Bored in Canada
Posted: August 23rd, 2015, 9:40 am
I'm from Toronto, Canada. I liked living there when I was a kid, and as a teenager, mostly, but as I got older I started to realize I really didn't belong there and had no interest in staying. Toronto was making me miserable. It literally drove me insane. I stupidly threw away a golden opportunity to move to Europe in my late 20s, with a beautiful girl (not Canadian) who wanted me to go with her. My life basically went off the rails after that. I hit rock bottom, recovered a little, then hit an even lower rock bottom a few years later. It took years for me to rebuild myself - mentally, financially, physically, etc. I worked out and became healthier than ever before, learned some new skills, and purchased a house during that time. As I stabilized and improved myself, it became clearer and clearer that Toronto wasn't for me. My reasons are similar or identical to the reasons other men have for wanting to get out of that place. I had to get out. So I sold my house, threw everything into storage, and bought a ticket to South America. I spent the Southern Hemisphere summer there, basking in the sun, meeting people, making friends, gaining confidence, learning to surf, and basically getting Toronto out of my system. I felt actually free for the first time in my life. Returned to Toronto in February where the weather was -20 and the people were even more frigid. I couldn't stay there. So I bought another ticket and went to Europe. For 2 years. Gained more confidence, became happier than I was even in South America. I felt completely normal - I hadn't even known what that felt like before leaving.
Toronto is soul-destroying. There's no freedom, no joy. Just about anything fun or interesting is illegal. The people are either slaves or drug addicts trying to escape the place without physically leaving. When you're there you're not living. I had been to a few other parts of Canada - Calgary, Montreal, a few other places, and found them similar, (Calgary worse on the soul-destroying scale, Montreal worse on the hostility scale) but assumed that since it was such a big country, maybe it wasn't all bad, maybe there was some place in Canada I could move to and start over, with slightly more freedom and more potential for happiness.
To sum up, I didn't have enough of a plan to stay abroad forever. I was overstaying tourist visas in Europe, I didn't want to get arrested and deported, I couldn't legally work there, so I decided to return to Canada. I picked a small town in another province, hoping it would be less bad than Toronto. Still had enough money left to buy a property to fix up.
It's just as bad here where I am now. No freedom. Ugly women. Even more boring and even worse weather than Toronto. People are friendlier, but that's about the only positive.
I knew it would be boring, but I tried to like it here. All I'm asking for is just a little bit of freedom. I vape. Not because I need to, but because I enjoy vaping when I'm bored. And I'm always bored in Canada. It doesn't make me feel sick like cigarettes did when I used to smoke. I can run, do sports, do any physical activity without feeling out of breath. It doesn't smell. It doesn't make me smell. It's not an offensive activity. Except they are banning vaping across Canada anyway, one province at a time. Ontario started it, of course, in January. Ontario and its capital, Toronto, are the epicenter of every nanny state law in Canada. Nanny state Ontario decides something should be illegal, all the other provinces follow its lead. Every other province either has copied the ban or is about to.
So yesterday was the first hot sunny Saturday afternoon the town where I'm living has had all year. It's only late August... I don't go out here, because the nightlife isn't worth the effort. But I did want to sit on a patio and vape while having a beer and enjoying the sun, on what was probably the only day I'll have to do that.
They served me a beer, and didn't say anything about my vaping. I wasn't hiding it. When I was finished they asked if I wanted another one. Since they weren't telling me to stop vaping, I said yes. They brought one over. As soon as I took a sip, another staff member came over and told me I couldn't vape on the patio. How annoying is that. I got angry and asked when did it become illegal (I hadn't noticed they had banned it, because I don't go out here and the news media in this province is garbage). He said July 1st. Of course, they would ban it on Canada Day. Canadians love banning things so much, they do it on holidays so they can celebrate the ban. He then 'helpfully' told me I was welcome to vape on the sidewalk outside. Even though I was already outside... and you can't drink on the sidewalk, that's illegal. If I wanted to stand on the sidewalk vaping, I would have just stayed home. After a screaming match with some of the staff, I paid them and left, only so they wouldn't call the cops on me. I'll never go to another bar in this town, there's nothing interesting about them anyway. Some of them might be tolerable if I could vape.
