Maine Residents Totally Believe These 5 Huge Lies About Ourselves

I've lived in Maine my whole life, so I feel qualified to make these bold statements.

I spend a lot of time online, obviously. It's part of my job. Constantly, I see people from away share their opinions about us on social media. Often, it goes one of two ways. Either people absolutely adore Mainers, or they ask how come we're not like the Mainers they've heard about in story and song.

READ MORE: Maine Facts That Sound Like They Could Be Total Lies

While I can agree that both of these beliefs are kind of true, tons of people will lose their minds on these social media posts, defending the "Maine way of life". Well, I'm here to say that most of what we believe about ourselves is just wrong. We have an awfully glorified view of how we appear to other folks. Don't believe me? Let's break it down...

We are not good drivers. Like, at all.

Ok, that's not 100% fair. There are plenty of people in Maine who are awesome drivers. But there's this myth that all bad drivers around here, especially during tourist season, are from out of state. But mostly, when I see someone driving like a true maniacal moron, the vehicle has Maine plates. Tailgating, not letting people merge on the highway... I hardly ever see Massachusetts plates behaving this way. It's always us.

We're not nearly as friendly as we appear in commercials.

In tourism commercials or videos, it always looks like Mainers just can't wait to serve you, hand and foot. We like to believe we're super accommodating, but in reality, we're only interested in ourselves. We put on a fake smile for flatlanders more often than not, especially in the service industry. On the other hand, we take a lot of crap from people from away who are just terrible. So it can work both ways.

We're not actually smarter than everyone else.

When we see an out-of-state license plate anywhere, we just assume they're lost dummies from another universe, who are here to torture us. Of course, it's pretty easy to judge people in your comfort zone. Most folks don't stop to think how ridiculous we must look to locals when we travel. But most tourists I've met, have their GPS skills on point, and hardly ever bother us.

Portland is not "the big city".

Many Mainers act like Portland is some kind of big city that we can't relate to. Compared to the rest of the country, Portland's 60,000+ people are really just a drop in the bucket. It's hard to think of yourself as a true cultural Mecca when Boston is a scant two hours away from Portland. I suppose if you're from Madawaska, Portland seems like a big city. But it just ain't that big.

Not all of us love nature.

When you talk to someone who moves to Maine, often one of the reasons they say they moved here, was to engage in more outdoor activities. People look at me like I have 9 heads when I tell them I only enjoy outdoor activities under the right circumstances. New Mainers seem to think we all just ride horses and everything is a scene out of Wild America. But trust me... couch potatoes grow in Maine too.

READ MORE: In Maine, These Might be the Biggest Lies About Life in the County

Look, it's not like I don't love living here, because I do. I'd rather live here than anywhere else in the world. But I also refuse to ignore some of the truths about who we are. We're a state sort of split in two geographically. Which is a whole thing on its own... the "two Maines". But hey... I only bring these things up so you can decide if they're true or not and act accordingly. We can only be ourselves.

Mainers will agree, however, that another word for coffee is Dunkin'...