ADHD is a lot like AI in that it’s a different kind of intelligence, which, if tolerated, could (and has in the past) massively improve our world. But ADHDers do incredibly “stupid” things all the time. In fact, ADHD is so commonly thought of as just being stupid that people with intellectual disabilities are misdiagnosed with ADHD. And people with ADHD are assumed to have intellectual disabilities, like me.

Road trip: I’m writing this while on a road trip from Melbourne to Sydney

Part 1: The Classroom

When I was ten, I went to an elite private high school with grades 5 through 12. In the first year, there was an exam that would determine students' placement for the following year. We would be assigned to one of five classes, and there was a clear hierarchy. They used a colour system to try to hide it, but we all knew. The lowest level was called Brown. In hindsight, that isn’t that well hidden. My friends made fun of them, which I didn’t participate in, but I did nothing to stop them.

It would come to be the class I was placed in. And not just that, I was taken out for extra remedial help with a smaller group. Odd, I thought, that we would be slowed down to catch up. I now realise my naivety: There wasn’t any hope of catching up.

I still remember the feeling of my friends discovering I was in the remedial class. I remember their slight levels of compassion. In the short time I knew them, we had become close. I had visited their houses, and we had watched Tales from the Crypt and listened to the Smashing Pumpkins. However, there was a realisation now that I mustn’t be like them because they were placed in the highest-level class together. They mostly felt confused, or even deceived, like I had been pretending. I noticed them checking my reactions more closely when telling a story, as if to wonder, ‘Is he even like us?’

I also remember the moment of the exam that put me there. After it finished, I was trembling, because I knew the mistake I had made. As people filed out of the room, I hung back to explain to my teacher. On the multiple-choice answer sheet, I wrote the answer to the sample question, and so every response was off by one. Surrounded by the dark wood panelling of St. Patrick’s College, I still remember his disinterested, pitying face. He almost shrugged, and I’m not even sure he said much except that the exam is over. He thought I deserved the grade I got for making such a… stupid mistake.

I didn’t mention it to anyone else after that confirmation that I should be ashamed. I knew I was different because I would daydream or miss jokes, and this experience, along with others like it, would cement the idea that the world believed different was bad.

Thankfully, my family moved, and I was settled into a smaller school that didn’t have enough students for stratification. I lost touch with my friends almost immediately. And yet I remember writing letters to my primary school friend, Brett, despite it having been two years since we last saw each other. Class separation meant more than temporal.

I blame those friends a bit, especially since they felt quite comfortable making fun of kids in the lower-level class. But they were ten years old: Where else should they get their signals from if not adults with an objective measure? With a recognised system for determining the competency of people’s minds?

Part Two: The Clinic

Psychiatrists are much like those teachers, but for adults, and this has hit me hard again with my move back to Australia from the US. GPs (primary care doctors) and psychiatrists have told me I need to go through the diagnosis of ADHD entirely afresh.

The process is about three months and, including GP visits, costs around $2,000. Not only is it long, it’s excruciating, with questions designed for children. Literally, because adult diagnosis is a retrofitted version of childhood diagnostics. They ask questions like, “Do you get out of your seat when you’re not supposed to?” No, I don’t, because I doodle on a notepad and that’s how I channel my movement. That is, I’ve adapted. It’s like they did a find and replace for “classroom”, “teacher”, and “homework” with “boardroom”, “colleagues”, and “work tasks.”

If you had to design a process to frustrate the ADHD mind, you would design what psychiatrists have designed for diagnosing ADHD. It involves a lot of reading about very boring process details, irrelevant questionnaires, repetitive interrogations about the specifics of past events, and requires consistency in behaviour.

This would be easy for a neurotypical person, who is not put off by boredom and is comfortable responding to the checklist questions, giving the expected answer without any extraneous details. I know people who easily got Adderall for university exams, and they look at me baffled when I say that the first time I got diagnosed as an adult in the US was hard. One said, “You just tell them what they want to hear.” That actually never occurred to me. I always thought it would be best to explain my experience, so they can decide whether it aligns with their diagnosis.

Those with ADHD tell a familiar story of the difficulties of adult diagnosis, with some giving up. One psychiatrist commented to a friend, ‘Well, you have a job and a stable marriage, so it doesn’t matter.’ There are also misdiagnoses leading to devastating consequences, like a psychotic episode on the wrong medication, such as with Ben Grubb. And even after a psychiatrist correctly diagnosed him with ADHD, they refused medication. Now with his correct diagnosis and medication, he’s finally hopeful of living his best life, or as he put it, “<insert happy ending here>.” There are countless stories of people having difficulty getting an adult diagnosis, such as Matilda Boseley, who wrote a book on her experience, saying, “…my therapist missed it, my doctors missed it, but TikTok figured it out in a couple of weeks.”

