Welcome 2021; WTF LA?

A key theme in my work this past year was how much myself and my team hated living in Los Angeles. It’s a feeling that most people in this town, in this state, have been feeling for a while. For us, it was visceral. You can go back and watch the season of our podcast and hear our rants about why LA is terrible. It got so repetitive that we didn’t bother releasing our last episode together, because you’ve heard it all before. 

We even spent several episodes of The Kay Smythe Show ripping this place a new one. It was our norm, until it wasn’t. One of the significant relationships within the podcast recently ended. Badly. It didn’t end as badly as you’re thinking: it was worse. The day after I finally escaped, Dr. Drew introduced to me to one of my amazing therapists, and we set to work figuring out what the fuck is wrong with me, and why I’ve had such a terrible time living in LA. Why was I so successful before I came here, and then after less than half a decade, I’ve become depressed, been through more trauma than I knew existed, and only have a few people in my life who I would seriously miss if I left? Why was LA such a tough place to form close, sustainable relationships and friendships?

Let me define my version of close friendship to you, before you become offended: if you can successfully finish my sentences, and I can finish yours, we’re best, close friends. If we do that and remember each other’s birthdays because we talk all day every day, you’re my family. When I moved from Swansea to Plymouth to start my degree, I made one close friend every day of the three years I was there, and we’re still close today. How the fuck could I have been living in a place for almost double that length of time and have made no relationships that I would trust to catch me when I fall?

Well, clearly I’m the problem. I’m sure my ex is loving that sentence, but they won’t for much longer. I’m the problem because my psychology does not align with the sociology of my current geography*. I was supposed to be here for three days in 2015, but boys on television talked me into staying because I liked seeing them naked in bed next to me. I kept staying -- for boys -- until I realized that I’m a very qualified, British-accented, bored as fuck young woman, and I deserve a man, I want to be a mother, and I can afford to build my dream home. Of course boys who live with their parents or have roommates and haven’t done a single day of hard work in their lives aren’t going to last with me. Duh. 

The girls I’ve met in LA have treated me as a member of their posse or someone to utilize for career growth. I’ve done almost everything I want to in my career, but all I ever wanted to do was write and research all day. The billboards, the music videos, the interviews, the radio shows, the television opportunities, the red carpets, the photoshoots, all of those things came to me. I didn’t go after them. I’ve been in more production meetings about a reality show based on me than most people who have tried to do Kardashian themselves for a living. I can’t teach that type of success, so no wonder these friendships didn’t last. Who the fuck wants to be friends with someone who doesn’t even care about the success they’re getting? Who the fuck wants to even know someone that ungrateful? 

Thing is though, I’m not ungrateful. I just want different shit for myself. I want my work to be remembered; not me. 

So I stayed here for the failed relationships, but I’ve had romantic and platonic relationships end in all other corners of the world. In all of those other places, I managed to make friends out of the wreckage of love. Real friends. Friends I still speak to today, even if we only met for a few weeks one summer or a brief interlude on an Italian holiday. I’m not incapable of making friends, so there is clearly something else that is amiss in my relationship with this angry, insecure little town. For a brief moment, I was starting to think it was America as a whole, but soon came to realize that there are beautiful souls across this gorgeous country who I’d miss terribly were there to be an ocean between us. 

Then it hit me: the reason that I don’t have any close friends in Los Angeles is because most of them have already moved somewhere better. I’m the last remaining member of my extended social network who dares to live in this grim town. Sure, I could move out to Pasadena and get some social freedom, but then I’d just end up annoying the Pinsky Family all fucking day. 

When I tried to broach this conversation with experts, therapists, existing friends, acquaintances and more, the reason for my inability to fit in here is simple: I don’t fucking want to. 

I want to wake up somewhere that doesn’t constantly sound like traffic. I want to walk outside in the morning barefoot, and feel the land beneath me breathe in the morning. I want to smell the nature around me, not the human piss and shit that is literally all over the sidewalks. I want to live somewhere quieter, simpler, and the fuck away from people who don’t know themselves. 

The one thing I never, ever am going to do again is change myself to fit into my sociology. I don’t care if you all hate me, I hate you too. Be better. The fucking world is fucked because of people who let places like LA exist in the way that they do. Lockdowns are only making people here angrier, stupider, and more in debt, and therefore stressed. If nothing changes soon, this place will become a warzone. 

I’m almost starting to think that the people who control this place are doing it on purpose. 

*thank you to my incredible therapist for this gem.