It’s been a while since I’ve had one of those ‘I hate Melbourne’ days, and I could just tell one was coming. All sorts of things were beginning to piss me off - not just the city but its inhabitants too.
Yesterday, the most immediate thing was probably the traffic. It was peak hour, and despite being fully awake since 9am, I’d still not been able to dress and wash till 4pm, and that was only to do some absolute essentials.
And imagine, this was on a good day, well, for the time being. It takes so long to get around this city and to get things done that it very often sets my mind into a panicked frenzy…of paralysis. I’ll try to explain. I live in a suburb in the outer north of Melbourne. It’s close to the last train station on one of the many lines servicing the city - of which there are only two out my way. The nearest station is 10 minutes’ drive. Catching a bus to the station might seem a good idea but they only really come every half hour. My guess is that is why so many people choose to drive.
They don’t seem to be too cooperative, either. There seemed to be a fair bit of bullying, in fact. Why be so hostile, just to be first or in front of another driver? It doesn’t make you a better person, geez. It was an extremely nerve-wracking drive to the nerve-wracking social security office - I’m only 3 days late to hand in my unemployment form, and it’s not likely anyone in the family is going to hand it in for me. It’s not too busy but of course everything takes longer than it should. I’m getting nervous just being in public for too long, I just want to go home and curl up for a nap. Theoretically, I should be able to ‘report’ to social security over the phone, but they’ve cut off my access for who knows what reason. It could be that every three months I’m supposed to give them medical certificates.
My turn at last. The lady informs me that all people who submit medical certificates now get ‘assessed’ and graced with an on-the-spot appointment. I recall NMD’s reaction to this new rule: “Oh, so they’ve become medical experts now, have they?”. Great, a surprise appointment, but I need to make it to the post office before it closes. Thankfully, the bureaucrats are all booked out, but I can expect an assessment in three months’ time.
What the hell will they be expecting? It’s not like a broken leg where I can predict the period of time in which my condition will cease to be a problem: “Uh yeah, so the patterns on the wallpaper forming people and me shitting my pants thanks to medication side effects should be ok in three months’ time.” Not bloody likely. I’m not saying I’m that unwell, but I don’t expect my situation to have improved either, over the three months. If anything, it’s steadily worsening.
8 Comments
i think every city feels like the loneliest in the world.
CY, perhaps you’re wise for your age, that could be true. It’s odd though, I never felt that way in London, and that isn’t a remotely friendly city. In fact, it’s pretty bleak.
Have you seen Lost In Translation? Melbourne, for me is that kind of lonely. Not all the time, mainly when I’m having an ‘episode’. I think it may also have had to do with the people I used to hang out with a few years ago too.
Hey SA,
I’m a bit of a burk… I’ll send you all the login details to the server so that you can do what you can with it.
As for melbourne being the loneliest city in the world, I think that it’s more about social networks than the actual physical city. Having said that, being out in the suburbs is not at all good for one’s social networks.
How does one do the bread and butter of friendship (hang out with them), when it takes 40 minutes to drive to friends’ houses, and petrol costs $1.40 a litre?
It’s interesting to think about the development of suburbia and the car. They’re interdependent. You can’t build a spread-out city without cars, and you can’t get around in a spread-out city without a car. I guess that’s why I love living so close to the city: you can get to virtually anything in 5 minutes on your bike (except your friends’ houses in the suburbs ;). I do miss the grass and trees and air though (thanks to the fecking smog-generating cars that choke my neighborhood), but thankfully I get them in small doses on weekends sometimes at my girlfriend’s house.
Did you know that they have a fuel subsidy in QLD? I think it knocks about 20c off the price in that state. Apparently they justify it by saying that it’s the most spread out, demographically of all the states. I wonder if they know that it’s a terribly addictive drug. Reminds me of the geriatric spice form the Dune saga.
I don’t know…I think Melbourne and I need a trial separation - again. In 2002 when I came back from London, I had culture shock, it felt like the city centre was threatening to cave in on me as I walked along the streets at night…
I sure did like Melbourne a whole lot more when I was living closer to the city, and uni.
Perhaps it’s more accurate to say Melbourne hates me? Sometimes I feel so alien here, even though I’ve spent most of my life here. I know London sucks, but it’s upfront about it.
