert myself in such a manner because it could cause cord strangulation to my unborn sons and daughters."

Fatmouse84

10 Years Actually

Unimpressed Uh Huh GIF by Brooklyn Nine-Nine Giphy

"Chewing gum stays in your stomach for 7 years."

REDDIT

"I remember accidentally swallowing a piece of gum when I was a kid in like 1995 and just accepting my fate like welp, gonna have this in my stomach til high school I guess."

Gecko-911

I was so afraid to sallow my gum when I was young.

This tale is haunting.

High/Low

Hungry Debra Messing GIF by Will & Grace Giphy

"You can tell the sex of the baby by how you carry."

LeastFormal9366

"Pregnancy certainly wins awards for the most old wives tales. So much absolute BS was repeated to us by everyone we talked to."

IllIIIlIllIlIIlIllI

The Cursed

"If you’re a woman and you wear opal jewelry but opal is not your birthstone (October), you’ll never be able to have children, or will be widowed, or just generally have bad luck or something. You can counteract this by having a diamond in the same piece of jewelry as the opal, though."

"I have a nice opal ring that my parents gave me years ago, and I’ve had other women give me this 'advice' unprompted more than once when I’ve worn it. I have absolutely no idea where it started, but I’m pretty sure this little chunk of silicate rock has no concept of what month I was born in, let alone of how my reproductive organs work."

SmoreOfBabylon

Stay In

"Going outside with wet hair will make you get pneumonia. Or an earache. Or maybe arthritis. Depends on which old wife you listen to."

"Jokes on them - I haven't blow-dried my hair in decades and usually leave the house with wet hair in the morning. On winter mornings, the tips of my hair get frozen. No ear infections or pneumonia or arthritis yet."

worldbound0514

Dreams and Facts

"You never make anyone up in your dreams you've seen everyone in your dreams somewhere else before and never make anyone up entirely."

"How would you possibly prove that to be true? My partner adamantly believes this and tells me this 'fact' whenever I have a dream about someone I've never met before."

mattshonestreddit

"My late wife used to tell me that before she met me she would have dreams of standing at an alter on her wedding day but could never see the guy's face, no matter how hard she tried. After meeting me the face was filled in with mine. Don't know if it's true but one of those things I like thinking of every now and then when I miss her."

Darthdemented

Cracked

Getting Ready Episode 2 GIF by The Office Giphy

"Some people still believe cracking knuckles causes arthritis."

Choice-Grapefruit-44

"There's a doctor (Donald Unger) that cracked his knuckles a couple of times a day for 60 years, but only on one hand, just to prove it. Both hands remained exactly the same."

MacyTmcterry

I love my knuckles.

Do you have any tall tales to add to the list? Let us know in the comments below.

lottery tickets
Erik Mclean on Unsplash

A lot of workers daydream about some day winning the lottery and being able to say goodbye to their job.

Far too many workers are unhappy with their job duties, workplace dynamics or company culture.

But with a taste for luxuries like housing and food, they keep plugging away, year after year.

However not everyone feels that way about their job.

So what are these compelling careers?

Keep reading... Show less
Therapist talking during session
Photo by Mark Williams on Unsplash

Some people stand firmly stand behind their beliefs that everyone would benefit from therapy and that therapy is life-changing.

It's because of the totally life-changing truth bombs their therapist had dropped during their sessions.

Curious, Redditor anonymiss0018 asked:

"What is a little bombshell your therapist dropped in one of your sessions that completely changed your outlook?"

Communication Issues

"'If you don’t have these problems with any other person in your life, why do you think you’re the problematic person in this one?'"

- maggiebear

"I love this. I have a 'friend' who I always seem to run into misunderstandings with. Every time we had a conversation, it somehow turned into a debate even if it was me talking about my day. The conversations were never easy."

"I always evaluate myself first and take into consideration his critiques. He was very good at convincing me that I was contradicting myself or wasn't good at communicating my thoughts."

"I NEVER had this issue with ANYONE else in my life. I kept trying to figure out where the miscommunication was coming from. In the end, I just minimized contact and now I don't run into this issue."

- chobani_yo

"I read this quote somewhere once (and probably have it a bit wrong): 'It's a waste of time arguing with someone who is determined to misunderstand you.'"

- Reddit

Emotional Regulation

"'You can’t control your emotions, but you can control what you do with them.'"

"At the time, I was a young adult who had learned zero healthy emotional regulation skills (only suppression and shaming) growing up, so this blew my mind."

- lil_mermaid

Tough Relationships

"'It sounds to me like you are trying to convince yourself to stay with your girlfriend. I'm not so sure it should be so difficult.'"

"At the time he said this, I remember it was like he said, 'The earth is flat.' I thought he was crazy when he suggested relationships don't need to be difficult. But eventually, I started to realize I was trying to change myself to stay with this person rather than just being who I am."