If it were easy for someone to get a late diagnosis for ADHD, it should be immediately disqualifying. If it was hard and drawn out, it should never be questioned again. These anecdotes, and my experience of getting diagnosed several times, lead me to believe that psychiatrists are probably both overdiagnosing and underdiagnosing ADHD.

The irrelevant questionnaires are the depression/anxiety questions, which they ask every time you mention ADHD. They are concerned with the comorbidities of depression and anxiety, but this concern is like focusing on the embers of a fire instead of dealing with the gas pipe fueling it.

I actually love how my anxiety has helped me cope with being Undiagnosed-ADHD. Concerned about forgetting an event? No matter—I’ll just be on hyper-alert constantly for every event, checking my calendar hourly. Worried about saying the wrong thing at an event? No matter—I’ll just track everyone’s emotional state and try to please them with what they want to hear. Worried about accidentally answering the practice question? No matter—I’ll just put in extreme amounts of effort into every work task, overdelivering constantly until I burn out.

As Andy Bull’s song ‘Keep on Running’ says, “I try so hard it isn’t funny.” It really feels like an ADHD anthem about how hard we work to fit into a muggle world. So, yes, psychiatrist, I have anxiety. Well done. Can we now focus on the forest instead of the trees?

Another requirement from a psychiatrist that just made me cry was for reports from primary school and my parents, detailing ADHD behaviour from that time. The idea that I would keep any reports as someone who is neurologically hard-wired to live in the present is painfully ignorant. And my parents’ remembering my behaviour in the simple, checkbox way that psychiatrists require it is ridiculous, not least because one, if not both, has ADHD (it’s as genetic as height).

The diagnostic questionnaires for ADHD ask about consistent behaviour, no matter the environment or motivation. Motivation is actually the key difference for ADHD. We are driven by INCUP: Interest, Novelty, Challenge, Urgency, and Passion. Neurotypicals are driven by what you see everywhere in the world, from prisons to promotions, that is, Rewards and Consequences.

We enjoy rewards and try to avoid negative consequences, but we’re not driven by them. Neurotypicals can be energised by the idea of money alone. We’re energised by the idea of using money for a holiday. Similarly, we’re not demotivated by the prospect of persecution if we have interest, urgency, or passion. It makes sense that every revolutionary leader would have had ADHD: The ability to sense people’s feelings, and the motivation to get it done—personal consequences be damned.

So when I’m answering the question, “How often do you avoid or delay starting tasks that require sustained mental effort?” It misses the motivation. If it’s a task I’m interested in, the answer is never. If it’s a task I’m not interested in, every time.

But the psychiatrists continue with their questions that infect the thinking of others in healthcare who look up to them:

• “How often do you have difficulty sustaining attention in tasks or play activities?” Either none or a lot.

• “How often do you get easily distracted by extraneous stimuli, even during tasks that interest you?” Depends on the stimulus. If it’s a song on repeat for 4 hours, no distraction, but if it’s a pair of keys sitting slightly awkwardly in my pocket, constantly.

• “How often do you fail to give close attention to details or make careless mistakes in work or other activities?” The judgment in this one is worth noting, “careless”, implying that we don’t care, but aside from that, what if your work doesn’t require close attention to details?

The most absurd request I saw from a psychiatrist was for a drug test. Recreational drug abuse is a key risk factor for people with ADHD. So if they are abusing drugs, they need help more than most, with the correct medication rather than self-medication like cocaine. The drug test should be to prove there is recreational drug use, and send those patients to the front of the line for treatment.

It was also just offensive: The presumption that because I want prescription medication, I am a drug addict. I picked up this sense from psychiatrists that they are concerned about how much we want stimulant medication. I’m not surprised they’re suspicious because it must be unusual for psychiatrists to see patients happy with their medication. This says so much about the medication they usually prescribe and should raise questions.

Neurotypicals using ADHD medications recreationally is primarily the reason for the scrutiny. But this is where psychiatrists could be our advocates, making access easier with monitoring from more accessible health professionals. Instead, the ANZ College of Psychiatrists discouraged empowering GPs to help with prescriptions and diagnosis: “Psychiatrists are uniquely trained to assess, diagnose, and manage ADHD.” Reading that aloud, I can’t keep a straight face, it’s so patently ridiculous.

It was my GP who raised ADHD with me because she was late diagnosed herself. She mentioned a podcast about a woman’s late diagnosis for me to listen to, sending me on a journey of self-discovery that I’m forever grateful for.

