Fags love the city. Usually when a young gay person leaves a rural area of Georgia for Atlanta ("gay Mecca of the South"), they want to stay there. There's an "unspoken hierarchy" among friends -- who lives inside the "perimeter"/"fruit loop" and who lives in the wilderness. “Oh you live out there? Do you come in by car or by plane?” You always have to explain to these insulated souls (often non-Georgians) in which direction from Atlanta, and by how many miles away you live. But this all makes sense for a variety of reasons; in the city there’s more tolerant people, more high-paying jobs, more nightlife, there's a "gay community" and more opportunities for sex. I left Dallas in mid-2006 and moved in with my boyfriend here in Atlanta. We live in a small house a few miles from downtown.
As for myself, I suppose the city has advantages but I hate it, and I feel like it’s driving me insane.
--Driving Downtown: I would rather bob for cat shit in a deep fryer. I hate driving here; even if things are "closer" it often takes longer to get there because of traffic. Public transportation in Atlanta? Don’t make me laugh. And trying to figure out how to get somewhere in downtown Atlanta? It's not just the traffic; it's trying to find parking, trying to avoid getting lost, watching for photo-cops at every intersection and trying to avoid confusing one-way streets. A long drive in the country is a pleasure; here a short one’s a chore. In Dallas I drove almost daily, in Atlanta I go where I have to and stay in as much as possible. Someone tell me what genius invented poorly-marked one way streets?
--Pollution: When I say that there's more pollution here, I have first-hand experience -- a "sewage digester" is just outside of our neighborhood. Because of "repairs" being made to it, we could smell shit coming from this thing for the past few years, often worst during humid summer evenings. It's like a blanket of crap that literally covers the entire neighborhood for one or two days every other week. Doors and windows had to be closed tightly and try to avoid going outside as much as possible.
--Atmosphere: This is big. There are other types of pollution that come with the city. First there's either the urban blight or totalitarian architecture giving most cities the atmosphere of a post-apocalyptic wasteland on the one hand or a bland dystopian future on the other that makes me want to enter a dark room with a revolver and a bottle of hard liquor. Eyesores, graffiti, blacktop, cement, skyscrapers and garbage. Even if it's clean and safe, frankly I don’t like being around lots of people even when I am intending to get out of the house. It’s nearly impossible to just be alone. Frankly I feel a little like a prisoner here and I feel like I’m always in a crowd, to escape it I would have to drive for miles, trying to spot beauty in the city is a challenge and often is only seen in the sky itself.
--Crime: On "Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs," right above air, food and drink is safety and security. This brings me to the topic of crime. There's a lot of crime here, and it has been on the rise for the past few years. The city of Atlanta has stopped hiring new police officers and has even shuttered some fire stations because of a huge budget deficit. If the boyfriend would let me or if I was forced to live here alone I would put bars on the windows and buy a gun.
--Noise: How some people are "lulled to sleep" by the sounds of the city I have no idea.
--No Nature: This goes along with the atmosphere and is another big one. For example: Behind my parents house, for over a mile there's nothing but deep, thick woods, and beyond that there’s little else. Even better, in Dallas there's something called the Silver Comet Trail*, a walking trail that spans across western Georgia to Alabama for about 60 miles, mostly through quiet forests. For someone who wants to be with nature but not drive far it's perfect, idyllic even. The irony of the situation is that here I have a walking trail that literally goes right beside this house -- however it goes right beside a semi-tractor trailer yard, ghetto apartments and finally ends at a train yard full of screeches, booms and other such racket.
Of course, there are numerous, predictable replies to this...
--"There's nothing to do in the country!" As for myself, I got out of the house infinitely more in the country than I do here, mostly because I hate to drive here. I went to the Comet Trail almost every day of the week. And while it's not exciting, driving to the 24hr Wal-Mart at 2am was a common activity as well, for no other reason than to do a little shopping and get out of the house. The point is; those are things I WANTED to do. If you complain there’s nothing to do, most likely the things you want to do hold no interest for me.
--"There's nothing but ignorant rednecks out in the country, particularly where you want to live!" First of all, that’s a stereotype, by and large, and a very arrogant view many urbanites hold. Secondly, I tend to keep to myself, and you're better suited to do that in the country where you have few neighbors. People assume that small towns are full of gossip; in fact my family as a whole hardly knows a handful of people in their town, and talks to them even less. Minding ones own business in the suburbs might be difficult, but that's not "country" -- country is where you can insert more than three sheets of paper between you and your neighbor’s house.
--"All the good jobs are in the city." This isn't true...and it still wouldn't justify living there. Many good jobs have sprung up in suburban areas these days, and downtown there's little other than service-sector jobs. Many companies have sought cheaper labor, cheaper land and lower taxes in the past few decades as the urban areas have become more upscale.
--"There's just as much crime in the country, but it's not reported as much." This is BS. You put more people in an area and you have more crime, you put less people in an area and you have less crime.
--"There's no public transportation in the country." Who uses it anyway? Just speaking of Atlanta, it’s very spread out and the public transportation we have goes nowhere interesting.
Some disclaimers:-- I'm not a romantic about the "small town atmosphere," I don't desire a white picket fence, everyone-knows-everyone situation, I would prefer to be able to see very few people and know even less. Second, I hear a lot of people talking about living in the country because they are concerned with economic or ecological collapse, lack of food, power outages, etc. Those sorts of concerns aren't on my mind at all when I think about this. Finally I wouldn’t call myself a country boy either, by which I mean I don’t hunt or fish.
It's a dilemma for me; I like my life in general, I just hate my environment more with each passing day; if that's possible. I should just be glad we aren't in an apartment in downtown, ugh, talk about a cage.
Oh well, maybe I'm just nostalgic, or maybe I just hate people. I dunno. I will say this, my parents were right for once. I thought the grass was greener, I’ve been on both sides of the fence now and I can tell ya, it isn’t.
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* See my photo's section for pictures of the trail.
