My (23f) boyfriend (28m) convinced me to move to a "nicer" neighborhood, but I hate it. I also feel like he looks down on my old neighborhood.

I lived in a studio apartment in a very affordable neighborhood for years. I loved it; despite it being seen as one of the shittier neighborhoods in the city.

My rent was very cheap which let me pay off my student loans very quickly.

It could get noisy sometimes but everyone in my building had a kinda mutual agreement to be understanding of each other's noise; we were all in a place with thin walls, and we all made noise sometimes.

My neighbors were always ready to help each other out; I've seen a lot of generosity, neighbors helping each other with car repairs, taking turns doing grocery runs for the older people in the building during quarantine, helping each other move, babysitting, etc.

There were parties sometimes but they often came with an open invitation; like "I'm gonna have a party, sorry in advance about the noise but you're welcome to come by for a few drinks!"

Someone put a firepit out back and my neighbors and I would hang out there on summer nights. I made some great friends.

It was also the kind of place people wouldn't rat on each other for the little things, like smoking weed, having a cat in a no-pets building, driving a car that wasn't inspected, having backyard fireworks in the summer.

It was just a really friendly chill place, like yeah the landlord sucked and the building wasn't in the best repair, and the crime rate was higher, but it was also a place full of generous kind people.

Anyway, I've been in a relationship with James for a few years, and he never really cared for my apartment or neighborhood. He was bothered by the noise, the cigarette smoke in halls, the broken bottles and litter in the streets, the fact that kids would hang around in the streets, etc. And he convinced me to move somewhere "nicer", to move in with him.

So we moved to a rental; we rent the ground floor of a house in the suburbs. The second floor is rented out to another couple. And the third floor is rented to a young woman.

And honestly, for how "nice" this area is supposed to be, and how much better it's supposed to be, I hate it.

I feel like I'm being watched all the time; like literally I walk down the street coming home at night and people peel the blinds past and watch me till I've passed. People stare if I'm doing anything outside the house, like tanning or working on my car. It's bizarro.

There's a lot of people here who will walk right up to you and tell you they don't like what you're doing. Like I was trying to fix my car, which was parked on the street, and a guy came over to say that you can't legally do car maintenance on the street.

Coming from a place where people would come up and offer help, teach me things, and give someone the benefit of the doubt that of they're working on their car on the street maybe they can't afford a car or mechanic, it was so different... In a bad way.

Same with having a little party in my yard, I had friends over and invited the couple and lady from upstairs plus the adults from the neighboring houses, for a backyard bbq. And instead of anyone accepting, a couple people got judgemental I'd been having a 21+ party rather than a family garden party in a family neighborhood, that I was having people over, etc.

There are just so many more little examples of this stuff. I finally got upset with my boyfriend, for choosing this place when I had my doubts. Not only is it hard on my budget, it's not even "nice" like he promised. It's frankly kind of nasty, and I miss my "trashy" but friendly old neighborhood.

My boyfriend got kind of rude about it, saying I can't live like an irresponsible kid forever, wanting to party and slum it up... Which I thought was really rude, my old home doesn't feel like a slum to me.

I don't know if I can stay, I hate this so much. My boyfriend thinks I'll grow to like living somewhere "nice" but I'm not so sure. What should I do?

TLDR I hate the "nicer" neighborhood my boyfriend convinced me to move to. We're arguing about it...

Submitted June 05, 2020 at 05:23PM by hatemyhouse22 https://ift.tt/3ePGyAO