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Nostalgic People Who Stayed In Their Childhood Homes Again Reveal What It Was Like

Nostalgic People Who Stayed In Their Childhood Homes Again Reveal What It Was Like

Nostalgic People Who Stayed In Their Childhood Homes Reveal What It Was Like

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When you've lived in a place for a long time, it gets kind of hard to imagine it any other way. For most of us, when we move out of a place, we don't get to go back and see what it's like years later. One Reddit user asked:

Has anyone used AirBnB to stay in a house they used to live in, and how weird was it?

Most hadn't gone the AirBnB route, but tons of people shared their stories of going back to places they used to live. Some went for hookups, plenty of people cried and one person even found a beer they'd hidden years before! Click next to read through some of our favorite stories of people going back to the places they lived before.

Surreal

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Dunno if it counts but i was dating this one girl. First time we go over to her place... It's the exact same apartment i went to to see this other girl 15 years ago. I had even stayed for a couple of months there in the past it was so surreal walking in.

The Epic Party

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I once had an epic day/night of eating, drinking and being merry at various places with various people. There were many highlights of that day, but the relevant part is: around sundown, got a phone call from my sister. She got drunk and was adopted by a friendly group. They invited her back to theirs to keep partying after the main event finished. When she arrived, she realised the house in question was a house I had moved out of a few months earlier. So of course she called to invite me to party at my old house. Who was I to turn down such an invitation?

It ended up being an awesome night. I was stoked to find the new owners had done the very renovations I had planned in my head, only I had been renting so couldn't do them. They were stoked that I taught them the secret to working the fireplace without burning the house down, thus saving them from replacing the fireplace. The new owners were a gay couple, one half of which was a very expensive hairdresser, who gave me a free (drunken) trim and some invaluable hair related advice. Booze was drunk, pizza was ordered, drunken promises of lifelong friendship were made.

My sister and I eventually crashed in their spare room (which had previously been my spare room!) The next morning they made us pancakes. We didn't do numbers though - that night was too perfect, any attempt to continue the relationship would only pale in comparison.

That Place Was Tiny

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We were visiting the Ukrainian village my bro and I grew up in. When we moved, we sold the apartment to some family friends, so when we went back to visit, they let us hang out there.

Damn the place was tiny! I was 10 when we left, and I remember it as "huge" to my childhood mind.

Hidden Beer In The Bathroom

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I hooked up with a girl who lived in an apartment unit I used to. That was cool/weird.

I'd hid a beer in the bathroom fan and found it still there.

Striking Difference

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After my grandma retired, she lived in an expensive vacation place in a cabin for 30 years until she passed away. Like many older folks, she resisted remodeling anything and we really had to pull teeth to get her to even replace the 1970's (orange) shag carpeting in the 00's. So anyway, after she died, my dad and his sibling decided to sell the place because the remodeling would be expensive, and none of the kids/grand kids wanted to maintain the place or live in Vacation Spot.

Fast forward and my cousin is getting married at Vacation Spot and rents Grandma's house for the wedding weekend. The new owner seriously updated the place, and the difference was really striking - it used to be dark woods, small rooms, basic 70s stuff, now the entire top floor had all the walls knocked down so it is one great room with a full wall of sliding glass doors to the massive wraparound deck.

On the other hand, some things had not changed, and it was a trip. The master bedroom patio door still had claw marks from my grandma's dog that died in 2002. The old bedroom where I used to stay when I visited still had the old bedframes. The floor still creaked where there used to be a hallway between the kitchen and living room (now just a weak spot in the open floor plan).

My family agreed, it was nice to visit, but none of us wanted to actually do the work to make it this nice. So, hooray for the new owners! They did a great job with the place.

High School

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My high school building was sold off when they built a new building. The developer that bought it turned it into apartments. When i was in town for a class reunion one of the women I graduated with said she lived in the building so a bunch of us went over there to check it out with her.

The exterior looked mostly the same except for replaced windows and the school name was replaced with the apartment complex name.