"It took me three more months to finally break up with her but from that day on, I vowed to never again abandon myself just to be with someone I had convinced myself was better than me."

- metric88

High-Stress Situation

"I was at a high-stress time, and I asked her how people live like this."

"She replied, 'Oftentimes they have cardiac events.' She said it as an urging to care for myself as much as possible."

- KittenGr8r

The End of Alcohol

"I was struggling with my alcoholism, and we were discussing how I had been cutting back."

"She asked what I would consider success, with regard to my drinking."

"I said I wanted to get to a point where it wasn't interfering with my daily life. I wanted to just be able to have a glass of wine at holiday dinners or family gatherings."

"She simply asked me why. Why was it important for me to drink at those times?"

"It was as if she'd turned on a light. Alcohol had always been a key ingredient in every family function, for my entire life. When I smell bourbon, I think of my uncle. When I smell vermouth, I think of my dad. Alcohol ran through almost every happy childhood memory."

"But, even more than that, I was very afraid of the explanation I'd have to give when family and friends asked why I wasn't having a drink. I had tried to quit before but failed. What if I admitted my problem, only to fall off the wagon?"

"When she asked why I didn't want to completely quit, it was the first time I saw that last part of the big picture. I'd be willing to drink myself to death in order to avoid being scrutinized, or judged for possible future failures."

"That was the day I quit. I've been sober since May 6th, 2017. 2,407 days."

- sophies_wish

Acceptance vs. Enjoyment

"'Accepting something doesn’t mean you have to like it.'"

"That took away a lot of my inner conflicts about situations because I could accept a situation without expending energy internally fighting against the injustice of it."

- alibelloc

Emotionally Immature Parents

"You are not responsible for your parents' emotional wellbeing. They are independent adults who have been on this earth for many more years than you."

- SmokedPears

Not So Lazy

"'Why do you think you're lazy?' Then she listed off all the things she knows I'm doing for my family, my job, and my life."

"It kind of blew my mind when I struggled to come up with an example."

"She also described family dysfunction as water. Some families are messed up in a way that everyone can see the huge waves across the surface. Others are better at hiding it, but there's still a riptide that you can't see unless you're also in the water."

"It made me realize that trying to keep the surface from ever rippling doesn't erase what is happening underneath."

- flybyknight665

The Harm in People-Pleasing

"'Why do you make people more comfortable when you are uncomfortable?' when talking about people pleasing and fawning."

- ERsandwich

Agree to Disagree

"'Stop trying to get everyone to agree. When you need everyone to agree, the least agreeable person has all the power.'"

This really changed my outlook on planning family events."

- freef

Grieve and Start Anew

"For context, I had a major TBI (traumatic brain injury), seizures, strokes, and all around not a fun brain time when I was 28."

"They said, 'You have to grieve the loss of yourself.'"

"Most people wanted me to go back to how I was. The f**ked up truth is that part of my brain is dead. The person everyone (including myself) knew died. I needed to grieve the loss of myself."

- squeaktoy_la

Multifaceted Identity

"They told me that my job and career is just a way to make money; it's not my life or identity. That took a lot of pressure off me."

- unfairpegasus

Breaking the Cycle

"They validated me."

"'You always talk about not wanting to do to your daughters what your mom did to you. You worry about it so much in every interaction you have ever had with them."

"But your children are 19 and 21 now. They are happy and healthy and they trust you because you’ve never abused them in any way. So I just want to validate for you that you really have broken that cycle of violence."

"You did that. And you should be proud of it. I’m proud of you for it.'"

- puppsmcgee74

The Grieving Process

"I was constantly bringing up how I felt like a completely different person after my mom died... like there was a marked difference between before and after her death."

"But once, she was asking about my hobbies, I got really into describing all the things I loved to do or at least used to do before I got into a deep depression."

"She was like, 'Wow, you seem very passionate.'"

"And I just sat there like, 'Well, I mean, I can't change what I like to do, they're still fun to do.'"

"And it's like she knew when to take a step back, because it was like, wow, I may be super depressed about my mom passing, but I'm still me. I'm still my passions and those don't go away."

"I don't know, maybe it only makes sense to be, but it really started getting me back on track."

- Hannibal680

Sharing the Load

"I've never really had friends. I've had colleagues and classmates and housemates and people who have hung out with me, but I never really felt close to any of them."

"And I did that thing you see on here sometimes; I stopped reaching out to see if I would be reached out to, and I wasn't, which I took as confirmation that they didn't really want me around, or at the very least, that they wouldn't mind my absence."

"I was talking to my therapist about people I'd been close to in college, and she told me to pick one and talk about him. So I did. After I shared some basic stuff like his name and his major etc., and a couple of anecdotes, she asked me what else I knew about him."

"And I couldn't answer. It wasn't really a broadly applicable bombshell, but she said, 'What else?' and I started crying because I realized that for as simple as the question was, my inability to answer spoke volumes."

