What is it about moving to a new place and settling in that makes us constantly compare it to home? What is it that makes us always nostalgic and think how much better home is than the current place we now call home? I don’t actually do this because I think it’s stupid, and at the end of the day, after three months, the novelty of living in a new place should really be over. Well, maybe I can ask my cousin who lives in New York this. He constantly complains via text and in person about how awful and selfish New Yorkers are, how stupid they are, how no one knows anything here. He complains about the slowness of the subway, the dirtiness of the streets. Yet, I know what he’s really doing is saying that San Francisco is so much better than here.

The reality check that he wants to ignore is that… people are really the same here and in San Francisco. There’s just as many selfish people in San Francisco as there are in New York City. There are just as many incompetent fast food and pharmacy workers there as here. The Muni there is by far worse than the MTA subway system here; in fact, the last time we both visited home at the same time and sat on Muni together, he wouldn’t shut up about how slow the bus was. He conveniently forgets that, though. He also doesn’t visit the parts of San Francisco that are overrun by homeless people who are actually shitting right in front of you while smiling and making eye contact with you.

Home isn’t really better. It’s only better if you keep romanticizing senselessly that it is and refuse to accept reality where you are.