Get On Your Soapbox #15

If I don't say what I'm about to say, I'm likely to implode!

I'm sure some people will find this offensive, but, to be honest, I really don't care.  It's the type of people in this post whose behaviour I find highly offensive, and, since I'm not just referring to one individual, if people take offense, then they must have a guilty conscience.

Ever since I announced to my Perth mob that I was moving to a farm, I was met with many excited responses.  So many people told me they would keep in touch, and would love to visit.  Well, we've been up here for two years now....and I'm still waiting.

I could rant forever about people who keep making empty promises and breaking them.  I could rant about people who are disorganised, vague and hopeless at answering the many avenues of contact they set up for themselves.  I could rant about people who expect us to just accept the lopsided friendship of having us visit them all the time in Perth, but them never making any effort to travel to us. We do our best to maintain relationships with people, and it hurts greatly when the gestures are not reciprocated.  The vast number of conversations I've had with people over the past two years indicate that some people are ignorant.  They really don't have any idea about our lives up here.  One person got the idea in their head that our house is only accessible by four-wheel drive.  They know I don't have a four-wheel drive; how on earth do they think I get home?!?  Now that doesn't really bother me in the larger scheme of things.  People will always be ignorant about what they don't know.  I'm ignorant about a lot of things.  What I don't like is when people live by their ignorance.

We keep hearing the excuse that it's 'too far' for them to come and visit despite the fact that we've told them repeatedly it is only three hours.  That's the same time as it takes to go down south from Perth.  The SAME TIME.  And we know for a fact that many of the people who say it's 'too far' frequently go down south for the weekend.  Apparently it's too far and too expensive for some people to come up here, yet we are supposedly made of money and expected to come to Perth all the time.  Hmmm funny that.  Whenever we invite people to come to our place, I then get the question, "When are you coming to Perth next?" and I just roll my eyes.

I know some people have very good reasons for not visiting.  Some have large families and wouldn't fit comfortably in our house (and there is nowhere else for them to stay).  Some have difficulty travelling.  Unfortunately our house is not wheelchair-friendly.  I know many people have visited us already, some more than once.  This post is not aimed at them.

A friend who lives in Tom Price feels the same.  She has hardly had any visitors because everyone says it's too expensive to go up there.  Yet, she's expected to make all the effort by going to Perth all the time.

I've really gotten over the stage of begging, pleading, nagging etc.  I realise it's not going to make any difference.  The harsh reality is that many people are not too busy, too poor etc....they are SNOBS!

Unfortunately snobbery is growing at rather an alarming rate among city Christians.  I didn't notice it when I was in Perth, but now that I'm in a dead-end place (according to some people), people don't want to leave the comforts of the city in case the get their immaculate fingernails dirty.  I'm sick of the bogan jokes, and the indication that they think our home isn't good enough for them.  I'm tired of the mocking of country folk as if they are aliens who need to be kept in a glass case and studied carefully to deem if they are human.  Newsflash:  the country is where you'll get some of the best hospitality you will ever receive.  Yes, we'll actually cook for you and welcome you into our home - not take you to a restaurant and make you pay $30.  Yes, there are city folk who are wonderful at hospitality, but the country folk excel, in my opinion.  This is MY HOME, for goodness sake!  I do not like people ridiculing it, especially when they've never ventured past their cultivated lawn and backyard pool to see it for themselves!

I see so many people on Facebook, who claim to be Christians, complaining endlessly about coffee (apparently Perth has NO good coffee....in the whole of Perth), the fact that their mobile phone is a year old, some supposedly horrid restaurant they visited, or that the shops are SO FAR (when there are four shopping centres within a ten minute radius).  They laugh at people who live in a more lowly suburb, and then the same people talk about the possibility of being missionaries in a developing country.  Hmmm so let's see....Dally is not good enough for you, but you're going to live in the slums of India?!?  Whatever!  Toughen up, princess!

Seriously I've had Christians complain about my house (when I lived in Cannington), the wine I've brought to dinner, and laugh at my mobile phone because it wasn't the latest model.  I still cannot believe it; their attitude would almost be laughable if it wasn't so sad, and some Christians really need a reality check, to focus on eternal things, and not things that spoil, perish or fade.  I get sick of the simpering smiles I get accompanied with the question, "So what do you DO up there?"  Well, if you come and see, I will show you how you can live without shops, cafes and nightclubs.  But of course, some people will never come.  We can never compete with down south.  We don't have a chocolate factory or a multitude of breweries and wineries to entertain people.  What you'll get if you come up here is US.  When I've invited people up, I get asked, "But what will I DO up there?".  Ummmm how about nothing?  Or (shock horror) you could actually talk to us!  You know, sit and talk, communicate, share together....the way people did before Wiis were invented.  When I go to a friend's house, I go to see THEM....not their house, not their possessions.  I don't expect them to put on a show, I just want them to share their lives.  And these are the same people who complain that their city lives are too fast, too busy and that they just need to get away and do nothing.

In desperation the other night, I suggested to Duncan that we buy a Wii so people can play it if they visit.  He said no, that he wasn't willing to spend several hundred dollars on a contraption we would hardly ever use ourselves, just to bribe the 'Here we are, now entertain us' types.  That snapped me back to reality.  He's right.  Stuff 'em.

I know I'm not the only country person to go through this.  I've met heaps of people up here who have struggled for years to get their friends to visit, but get scolded if they don't visit the city slickers in Perth.  I guess we're very fortunate that we have genuine friends in our lives who bother to make the effort.  That's all I'm asking.  Some effort.  Once a year is enough.  I'm not asking for a visit every month.

I won't be nagging anymore.  They can sit in their fancy coffee shops and drink lattes until they come out of their noses for all I care.  I will focus my efforts on those who want a friend, and not a court jester who lives in a toy shop.