"I've never had good friends because I've never been a good friend. I'm withdrawn and reserved and I always made others do the work to drag me out, without ever extending my own friendship in a meaningful way in return. If I wanted to have meaningful relationships with other people, I would have to build them."

"I'm still working on this, but I'm trying to make more offers and extend more friendliness to others in my daily life."

- Backupusername

The discoveries in this thread were incredibly touching and profound; it's no wonder these were lasting concepts for these Redditors.

It's important to keep ourselves open to inspiration and insights from others, as we have no idea how their experiences could help us, or how we could help them.

Aerial view of a church in a small town
Sander Weeteling/Unsplash

There's something comforting about living in a small town.

It's characterized by close communities where neighbors know each other by name and there is an abundance of kindness extended to others.

Gift-giving is a commonality, as is the sharing of recipes, and people going out of their way to help each other in a time of need.

The pace of living in small towns is also a striking contradiction to city life, where crowds of people go about their busy lives without much interaction.

Curious to hear more examples of what small town living is like, Redditor official_biz asked:

"What's the most 'small town' thing you've witnessed?"

These are positive examples of a tight-knit community.

Live Updates

"We have a village Facebook page. Every time the ice cream man drives into the village, the entire page goes ballistic. People send live updates of where the van is and which direction he's heading. The ice cream man has started accepting DMs so he knows which streets to go down."

– PyrrhuraMolinae

Brush With The Law

"I’m from a town of less than 2,000 people. When I worked at the grocery store there people would often drop off stuff for my family members because they didn’t want to drive all the way down to our house. I no longer live there but recently got a call from my daughter. She had been stopped for speeding and handed over her license and insurance which happens to be in my mother’s name. The officer goes 'Hey, you’re Donnie’s granddaughter! I ain’t gonna write you a ticket but I’m telling Donnie when I see him tomorrow cause we’re going fishing.' She replied 'I think I’d rather have the ticket.'”

- Reddit

Roadside Catchup

"The traffic on the 'main street' of my town is so sparse, two drivers going opposite directions can stop and talk to each other for a few minutes without causing any problem."

– anon

When things go wrong, people take notice without incident.

Bank Robbery

"A guy robbed a bank and everyone knew immediately who he was and the teller got mad at him."

– AlexRyang

"A local bank was robbed and one of the tellers told the police to bring her a yearbook from about ten years earlier and she would be able to point the robber out. He had been in the grade before hers in school."

– Strict_Condition_632

Wise Woman

"When I worked at the bank in town there was an older lady that had worked there through 5 mergers."

"She knew everyone, there was a young guy yelling at me one day. She walked out of the back and he immediately quieted. She went off about telling his grandmother that he was treating young women like sh*t. She also said that if he didn’t straighten up not one girl in town would ever marry him she would make sure of it."

– ilurvekittens

Intoxicated Local

"Town drunk was paralyzed and used a motorized wheelchair to get around. I was driving home one Saturday night and said town drunk was passed out in his wheelchair doing circles almost directly in the town square. Had to call his brother who came and picked him up on a rollback truck. Strapped him down and drove off into the cold dark night."

– DoodooExplosion

Grazing Over To The Bar

"In my former small town, there was an older guy who'd lost his license after getting a few DUIs. Every day, he would ride his John Deere lawnmower to the corner bar around 3PM and sit around watching TV and sipping his beer well into the night. Then he'd head the couple miles back home on his mower. He even had a little canvass shell he put on when it rained or got too cold."

– brown_pleated_slacks

It's not surprising how small town people behave differently than those who are from metropolitan areas.

Welcoming Committee

"I lived in a small town. When I moved there, people would ask, 'Whose house did you buy?'"

–MoonieNine

"Move to a small town. 30 years later, you are still the new guy."

– impiousdrifter

"I lived in a small town for most of my childhood but I wasn't "from there" because my grandparents weren't from there."

– raisinghellwithtrees

"Worked with an older guy, relative of the owner of the business, he was 73. I asked him if he was a local, he said 'no his parents moved here when he was two.'"

– realneil

A Busy Day

"Lived in a town of about 5,000: A woman walked into the DMV on a Friday, saw that there were 3 people ahead of her and left to come back another time when they weren't so busy."

– KenmoreToast

Who Let The Dogs Out?

"My dogs got out while i was working. the police called my niece's elementary school (she was a 5th grader) to get her to round them up and take them back home."

– mediocrelpn

"There was a small kennel behind the police station for runaways. They called us saying they had our dog, and moments later our dog showed up home. He broke out of jail."

– Worried_Place_917

While life in a small town sounds appealing, I don't know if I can ever live in one.

I'm so used to life in big cities, I think it would be quite unnerving to adjust in a neighborhood where everyone literally knows your business.

I would be paranoid.

And I'm sure the same could be said of life in the big city.

Would you consider making the switch to life in a different setting?