Cities. Big. Lots of people. Lots of people. Very expensive. Very scary. Very… smelly?
Ever since I was little, my parents would bring me into New York City, and we would explore the crowded streets and see the breathtaking skyscrapers. I know, the city is great, blah blah blah. Many people love the city, especially all the people around me at college who happen to be a train ride away from Philadelphia and use it as a fun weekend activity. Don’t get me wrong, the city has its perks, and I’ll probably have to end up there if I ever want to continue working in the magazine business, but it truly terrifies me. So let’s begin.
I hate people. People in small quantities are great, I understand they’re kind of everywhere and I should probably suck it up, but there’s just so many people all of the time that just really makes me fear going into cities and having to deal with the everywhere and all the time. Sorry to anyone who is an extrovert or likes cities, but your opinions are wrong and so are you. People are scary and since cities are famous for being packed with people, I really fear for my life when I’m in the middle of Times Square being bombarded left and right.
Aside from my antisocial tendencies, cities terrify me because of how unbearably smelly they are. Don’t even try and fight me on this, because there is always the overwhelming scent of sewage, the mary jane, or truly unknown garbage. In a place where there is so little space and so much waste, I fear for my own health to breathe in the air. In the suburbs you get the freshly mown grass or the nice whiff of actual air. When I feel like I can’t breathe safely, yeah, I’m going to be a bit scared to go into the city and catch the plague.
I think we can establish that I’m a bit of a pessimist at this point, but you can’t tell me that you actually enjoy not having a shred of nature around you, right? Over the years, I’ve grown to fear being away from the trees and wildlife when I grow up. It just goes along with my love of the sun and the outdoors, but having so little of the real world and so much of the concrete jungle around me scares me. I don’t know if this is just a me problem, but I’d like to have the comfort of feeling grass under my feet every once and awhile. I’ll admit I do enjoy the short bits of being able to go into a city, but I have this intense fear that I won’t be able to leave and go to a suburb very shortly after.
Nature is peaceful, quiet, and serene, but cities are certainly not. The constant horn-honking and yelling and buses and generally loud background noise is unbearable. I fear finding myself in a place where I can’t hear my own thoughts, and the city has no shortage of that. Sirens always terrify me, but in the city they can be heard so much more that it just leaves the incessant noise ringing in my ears. Many people might be indifferent to noises all of the time at all hours, but I’d just like to lay down at night without the fear of being awoken by every noise imaginable.
Against all of my many fears of the city, the architecture and unique cultures that come together inside of these places are truly amazing, and I do enjoy short trips to see the museums and sights. Cities are a great place, and yes, scary, but they are a magnificent part of our world and should be appreciated by people as such. And if you ever end up in a city, just please bring comfortable shoes, because I think we all fear having blisters after walking for hours to get anywhere.
