The Sitcom Life

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Something a few people have said several times about my life here in Jeddah:

"Nobody lives like you guys do, like you're in a sitcom, hanging out everyday and stuff."

Cue the Friends theme song and a laugh track. And a picture of me and some friends having pop sushi and being moderately funny with our stories.

Clockwise from top: Joey, Monica (me), Phoebe and Ross.

And why not? Between our first-world whining and not needing to pay taxes, our stunted adolescence is glaring. Just check Instagram and Twitter, we're all about 'being sarcastic' and complaining about getting out of bed in the morning, or posting pictures of ourselves and the fun we're having that OMG EVERYONE IS JUST TRYING TO RUIN FOR US. 

We are just SUCH VICTIMS HERE. We can't do ANYTHING, there are no CINEMAS, no FUN PLACES to spend all this CASH COMING OUT OF OUR ORIFICES. When are we EVER GOING TO CATCH A BREAK? Ugh!

I do this a lot. I talk about shallow things a lot, the tiniest things that make my life such HELL. How the driver is always late, how there isn't a decent bookstore here, how I hate having to wake up SO EARLY (8:30am is not early, but UGH). It really does smack of sitcom, where their problems only ever evolve around who wants to date who and where to hang out everyday. 

Heck, I blog about these things. 

Heck, we've come up with a name for it (to compliment hashtag FirstWorldProblems): Self-oppression, when you make up problems and feel oppressed about them. 

So why do it? It's obviously annoying. 

I suppose I do it the same reason I continue to watch sitcoms - I know they're not real, they're light and exaggerated, they're forgettable, they're bite-sized, and they don't cause any real problems. 

I do it because the alternative is even more annoying: Real problems. You don't want to hear about my real problems.

That isn't to say I don't go overboard with the whining. Again, it only takes one look at the Jeddah Twitter and Instagram feed to see how far we take it, all of us. When it gets too annoying, there's a very easy solution to it:

Turn the TV off. Or switch channels. Breaking Bad is coming back up soon.

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