Plus, just when I start to think “Ok, I’m giving this Melbourne thing a real go,” it chomps on me, grinds me up and spits me out. Well, I’m blaming it on Melbourne, because I’m sure as hell sick of blaming everything else on my flawed self!
I know what you mean about hating the city and the people too. Sometimes when I’m in the city, I just want to belt everyone out of the way. Sometimes it feels like they purposefully get in your way, purposefully hinder you.
The train services out your way sound just hopeless! And driving, I agree can be extremely nerve-wracking, I should get more practice, but admit I will avoid traffic where I can.
It’s funny, whenever I’ve visited Melbourne, I’ve loved it. Always thought that it would be the second state after Sydney that I would choose to live in. I guess that’s the key word though: ‘visited’. Until you’ve lived for a good length of time somewhere you don’t know.
I like Sydney, but I think I started liking it a whole lot better when I moved closer to the city. After living out in the ‘burbs all my life and not minding it, I found out that I was a city girl after all. Well sort of, I live just out of the city, 15 mins by train and I love it that way. It’s fairly quiet where I live, but if I want to get amongst it or soothe my shopping bug, I can just pop on the train. If I have to drive in though, it sucks, a lot. The Sydney Harbour Bridge is a beautiful thing, but being stuck on it or waiting half an hour to even get on it, is not.
I know what you mean about feeling disconnected, I would find it difficult to move too far away from the city again, but if I did I would make sure it was on one of the train lines that is reasonably dependable.
Heh, I loved London, having been there three times and each time loving it. It’s lively, bustling, beautiful, historic, but again, that key of just having ‘visited’, of course it has it’s down sides like any city and I’m not sure I really would want to live there, or indeed, afford to!
The suburbs is pretty good at making non-baby boomers feel isolated. Or, at least, it makes me feel like a reject for that reason. But in the city, it’s not quite like that. Mind you, people always bump me out of the way, unless I’m carrying my gamba - I just walk and let people move out of my way.
Perhaps that crappy cliche “Home is where the heart is” really is true! Ugh.
I think for the moment me and Melbourne are on our way to a partial reconciliation. I’ve made it into the city centre two Fridays in a row, hopefully this coming Friday will be the third. I can get a bath product, some cherry pie and maybe yet another lipgloss. Most likely not, though…hee hee.
I have this guilty secret that i can’t tell my friends so googled someone who might empathise - i hate melbourne! i have been coming and going for years and accustomed to saying ‘melbourne is a great city’ but since being back this time all i can see is suburbs, isolation, cliqueyness, and nothing in between deadly pretentious coolness and getting married breeding and moving to the suburbs. (not necessarily in that order). But snarkattack i feel isolated here and I am australia and i have a million friends. I go into the city and just walk around and feel a BIT more normal and i only live in Northcote! (but down in the suburban part of it far from PT and I don’t drive and it’s just bungalows and bunglaows and freaking bungalows)Am trying to work out if it’s me that melbourne hates or what , cos i haven’t been this depressed since the last time i lived here. all my friends are breeding and i don’t meet people anymore, and any other single girls my age(over 30but not ancien!) talk about internet dating like that is totally normal. eeeek! No one seems to talk to you here, and they sort of vibe that that would take too much effort and so make them appear uncool, and then after when you have gone home and cried with ennui they tell their friends that they thought you were ‘hot’ , but meanwhile you felt invisible and like an alien. this place is just too understated, no one seems to have the guts to put themselves out. (hhhmmm,maybe me neither). but i never had this problem in scotland, vietnam or anywhere else i have lived. I always swore i’d never live in london but it is starting to look tempting. What is melbourne’s problem? my shrink thinks it’s me!
So Melbourne isn’t your original city of residence? Maybe it has to do with that, I’m not native to Melbourne so I always figured that had something to do with my not fitting in totally? I don’t think my shrink would ever say to me that my problem with Melbourne is just ‘me’ - maybe I should ask him!
Incidentally, you don’t live super-far from me, and Northcote is supposed to be very hip and happening - I live further out - but if you ever feel like e-mailing in the hope of possibly both of us feeling less unsavoury about Melbourne, feel free to drop me a line at
snarkattack [dot] blog [at] gmail [dot] com
Yeah, Melbourne’s a hardish city to live in. That’s my story and I’m sticking to it.
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