Part Three: The Culture

If I were a conspiratorial type, I would say that psychiatrists hate ADHDers. From the very beginning, they held us in contempt with the most inaccurate name for a condition. ‘Attention Deficit’ is the exact opposite of what people with ADHD experience, which is excess attention on everything. What they meant by deficit was a lack of attention on them.

Other names for the “impairment”, as psychiatrists would like to describe it, have been suggested. Variable Attention Stimulus Trait, or VAST, is one. But it’s a non-psychiatrist, Thom Hartmann, who came up with the most helpful, explanatory term: “Hunters”. When listing all the abilities ADHDers have, or ‘symptoms’, they make for a great hunter: Constant attention to all information, such as a twig breaking as much as a river gushing; Preferring constant movement; Obsession with novelty, discovering what’s just around the riverbend; Ignoring injuries when on the hunt; Calm in a crisis; And higher risk tolerance.

To be fair to psychiatrists, Hunters would always find it hard to hide our lack of admiration because we are innately better at observing people. Hunters notice everything at once, like a flat wall of information, where an eye twitch is as important as what someone is saying. I imagine neurotypicals see information in peaks and troughs. For instance, ‘Hello, my name is Jill,’ is a peak, and Jill running her finger behind her neck is a trough. I would remember her as ‘Finger-on-Neck Woman’ because it is the more novel detail that is worthy of processing.

Despite this, I would say we’re not good at reading people when we are personally involved. We assume people’s discomfort is about us, having had so many correcting signals as children of our natural behaviour. It’s like a Greek tragedy—we’re a kind of Cassandra who can see the future but isn’t believed—in that we can sense others’ vibes instantly but don’t believe ourselves to not be the problem. Of course, I now realise most people are battling crushing insecurities and hardly thinking of others at all.

Building on their lack of noticing, conversations with psychiatrists can feel like checklists. I am surprised that they always want a direct, specific answer, because in my experience of market research, this is rarely where the truth lies. Direct answers are always what people want you to think.

The clearest demonstration of the uselessness of direct answers is vodka brands. Vodka, by law in the US, can’t have any “distinct character, aroma, taste or flavor.” In blind taste tests, people consistently fail. But what people tell me is that they can taste the craftsmanship, or the French grapes, or the potatoes, or the extra filtration. What they mean is: It says I’m rich (Crystal), or it says I like nice things often (Grey Goose), or it says I’m practical but not cheap (Tito’s), or it says I’m ready to get drunk (Smirnoff). No one has ever answered this question directly.

Thinking they understood this, I would tell psychiatrists that in high school, I got grades of around 95% or around 60%. When a teacher handed me a prize for being in the top 1% in the state for economics, he was actually distraught, “I don’t understand you, Clinton. How can you get this, but you don’t put in any effort for your assignments?” Psychiatrists glaze over when I tell this story. They’re waiting for my answer to the question, “Did you have good grades in high school?” And they’re not sure how to interpret this confusing, both-sides-of-the-coin anecdote. I would feel for them if this wasn’t the point of their job—I’m not telling this story to my barista.

After that story, the psychiatrist told me it is very hard to diagnose ADHD, and many psychiatrists struggle with it. That’s when it clicked for me that there’s a problem with the profession. Because I think most people would hear that story as textbook ADHD, and even the fact that I told a meandering story is indicative enough.

I don’t expect there are many psychiatrists with ADHD. Their long and tedious accreditation process would be an instant turn-off for Hunters who are already better at the job’s key requirement. We have few advocates on the inside.

Hartmann didn’t just name ADHDers ‘Hunters’, he also named neurotypicals ‘Farmers’. A Farmer works slowly, methodically, enjoys predictability, sows and waits for reward, and doesn’t have a constant need for novelty.

If I were to pathologise Farmers in the same way Hunters have been, these would be my top concerns:

1. Slower decision-making

2. Slower pivoting

3. Low curiosity

4. Hypofocus

5. Lack of broad awareness

6. Need for trivial tasks through habit

7. Higher dishonesty

8. Groupthink

9. Highly anxious in crises

10. Contentment with suboptimal situations that erode productivity or enjoyment.

That last one I’ve termed ‘Neurotypical Decay.’ It’s when they sit in a restaurant with bad lighting and don’t notice their slowly creeping agitation. Or when they stay in a loveless marriage for decades.

But I don’t want to pathologise Farmers. I see them as doing things I’d rather not do, and I’m thankful.

It’s no wonder Hunters have turned to social media to gain compassion, a better understanding of themselves, and learn how to embrace and work with their traits. It’s such an indictment on the psychiatric profession that something so toxic as social media has provided so much comfort.

