Where, Oh Where, Has Our ManoDogs Gone?

I'm not really an "outsider." Not in the sense that I don't get along with anyone. I'm an outsider more by choice than by nature, in that I get along with just about anyone, but that's kind of the problem - I don't tend to "clique-up" with much of anyone.

I wouldn't say I'm a social butterfly or anything and I certainly don't change my personality or behavior around different people in order to "fit-in." I'm the same person online as I am off- and around you as I am around my other friends. Of course, I have "movie" friends and "gaming" friends and "comics" friends, so when I am around different people, I tend to focus on different things, but that's the extent of my behavioral changes around different people. But since I moved, I have no friends, and I'll explain why this is because it is key to what I'm about to say:

This is a small, Southern town. And by that, I mean uneducated, drug-addled, and zealously religious in that back-handed, Southern way. If you don't know what that means, it means that even though this guy is a violent drunk, "He's got problems - everybody's got their problems"; and even though this girl is a drug addict who neglects her children, "She's got problems - everybody's got their problems"; and even though that guy's a filthy crackhead who burglarizes peoples' homes in order to support his habit, "He's got problems - everybody's got their problems." Of course, they're all Baptists who grew up here and whose family members still attend church. Anyone who is not a Baptist that does these same things is "possessed by the Devil" (actual quote from the local Baptist preacher who also has a weekly column in the newspaper, wherein he denounces homosexuals - excuse me, "gays" - people of other denominations, liberals, and so forth). Most of these people have somewhere near an 8^th-grade education and their lives revolve around going to work, coming home, drinking some beers, going to bed, and starting it all over.

Well, unless they do a little meth to keep them going.

Am I being judgemental? Sure, why not? After all, none of what they do really bothers me; what bothers me is that they can't stop from gossiping and lying about everyone around them. The way this works is that they try to put everyone else "in their place" in order to justify their own behavior. If you don't do drugs - or "party," as they are wont to refer to it - and you don't sit around with them, gossiping about everyone else, then they are scared to death that you are going to "snitch," so they want to make sure everyone else thinks you are just as bad as they are, just in a different way.

Remember when you were a kid and you did something bad to someone else, and before they could run and tell on you, you ran and told on them first, so that (in your mind) it would appear that you were right, since you said it first? Like I said: uneducated and drug-addled - basically children.

Now, I'm saying all this because I am looking to move, but I don't really want to live in the city. I moved here to get away from the city! But after being here for almost two years and putting up with all of this shit, getting falsely arrested and imprisoned for 7 days on a 12-hour charge, and now having to pay out the wazoo for a lawyer in order to straighten it all out when pleading guilty and paying the court costs would be about $250 cheaper (see how that works? - after being held for 7 days on a 12-hour charge, even though I have no priors, no record, and no warrants anywhere, and forced to bond-out at $100), I am no longer as worried about the city.

I lived in one of the roughest cities in the nation for 30 years. I had a few problems and a run-in or two, but I was never arrested, never charged with anything, never "detained," never even received a parking ticket! I move to Decatur County, TN, and can't even listen to my stereo without being harassed by Boss Hogg and the gang! Rampant, inner-city crime is looking pretty good to me about now.

But still, I really want to move somewhere - out of the South - that isn't too rural and isn't too urban and isn't the suburbs. I know, that's a pretty tall order, but it can be done. I mean, there are all sorts of smaller towns on the outskirts of large cities, and there are fairly large cities around this nation that aren't just riddled with organized crime.

So I'm asking everyone here: please tell me where I should move!

I'm not a bad guy. I'm not exactly Snow White, but I'm no bad guy. I sometimes listen to music too loudly and I sometimes can't sleep and decide to reorganize my house at 3 in the morning, but other than that, I'm really not a bad guy.

I just want to live somewhere where I don't stick out like a sore thumb and don't attract undue attention from anyone - cops, gangbangers, strippers, the whole nine.

Yeah, I'm... I'm gonna have to move to another country, aren't I?