About four years ago, I moved from London to a small town in the Scottish Highlands. Going from a diverse metropolis of nearly 10 million people to a town of just under 10,000 was certainly jarring.
I’m surrounded by beautiful nature — even my small town has its own loch, forest, and babbling burn. There’s a picturesque pub by the water and a whisky distillery.
I live 5 miles from a sandy beach backed by a pine forest. It smells like heaven, looks like Tuscany, and feels like a freezer with air conditioning. The Cairngorm mountains are nearby, and I’ve got access to skiing in the winter, then ziplining, white-water rafting, and paddleboarding the rest of the year.
It sounds amazing, right? Wrong. Although I can’t deny the beauty, it’s been nearly impossible to make friends.
And before you assume that’s because I’m terrible at making them, I had plenty in London. Despite Londoners’ reputation for being unfriendly, I never struggled socially until I moved here.
My age and lifestyle have only made it tougher for me to connect with the tight-knit community
People in small towns often pride themselves on being affable — and to an extent, it’s true.
On walks or runs around the loch or through the forest, almost everyone I pass greets me. Some even applaud me when I’m running, though that may be because I’m scarlet and gasping.
In coffee shops, staff make small talk and take their time with my order. The pace is unrushed; the vibe is pleasant.
In London, it’d be considered incredibly strange to greet everyone you passed. Can you imagine the look on everyone’s faces if you, beaming, said hello to all of the strangers on a packed tube car at rush hour? Sheer horror.
However, this small-town friendliness feels surface-level to me. The people I nod to aren’t friends. I wouldn’t call the guy from Costa Coffee if I broke my ankle and needed a lift to the hospital.
I haven’t managed to infiltrate the weft of the tightly knit community fabric enough to form a real friendship.
Part of this is age. Now that I’m in my 40s, it feels harder to make friends because I’m not in classes with peers, and frankly, I don’t go out much after work. I work from home.
I don’t have children, which seems to be how many women here meet — at the school gates. I’m not married or living with a partner, which removes another potential route to build my circle.
Maybe small-town dynamics don’t work so well if you’re a bit different, and I’m not afraid to admit I am. I’m in my 40s, unmarried, child-free, queer, neurodivergent, and I don’t have an in-person job.
In London, I suspect I gravitated toward hobbies that attracted other queer and neurodivergent people, making connection easier.
I played for a women’s football team for years and had a thriving social life through it. There were team meals, drinks after matches, and friendships that diffused into everyday life. I also did improv comedy, where I made countless friends in classes, workshops, and gigs in rooms above pubs.
The big city offered me so many spots to fit in and curate relationships — but here, my opportunities to join these kinds of clubs and groups are far more limited.
Although I like my small town, I miss some of the social benefits I found in a big city
Sure, in big cities you can feel anonymous. However, in small towns, the lack of anonymity means you can feel judged for being outside the norm.
Just consider that familiar trope that people who are “different” must leave small towns for the Big Smoke in order to belong. Think: Billy Elliot heading to London to dance, to find his people.
In smaller places, the slower pace and more limited options allows for everyday friendliness. However, cities offer something else: an opportunity to meet the kind of people you click with. More variety. More chances. More ways in.
I moved to a place that was different in the extreme from London, and though I don’t miss the city’s prices or pressure, I do miss the deeper bonds I formed there.
Now I’d like to find somewhere that has some of the beautiful nature of where I live now, but is closer to a city. Bring on the next chapter.
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