A psychiatrist who gets called up to explain ADHD on the TV is Patrick McGorry. He writes in a tabloid newspaper that, “This consumer-driven phenomenon is both dramatic and fascinating, and is fuelled at least in part by social contagion or ‘fashion’.” The pseudo-science vibe to his statements makes them seem legitimate, but it really just comes from the fact that, as he earlier states, one in 20 is a lot of people to be diagnosed. He’s the Principal Skinner of psychiatry.

It wouldn’t be the first time psychiatrists saw a large number of people report an experience and ignore it. Sigmund Freud discovered that basically all women had been sexually abused at some point. He received pushback when he first revealed that, and so he settled on the much less brave conclusion that they were making it up. History certainly rhymes.

I have an estimate of the number of people who would be Hunters, and it’s based on a hypothesis rather than a vibe. Imagine two hunter-gatherer groups, one with only Hunters and the other with only Farmers. The disadvantage to the Farmer group would be substantial, leading to starvation and likely extinction before long. But the Hunter group would excel. Hunter-gatherer groups would therefore always have a certain number of ADHD members to maintain a competitive edge. Given the size of hunter-gatherer groups was about 20 to 30 people, they would need one to two ADHD super-hunters in active service, one to two younger ones on the way, and one to two older ones on the way out. For groups of 20 to 30, that’s 20%.

If you think you may be a Hunter, seek out someone who already identifies as one. I was thankful to have a GP and a close friend who both mentioned it. I’ve diagnosed people within 10 minutes of meeting them, going on to describe parts of their lives that they thought no one would ever know or guess. “Are you, like, a witch?” Someone joked. In the past year, I’ve diagnosed about 15 people, with perhaps two being incorrect, but others saying they’ve been told that before, and at least three have gone on to get ‘formal’ diagnoses from psychiatrists, for whatever that’s worth.

The problem is probably bigger than poor psychiatrists, who themselves are just victims of the structure of healthcare that’s more accurately sickcare. Because, as McGorry says, it’s only ADHD if it “…Meets the essential criterion for a disorder, namely that the symptoms interfere with, or reduce the quality of, social, school, or work functioning.”

Preventative care is not part of the remit. It’s all about dealing with problems once they’ve destroyed lives.

The Lagoon in Mollymook, where I took a meditation break

Much like self-driving cars. Imagine if we put the same effort into making human drivers slightly better—such as driver training, idiot-proof road design, policing, and drunk-driving policies—as we do into making the environment better for self-driving cars? But we prefer to exert extreme effort to achieve a small improvement rather than put in less effort and be more creative to achieve a 90% improvement.

It’s a society-wide problem not to have the imagination of exceptionally better outcomes. So ADHD intelligence is often sidelined, not just by psychiatrists but by many people. Psychiatrists could be a part of the ADHD equation, but they don’t deserve their current role as chief arbiter, given the experiences of so many. I’m encouraged by New South Wales pushing ahead with empowering GPs to diagnose ADHD, against the wishes of psychiatrists.

Whenever I suspect someone has ADHD, my first step is to share with them clarifying and empowering clips from social media. It turns their initial dismay into excitement at the possibilities for unleashing their true nature, working with their abilities rather than against them. My favourite is the cute couple with the double-meaning handle of “ADHD Love”.

I don’t know what life I could have lived if I didn’t have to spend so much of it being misunderstood. But I know it gave me an obsession with understanding itself. Every job I’ve had has been focused on it, helping people understand themselves, each other, and the world. It’s truly joyful to almost see tears in people’s eyes as they say I’ve understood their life’s work better than anyone before. Every time I experience that, the ten-year-old me, being misunderstood in a cold classroom, is restored a little more.

Many American cultural artefacts resonate outside America, of course. McDonald’s embodies American efficient capitalism. Starbucks is American everyday affluence. Smirnoff is reliable American alcohol. But the Australian favourites aren’t these. Instead, they struck a different pattern, and it stuck with me.

To step inside the neurodivergent brain for a second, I can tell you, I tried ignoring these thoughts. I would tell myself: ‘There’s nothing to this. People like American culture. You were just in South America, and the admiration for American culture was everywhere. LET. IT. GO.’ What could need less explanation than the pervasiveness of American culture?

But my brain kept being unnerved whenever it noticed another related data point. Neurodivergent pattern recognition is a lot like synesthesia, where related data have a similar feeling. And an unexplained pattern is a very intrusive thought. It glares at me, demanding my attention to explain it.

I was finally hit with a relieving explanation that seemed to effortlessly connect all the data, uniting them and distinguishing them. And it hit via a booty shaking on a bar counter on a Thursday night at Stonewall Hotel in Sydney (yes, named in honour of the American one). Go-go dancers had hopped up on the stage, after the staff had cleaned the surface and even created a clearance area. Patrons began gingerly placing US dollar bills into their various straps—printed copies available for pre-purchase. It was a performance of American struggle, according to strict Australian health and safety regulations, of course. Despite the nature of the performance, it wasn’t as much a sexual fetishisation as a fetishisation of American economic struggle.