The apartments are a few classrooms in a line with the hallway doors removed except for one an apartment.

They took out the bleachers in the gym and put in one of those rubberized tracks aroung the outside edge of the gym.

They left the auditorium intact and actually get local musicians to come play there and will play movies and sporting events in there

The cafeteria is a tiny food court with a Subway and a pizza place.

They redid the weight room and expanded it to have more machines.

The library is laundry room /lounge/business center/management office.

Painting The Room

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I made an online friend and agreed to hang out with and his roommate and help paint a room with them. It turns out he lived in my sister's childhood best friend's house. His roommate had known me since I was about 10.

I had been there to paint that same room the original time.

The Bad Luck House

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I once lived in a house that brought only bad luck to my family. I think it's because my parents used to use an old ouiji board. They both had affairs, got divorced. Sister left home, brother also left; left too. We were all too young really, I was only 16 and homeless.

They sold the house. Not long after, my dad turned mental had to be put into a mental institution and died a few years later of cancer. My brother died, my mom died, my whole family is pretty f^cked up.

I escaped, got married, had 2 kids and tried to move on with my life. I got tooth ache and my wife found me a local dentist. Their office happens to be in that old house. I haven't been back in 40 years and I'm not about to tempt fate and go back now.

I turn down the appointment, had to find another dentist.

Got Busted

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My mom lived next door to her best friend for nearly 18 years before she moved to her college apartment and eventually in with my dad. Mom's parents passed away a few years ago, but her best friends parents still live in that same house. She was over there lately and peeked over the fence out of curiosity. The people who lived there now saw her looking over their fence and she quickly explained herself.

They thought it was so sweet, so they let her walk through and she said it was bizarre. She hasn't lived there in almost 30 years and it has been remodeled 3-4 times since. She said she wouldn't have known it was her house.

The whole thing left her sort of bittersweet.

Half Of My Old Living Room

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I used to live in a very big apartment until I was about fifteen. My parents bought a house in the outskirts of the city, so we moved out and left the place. When I turned 20, I needed a place to rent near to the city and found out the same apartment was divided into 3 smaller apartments and was up for rent. So now I'm living in half of my old living room and my parents bedroom.

It's kind weird, the kitchen is where my old room used to be.

"Boy, Did She Mature Well"

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Story time!

Years ago I got really close to these two girls. We used to do everything together. We would book restaurants and cafes and it was like a mini party every time since there were about 20 of us in this group of friends.

If we were too drunk to drive, we would just crash at someone's place. At some point, I got closer with one of the two girls and I started hanging out more with her but strictly in a friendly capacity. I couldn't see her as anything more.

First it was just crashing on her couch, then i started staying over for coffee and breakfast when i woke up, then for food, then to study and all of a sudden i was kind of staying there. Then she started getting closer and closer until we started sleeping together. Sleeping. Not having sex.

And then she started getting closer and closer until one night she kissed me and tried to turn it into sex. I stopped her saying i didn't want sex to ruin our friendship.

After this happened we drifted apart; I didn't see her for years after. Three or four years ago I saw her at a funeral. Boy did she mature well. She hit the gym hard and everything wrong about her somehow disappeared. She turned into one of those women you see on Snapchat or in the gym and think **"Wow imagine if a woman like this ever came close to me." ** Of course she now had a boyfriend and was travelling the world.

I remember that I had always found it funny that the building her flat was in had her name. Well... Her father, I found out at the funeral, is one of the biggest developers in my country and that building was actually hers as a gift from daddy. Daddy owned another 40-50 buildings in that city and another like 50 in the country.

Fast forward to last year. I have this f^ck buddy and the first time I go to her place, the road seems very familiar but I can't quite figure out why until i see the name of the building.

Out of all the buildings, of course the lived in that one. I call and ask which apartment shes staying in. I go up... And it's the exact same apartment i used to stay in with the girl who owned the building.