It might sound like nothing, but for me this is just the last straw. I'm not asking for much. But they won't even let me have that. There are too many laws here. I don't consider Canada to be a free country. When I was in Europe, I told people about the drinking laws in Canada. They didn't understand. It made no sense to them. I had to repeat myself to them until they got it. Even people in former communist countries thought the Canadian laws are outrageous.
Canada is insufferably boring, and people seem to like it that way, because they don't do anything about it. I made a mistake coming back. Yesterday drove it home for me, they will never let me have a fraction of the type of life I want here. I will leave as soon as I can do so again. I'll plan it out better next time so I can stay wherever I end up.
Toronto is soul-destroying. There's no freedom, no joy. Just about anything fun or interesting is illegal. The people are either slaves or drug addicts trying to escape the place without physically leaving. When you're there you're not living. I had been to a few other parts of Canada - Calgary, Montreal, a few other places, and found them similar, (Calgary worse on the soul-destroying scale, Montreal worse on the hostility scale) but assumed that since it was such a big country, maybe it wasn't all bad, maybe there was some place in Canada I could move to and start over, with slightly more freedom and more potential for happiness.
To sum up, I didn't have enough of a plan to stay abroad forever. I was overstaying tourist visas in Europe, I didn't want to get arrested and deported, I couldn't legally work there, so I decided to return to Canada. I picked a small town in another province, hoping it would be less bad than Toronto. Still had enough money left to buy a property to fix up.
It's just as bad here where I am now. No freedom. Ugly women. Even more boring and even worse weather than Toronto. People are friendlier, but that's about the only positive.
I knew it would be boring, but I tried to like it here. All I'm asking for is just a little bit of freedom. I vape. Not because I need to, but because I enjoy vaping when I'm bored. And I'm always bored in Canada. It doesn't make me feel sick like cigarettes did when I used to smoke. I can run, do sports, do any physical activity without feeling out of breath. It doesn't smell. It doesn't make me smell. It's not an offensive activity. Except they are banning vaping across Canada anyway, one province at a time. Ontario started it, of course, in January. Ontario and its capital, Toronto, are the epicenter of every nanny state law in Canada. Nanny state Ontario decides something should be illegal, all the other provinces follow its lead. Every other province either has copied the ban or is about to.
So yesterday was the first hot sunny Saturday afternoon the town where I'm living has had all year. It's only late August... I don't go out here, because the nightlife isn't worth the effort. But I did want to sit on a patio and vape while having a beer and enjoying the sun, on what was probably the only day I'll have to do that.
They served me a beer, and didn't say anything about my vaping. I wasn't hiding it. When I was finished they asked if I wanted another one. Since they weren't telling me to stop vaping, I said yes. They brought one over. As soon as I took a sip, another staff member came over and told me I couldn't vape on the patio. How annoying is that. I got angry and asked when did it become illegal (I hadn't noticed they had banned it, because I don't go out here and the news media in this province is garbage). He said July 1st. Of course, they would ban it on Canada Day. Canadians love banning things so much, they do it on holidays so they can celebrate the ban. He then 'helpfully' told me I was welcome to vape on the sidewalk outside. Even though I was already outside... and you can't drink on the sidewalk, that's illegal. If I wanted to stand on the sidewalk vaping, I would have just stayed home. After a screaming match with some of the staff, I paid them and left, only so they wouldn't call the cops on me. I'll never go to another bar in this town, there's nothing interesting about them anyway. Some of them might be tolerable if I could vape.
It might sound like nothing, but for me this is just the last straw. I'm not asking for much. But they won't even let me have that. There are too many laws here. I don't consider Canada to be a free country. When I was in Europe, I told people about the drinking laws in Canada. They didn't understand. It made no sense to them. I had to repeat myself to them until they got it. Even people in former communist countries thought the Canadian laws are outrageous.
Canada is insufferably boring, and people seem to like it that way, because they don't do anything about it. I made a mistake coming back. Yesterday drove it home for me, they will never let me have a fraction of the type of life I want here. I will leave as soon as I can do so again. I'll plan it out better next time so I can stay wherever I end up.