Seeing the discarded fake one-dollar bills made me feel uncomfortable. I’ve known drag performers struggle for every one of those in New York. There is a ‘bit’ that drag performers do to parody how desperately they need every dollar, where they take a bill and hold it up to the light, like Simba over the savanna. Or they run around, grabbing their dollars frantically in high heels, the contrast of elegance and desperation always getting a chuckle. But this is them sharing their struggle and owning their struggle because it’s their struggle to own. They’re joking but not pretending.

The way the fake US bills work is that it doesn’t actually matter what you do with the piece of paper because they are pre-purchased. So the dancers ‘working for tips’ are indeed pretending. And it hardly matters when compared to their minimum wage, which for a non-salary employee is $31, plus mandatory 12% super (as in superannuation, which is like American 401ks), plus a “penalty rate” for late-night work of a few dollars per hour, plus a minimum of a 3-hour shift, whether or not you work for the whole 3 hours—all before adding any additional pay for being a dancer. Just showing up for a minute guarantees $120. This isn’t America.

That night made me revisit all the data points that had led up to it. I saw the Trader Joe’s bags in the formerly working-class neighbourhood of Collingwood, Melbourne. Collingwood types love a working-class aesthetic to adorn their multimillion-dollar lifestyles. There’s a beer and wine shop that uses the classic working-class beer, Victoria Bitter, as candle holders, but not for sale—VB doesn’t sit alongside their small-batch craft creations and exclusive vintages. The Trader Joe’s bags caught my attention because they didn’t fit any patterns I knew. The design is intentionally non-distinct. It’s a brand that says you’re a practical, money-conscious millennial who wants affordable, good food.

I first heard about Trader Joe’s from a hard-working artistic couple whose place my friend and I stayed at in the East Village on my inaugural visit. Their fourth-floor walk-up apartment was cluttered and charming, with a loud air conditioner, a sloped floor, and a door that, terrifyingly, would sometimes lock from the inside. We loved it. And of all the East Village landmarks they pointed out, I remember their love for Trader Joe’s most vividly. It seemed odd to love a supermarket, so I took note and made sure to visit. I saw a few more organic items than in other supermarkets, the prices were a little more affordable, but the lines were ridiculously long, weaving through the store. I didn’t buy anything and left.

It was only when I moved to the US, five years later, that it clicked. An upper estimate is that one-third of what’s sold in most American supermarkets would be illegal to sell in Australia. But Trader Joe’s sells mostly real food, and it’s affordable, unlike the high-end Whole Foods. This isn’t a supermarket—it’s a lifeline to people on a budget and dying from food poisoning. But to Australians, it’s a cute tote.

Beef brisket is surprisingly popular in Australian restaurants. It’s made with top-quality beef, a fresh potato bun, subtle sauces, and always with a price premium. I remember sharing my excitement about ordering some brisket in the US, to the bemusement of Americans, looking at me sideways: “Are you sure you want that?” Brisket is usually a mix of the inedible parts of beef, doused in a sugary sauce to mask its taste and texture. It’s only the low-end food of America that makes it to Australia, and in the process, gets a gourmet makeover, making it nothing like the original except in aesthetic: donuts, wings, and even mac and cheese, which will be made with three cheeses, truffle oil, and lobster. It’s all pretend rather than practical.

While I question the choices, I’m not entirely above it. My favourite was the red Solo cups. I photographed them in situ often, again to the bemusement of Americans who consider them quotidian or worse, once telling me, “Oh please don’t buy red Solo cups for our multimillion dollar beach house—we have nice cups there already.” I thought that response was odd because the cups are not meant to be ‘nice’ and that’s the point. It’s kitsch. To me, it sounded like saying, ‘I don’t like Warhol because I don’t eat much soup.’

I eventually learnt that Americans were oblivious to all this and started keeping my preferences to myself, such as for Fireball Whisky. It is low quality and mostly a functional way to have alcohol straight without it being too acerbic. It’s what you shot if you haven’t learned how to handle tequila. I’ve seen the little bottles smuggled into bars and downed to save a few bucks on drinks. Meanwhile, Australians can buy a Fireball-branded keg, yours to keep, for $400, “Enhance your home bar with this limited-edition whisky keg,” the seller attests. Or you can buy a one-litre bottle for $100, double the price in New York. Australian alcohol taxes aside, it’s clear there’s a premium on kitsch.

Rich people donning the lower-class aesthetic isn’t new, of course. There’s even a great song about the phenomenon, “Common People,” and I’ve been listening to the William Shatner version while writing this. But it’s rare for an entire culture to get on board with it, and to not like much else about American culture—you can keep your Starbucks.

