I didn't read the whole thing, but I read enough to get the sense that it is a story about a place in America that still has a real sense of community. Many people today don't really have that anymore and desperately long for it.

My father grew up on a farm and was part Cherokee. My mother is an immigrant. I grew up some kind of sense of community and spent most of my adult life not really finding that again.

I have a history of fostering phenomenal growth for online communities of a certain size which then often seem to collapse and become a shadow of their former selves after I leave. I think it has to do with me being able to foster a real sense of community and no one else seems able to sustain that in my absence.

I typically leave because of being treated abusively, basically. I'm never seem to be given credit for what I am doing for the community. People seem unable to recognize what I do and seem to have no idea how to relate to me in a positive, constructive manner when I am actively fostering a sense of community, which is something I seem to just have a knack for, having grown up with certain things.

So I think people just long for a sense of community and it very often comes out in weird ways.

That doesn't mean your discomfort is unjustified. It's completely justified.

I'm just making an observation about a phenomenon and hopefully that will be somehow useful or meaningful information for someone reading the comments here.