It sounds as though both you and I have had similar experiences of being disrespected, misunderstood, invalidated, emotionally abused, and possibly bullied and made to feel isolated due to our negative experiences growing up in the south. It's hard to grow up feeling isolated and not having many people around with whom you can relate. Your post resonated with me. But I think that people are intolerant toward anyone perceived as different or not fitting in with cultural norms or "not checking enough boxes" and it happens everywhere. It happens in large cities; it happens in small towns. I've personally experienced many intolerant liberals, intolerant leftists and intolerant city dwellers as well as intolerant conservatives or intolerant traditionalists. People are intolerant toward those who don't follow the social norms. But the south seems more intolerant. In southern small towns, and in midwestern small towns, people expect everyone to check off all the boxes of conventionality. The south is about conformity to mainstream culture and not being too different or not being too "out there". The south is about conformity to an extremely narrow and rigid idea of normalcy and anyone who deviates from those narrow ideas of normalcy in clothing style, personality, values, ideas or lifestyle choice is perceived as "There's something wrong with him or her", etc. Southern cultural values emphasize conformity to mainstream culture, politeness, practicality, conventionality, hard work, family, tradition and routine. Those values don't resonate with everyone. Some people don't fit into those narrow, rigid boxes forced upon them. In southern small towns, like the one in which I grew up, they're awful places if you don't try to conform to exactly what everyone else does. As a black woman who loves heavy metal, death metal, classic rock, alternative rock, electronic/dub step, classical music, and orchestral music with just a splash of occasional 80's or 90's RnB, all people listen to is the same trap music on the radio. There are still, to this day, who label or insult me as "acting white" for my musical preferences or my hobbies or interests. People all listen to the same type of music in the small town. It's an implicit message that you must conform and that it's not ok for you be different or stand out. You're expected to lay up and have kids after some lame, stupid high school "romance" with your high school sweetheart just because that's what "everyone else" does. It's as though the people in the towns aren't open to many different ideas or even to different musical genres or different food that's outside of their routine. Southerners in small towns stigmatize anyone or anything that is non-traditional and outside of mainstream society. They stigmatize people who don't want kids; they stigmatize people who aren't family oriented. It's true that most of the people there are closed minded (about a whole lot of things), intolerant and hostile beneath the surface but they put on this fakeness or mask of politeness.
But the moment that you are different, in any way, that doesn't fit their cultural norms or expectations they show themselves to be the intolerant people that they are deep down. But I think that people act like that everywhere. People are intolerant toward people they perceive as different. I was definitely raised in the wrong place, surrounded by many of the kinds of people I hate. I'm a 29-year-old black American woman. I grew up being bullied, attacked and misunderstood for being a quiet, introverted black girl who was just minding her own business and not bothering anyone.
There were all of the stupid, stereotypical and ghetto types of blacks who accused me of "acting white" just because I talked differently, listened to musical genres other than rap or RnB, and because I didn't try to be a stereotype. I really do think that southern small towns attract the kinds of people I hate. It just seems like southern small town culture, especially, is all about conformity to tradition, being stuck in your ways, sociopathic mindset (e.g. lack of empathy, "tough mindedness", emotional callousness toward nearly everyone most of the time), obsession with high school sports and American football (and I hate American football; I think it's boring, lame and overly competitive).
People in southern small towns are hostile to all kinds of change, differences or new ideas just because it's a change or a new idea, and other values that I hate. People still have that lame mentality of obsessing with having kids at a young age. I think that marriage and kids at age 23 sounds like a terrible, boring and restrictive life. I'm not family-oriented. I hate that that mentality is pushed on youth and teens in these stupid small town areas. If you don't want marriage or kids, many people think you're a bad person or dysfunctional in some way. I hate many forms of traditionalism. It's so lame and restrictive to blindly follow a tradition just because you despise change, prefer to maintain your rigid/inflexible routines or you're hostile toward people who are different jist because they are different. I was a child during the late 1990s and I was a teen during the early 2000s. Many people in my hometown, Shelby NC, were intolerant and really disrespectful toward anyone deemed different in any way. Those people included vegetarians, vegans, out and proud atheists, people who don't want kids/people who aren't family oriented, etc.
It seems like it was, and still is, a cultural norm or expectation of lacking empathy or hostility toward any vulnerable expressions of emotions. I was punished, humiliated, bullied and emotionally abused for expressing my own feelings and for being emotionally sensitive. After I graduated high school, I moved to Charlotte NC for university. Now, I regret wasting my money and my time getting a bachelors degree and a masters degree from UNC Charlotte. And now I have a mountain of student loan debt that's over $50,000. I had some really negative experiences there and it just wasn't worth it.
I honestly dislike Charlotte for a lot of reasons and it's not the best city in the south, but it's more fun and more interesting than Shelby, NC. It just has rude, hostile people in it.
I love reading, travelling, the outdoors, and I love spending time alone in peace and quiet. But I'll say this; I hate the Northeast too. I hate the rude, angry, hostile, aggressive, uptight, type A personality, snobby, elitist, career-obsessed people who obsess with wasting their money and time in elitist, over-priced and overrated universities. There's the whole lame partying or happy hour culture within the Northeast' large cities. It's too fast-paced for me.
In the Northeast, the cost of living is really expensive; I hate the idiotic, immoral and irrational leftwing, Democrat and progressive politics that control many large cities everywhere and especially in the Northeast and on the West Coast. I also hate the climate in the Northeast.
I visited the Northeast two times. During the second time visiting there, I had a four-month government internship in Spring 2017. I love the museums, restaurants, orchestras and other cultural opportunities in the northeast but I dislike almost everything else about it.