I immediately enjoyed the grittiness of that first East Village experience, of feeling like a struggling artist, hustling, and imagining making ends meet between Trader Joe’s and dive bars. When I moved to New York, the hustle turned from aesthetic to reality. I began to know intimately friends who kept a brave face and positive attitude despite cobbling together short-term, low-paid work because their artistic profession wasn’t panning out. Or even the corporate hustlers, still counting their coins to build a defensive barrier in the bank in case they lose their ‘at-will employment’ position, which also means losing healthcare, and having to face crushing mortgage payments on top of already crushing student debt. It all made me feel a bit ashamed for initially being, as the song goes, “A Tourist who thinks it’s all such a laugh.”

I became one of those hustlers too, working harder than I’ve ever worked in my life to make it. So to see it back in Australia as an aesthetic while people enjoy the highest levels of wealth in the world, with a median income behind only Luxembourg, it hits differently. I felt gross seeing those one-dollar bills on the floor.

Every time I explained to Americans that these tacky things are prized kitsch in Australia, they never quite knew what I meant, and they were right. Because I didn’t know what I meant. We are cosplaying, as a new Canadian friend described the spectacle in the bar. Cosplaying their real struggle, perhaps to connect to something more real in a country with not-real problems. Pretending to enjoy low-quality food, pretending to save money with a cheap drink, and pretending to need tips for healthcare. And again, that song explains it well:

Rent a flat above a shop
And cut your hair and get a job
And smoke some fags and play some pool
Pretend you never went to school
But still you’ll never get it right
‘Cause when you’re laid in bed at night
Watching roaches climb the wall
If you called your dad he could stop it all

A survey by an Australian expat group found that 95% of Australian expats expect they will return to Australia.

That is to say, we could call our dad.

But the introversion of the people kills me. Getting information is like pulling teeth. We visited Lark Whisky’s bar, The Still, because my friend said they had a huge range of Tassie whiskies. However, for some reason, there wasn’t the huge range he remembered, and we were curious. We didn’t ask the waiter because his opener for taking orders was, “Talk to me.” I get the casual, efficient vibe he’s going for, but it didn’t help us. We googled and still, no answers. As we were paying our bill, my friend asked, “I came here a while ago and I remember there was a map of Tassie—” but the bartender cut him off, “I’ve only been here 7 months, so I don’t know about a map.” My friend finished his sentence, “It was a map with all the whiskies of Tasmania. Has there been a change in management or…?” The bartender repeated himself, “No. No. I don’t know about a map.” I noticed he was physically self-soothing, lightly rubbing his arm due to the discontent he felt talking for 30 seconds.

Another option would have been, “Oh yeah? I dunno, sorry, you could ask one of the other guys here.” I’m not expecting what I’m used to in New York of American extrovert-level engagement, which would be something like, “Oh wow, really? You sure it was here? When did you come? Let me ask the guys for you. Did you have a good time tonight? You like whisky? Oh, you live locally. Maybe see you again sometime? My name’s John. What’s yours?” I could go on for hours describing the obvious ways to both resolve the question and improve human connection. But at least now I giggle inside when I remember him saying, “I don’t know about a map,” as if under interrogation.

Another example was at a bottle shop, where I at least got information, but not much else. I asked the cashier if he had any mixers, “Last fridge over there,” he said. I returned relieved, “Oh wow, you have so many. That’s great. I didn’t expect you to have any at all! That’s really helpful.” He didn’t respond at all. He just scanned the drinks, never looked at me, and said, “Just tap there.” That was it. He wasn’t busy; I was the only customer. But what’s interesting is that I didn’t think he was unkind at all; he seemed positive and had helped me instantly when asked. He just felt no need to respond, verbally or non-verbally.

I even discovered that introversion is built into their spaces when I tried one of my favourite things: Going to a bar by myself. I visited one of their beautiful bars, “In the Hanging Garden,” which looks how it sounds. I enjoy the feeling of being around people for my extroversion, so a bar is great for an occasional chat or just vibe while I write or think. But it was a serious challenge just to sit down. I thought I must’ve missed something because there was literally nowhere for one person to sit unless I took a huge five-person table for myself. I did do that, but eventually felt bad when I saw a group of women looking for a table. I waved them over and left. Not just were the tables for groups only, but they were also separated from each other by a meter or more, and even an igloo.

I imagined how sad it would be for someone who was transferred here for a 6-month work project and needed some human interaction. I visualised them and genuinely felt sad for this imaginary human, who I’m sure isn’t imaginary.