Campus Tour

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I lived in a campus house, a BIG campus house. It had four huge bedrooms, two stories, full basement... it was a party house. We are sitting around getting high, drinking and playing guitar hero and we get a knock at the door. I was in the other room, and for some reason my good friends extremely dense brother answers the door (??) while holding a bong (???????).

The knocker was this really amped older guy with like TEN F^CKING KIDS. I think he was giving them a tour of campus, they looked high school age and were all wearing similar colors. He says something along the lines of "Hey! I'm Dan! I used to live here back when I was in college in the 80's! I was hoping I could show these kids what it was like!" and before anyone can stop idiot brother he just blurts out "YA SURE COME ON IN MAN!"

I walked in in the middle of this and didn't have time to stop him, but it ended up being fine aside from a little awkward. This guy (who seemed like a bit of a fuddy duddy at first glance) comes in, doesn't seem to notice any of the drugs or alcohol, the kids shuffle in and stand there awkwardly as he tells them stories like "Oh yeah that's where we set the couch on fire..." and what not. The whole thing was over pretty quickly.

And a house rule was made that no one besides a roommate answers the fucking door.

Naked In Her House

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My ex lived in the house that my family rented when we first moved to the area. The first time she came out to eat with the family, i just haaaaad to mention that we had all been naked in her house. We dated for over a year.

Current Boyfriend

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My current boyfriend lives in the house my childhood best friend lived in. He gave me his address and i knew the street, obviously, but the house number didn't ring any bells. It wasn't until i got outside that I realized he lived in that house. I didn't mention it to him. We had just started seeing each other and I didn't want him to be weirded out. Then I asked to use the bathroom, but didn't ask for where it was just sort of went. When I came back he was confused and asked if I found the bathroom ok. I just went:

"Oh... yeah I used to be in this house a lot as a kid."

Dad Loved Coming To Visit

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This kind of happened to me. I went to the same university as my parents did. They were there in the mid-late 60's while I was there in the early 2000's. I was looking for a place to rent and my dad's old house was listed, so I actually moved in. He LOVED coming to my rental when him and my mom visited because it was still kind of the same set up he knew.

Reduced My Mom To Tears

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My mother grew up on a farm outside of our town. It was a nice place, from her memories, with a lot of land.

I saw a friend who's a realtor now, whose family had bought the place from my grandpa and grandma, listing the property for sale and providing lots of pics and drone footage. The state of the house, which had obviously fallen into severe disrepair over the years since HIS family had left it, reduced my mom to tears.

Heartbreaking

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I toured a house I grew up in. It was a very nice Victorian with beautiful wood features and a grand chandelier. Well they tore all that out, ripped out the secret passage in the back, busted the 10 ft by 7ft window to replace it with cheap Home Depot ones, replaced the grand staircase with a cheapo kit one, and tons of other stuff. Was very heartbreaking.

Experiencing The Remodel

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About 3 years ago, we upgraded out of our apartment. We moved to our home, but maintained ownership of the apartment. So we remodeled the whole thing, and set it up for airBnB.

So about 2 months ago, we decided to try living in the apartment again, just for a week to experience the "new" remodeled apartment...

It felt meh. Kind of nostalgic at first. We quickly remembered all the little nooks and crannies and settled pretty fast. Honestly, we disliked having to be mindful of making noise again. We were glad when we left again.

The Pizza Oven

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A friend of mine moved in to her childhood home about ten years after they left. Her parents had rented the place for 15 years, but the owners were selling it off so they had to move out. Cut to 10 years later. She's now an adult looking for a new place to move into. It showed up on the market for rent. She applied, thinking it would be funny and she got it!

Some renovations had been done and it had been repainted. The pizza oven her dad built was still in the backyard, along with all the graffiti that had been done in the garage over the years they were living there.

Sneaking Was Easy

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I met a girl who lived in my old childhood house, didn't realize why the address was so familiar until I got there. Made sneaking around the house from her parents way easier because I already knew the layout and what parts of the floors make noise????????

H/T: Reddit

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?