I share these insignificant examples of introversion instead of many others precisely because they are small. They remove many of the possible variables. We weren’t hitting on people, nor were we trying to get money or sell something, or even wanting these people to like us.

Introversion isn’t bad, of course, but extremes of anything, especially in homogenous groups, can create problems. Tasmanians are clearly clever and creative, yet they are deeply reliant on federal funding, being the largest state recipient of grants by far. There isn’t a shared vision for the future that could alleviate some of this mainland dependence. While introversion is great for generating ideas, extroversion is essential for sharing them.

Tasmania has achieved visionary feats before with its museum and world-class whisky, but they’re exceptions that prove the rule. MONA and its festival, Dark Mofo, were driven by one eccentric multimillionaire. Their most lauded export is a quietly savoured drink that is judged on its objective quality—no discussion needed.

I recall the first time I saw Hobart as a backdrop while one of their many politicians was speaking. There was nothing distinctive. No arts institution, no feat of engineering, no concentration of skyscrapers. It’s like the whole city is saying: We don’t know what our vision is either. Depressingly, all that’s distinctive is a casino. And a drab 70s one at that.

The island is clinging to past visions, with industries not economically viable and actually harming viable alternatives, such as tourism. An 84-year-old pulp mill, an 108-year-old zinc smelter, and a 200-year-old logging industry rely heavily on government support, with each worker costing between $20,000 and $300,000 in government grants. You could cut out the middlemen and simply put everyone on welfare, and it would cost less. And at least then you’d save an ecosystem or two.

Seeing my first platypus in the wild in the town of Geeveston

There is one vision for the future that’s the talk of the town: A new waterfront stadium. But it’s more of the same, almost like Tasmanians are used to the idea that businesses are meant to cost money rather than generate money. According to all reports, it’s not economically viable, and, amazingly, the people agree. A wide margin does not support it, but the politicians on both sides simply lack alternative ideas. And who can blame them: The stadium benefits from the social substructure of sport to communicate and campaign for it.

There are interesting ideas for the waterfront that have a decent chance of making money, but this is the tragedy of Tasmania: Good ideas float off into the mist of the Huon.

I imagine a well-thought-out alternative design being humbly advocated for by a nerdy, unfashionable glasses-wearing urban planner. He emails his plan to a committee—never presenting it, of course—and ends with, “No, I don’t know about a map.”

You just have to visit Tasmania to learn about it because you’ll never hear how great it is. Certainly not from Tasmanians.

Message to friends after a few days back in Australia

The whole time I kept thinking, ‘Why haven’t I been here?’ I wanted to find fault in the place, but all I found was something I couldn’t fault in myself: Seeking out a challenge for growth and change.

It’s all the little niceties that can pass unnoticed but bring about a cumulative kindness in yourself and others. Like gliding through international customs in minutes without any yelling. To the sparkly clean elevators taking you to the station directly under the airport. To the quiet train, also sparkly and with space to sit, that gets to the city center in 15 minutes for 15USD. To the classic exterior and modern interior of the ferry to Manly, with smiling deckhands, dispositions no doubt aided by their six-figure salary. And when I arrived in Manly at a cafe, The Pantry, chosen by my parents mostly for its beach view, the food exceeded most breakfasts I had in New York. The irony is that I was initially frustrated not to go to Ruby Lane, which was the cafe recommended by my friend who used to live here. I remembered that most random cafes here are, at worst, equivalent to the best in America.

What you put in your body is the most dramatic shift. The tomatoes, kale, and bread taste unlike any I’ve had in the US, except at the most expensive restaurants—those where they have their own farm-to-table supply chain costing $100 plus per meal. Eating food in Australia is like when Willy Wonka says, “And the strawberries taste like strawberries!” I forgot how delicious everyday food can be. The keyword being ‘everyday’: Everyday food, everyday coffee, everyday vistas.

I discussed my love of bread with a personal trainer friend in Sydney, expecting judgment, but he said Australian bread is fine, and that American nutrition advice—such as being down on bread—is sometimes not relevant. It’s easy to find less processed bread, and sugar-free is standard. I flashed back to my astonishment when I arrived in New York and couldn’t find sugar-free bread unless I dug through Whole Foods. Weirdly, Australian bread tastes sweeter, which makes you realize that the added corn syrup is hiding some other deficiency. For Australians visiting the US, I always warned them to only visit Whole Foods, as it’s almost as good as a bog-standard Australian supermarket.

It’s not that everything in Australia is better than everything in America; it’s that the minimum is higher, which is what most experience. Rich people floating between countries and only buying expensive things would barely notice a difference. I remember complaining about American chocolate making me sick to an Australian in her high-ceiling, pre-war DUMBO penthouse, and she paused and replied, “I haven’t experienced that.” It hit me: She wasn’t eating Hershey’s. She was having Lilac from the West Village.

Back in Australia, I was preparing to have a friend over and went to the Australian default: European cheeses and crackers. I knew the cheeses, but I forgot which crackers were the best. And then, duh, they were right there, the ones everyone gets, the second-cheapest, and they would be the best an American would buy at Westside Market.

Breakfast time in Avalon

In the seaside village of Avalon in Sydney’s far north, I opened Google Maps to search “Coffee, Top Rated, Open Now,” but it was another ‘duh’ moment: Any cafe I wander past is phenomenal and would be better than the best of what I’m used to. I’ve had an anxiety-inducing amount of flat whites, but I don’t care. I missed the everyday ease.

If America and Continental Europe had a baby, it would be Australia. In the 20th century, Australia, like much of the world, turned to America as the future (specifically since 1942 when the country felt abandoned by its former ‘great and powerful friend’, Britain), while at the same time importing Continental Europeans at a rapid rate under the doctrine of ‘populate or perish’. For the first time in 150 years, the overwhelmingly Irish and English descendants, sequestered at the end of the world, were being exposed to new cultures. Despite the usual racism that accompanies such influxes, they were embracing changes with gusto. I believe it’s for this reason that the Italian, Greek, and French influences have stuck, as has the habit of embracing the culture of newcomers. (Fun fact: Australian English uses more French words than British or American English, with ‘thongs’ being the most alarming example.) Facets of cultures from subsequent waves from Asia, and more recently from Latin America and Africa, have become mainstream in a way few other societies tend to absorb. It’s not a patchwork of cultures in Australia; it’s a tossed salad.

There are glimpses of America and Europe everywhere. The highways of Sydney evoke those of America, while the cutesy metro system of Melbourne, with its royal blue, evokes that of Paris. The smaller cars are European. The skyscrapers in the city centers are American. The artistic, designer train stations are European. The big beer barns are American. The cutesy cafes are European. The outdoor, rugged lifestyle is American. The joie de vivre attitude—the point of life is to be enjoyed—is European. It’s American casual with European conscientious quality. Or as Americans would say, peanut butter and chocolate.

I’m aware I’m going to the best places to inform this feeling in the first month. Manly is one of Sydney’s best beaches. Avalon is near where Nicole Kidman holidays. And Surry Hills, where I stayed with a friend, is the best inner city neighborhood in Sydney. So these places aren’t everywhere in Australia, but they are somewhere, and that’s the difference.

The best of America gets close, but they’re not as accessible and not as good. Whether it’s Montauk, Park City, West Hollywood, West Village, East Village, Williamsburg, Fire Island Pines, Castro, a Nashville mansion, or Rhinebeck—all places I’ve stayed or lived. I’m comparing apples, both big and small.

In talking about how great Australia is, I’m less concerned that Americans would find it too gushing than I am Australians. Australians are reluctant to believe how great they have it, citing cost of living, low wage growth, high house prices, and diminishing professional opportunities. However, none of these are unique to Australia, and I like that they’re at the top of agendas. For instance, Sydney is pushing an aggressive housing development program unlike anything seen in its history.

The future is here: Driverless metro in Sydney

But I can’t fault Australians for continuing to complain rather than celebrate, because rejecting ‘good enough’ creates better.

I remember an American friend 10 years ago in Sydney, preparing for an argument with a group of us Aussies with the declarative, supposedly revelatory statement, “Wifi is really not good enough here, guys. I’m sorry. But it’s not.” We were confused by his politeness: Of course it wasn’t. Australians were well aware of the dismal comparisons with other countries and had been complaining about it for years. The complaining resulted in a national government initiative, with some success.

Australia has derisively, and later proudly, been called “The Lucky Country.” But Australia has been known as ‘lucky’ for almost three-quarters of a century now. Eventually, you have to wonder if there’s something else, like being ready to be lucky. I certainly feel ready to be lucky again.

Liza’s lyrics also kept coming into my head: “If I make it there, I’ll make it anywhere.” Did I make it here? A savant in psychology friend of mine said, “I've got to say I've always thought NYC is the ultimate Second Stage city. It's literally part of the marketing.” He’s referring to the concept in the book, “The Velvet Rage,” which outlines three stages of gay men dealing with their identity: denial, seeking validation, and self-acceptance. The iconic Liza line is a promise of validation like no other. Lena Dunham’s character in “Girls” believed it, giving herself a pep talk when hoping for a validating return to her hometown, “You’re from New York, you’re inherently interesting.” Surely satire, but I never know with that show.

The brand prestige of New York is real. Everyone you meet here is trying something. With varying degrees of ambition, but trying nonetheless. It is inspiring.

To make it here is to overcome struggle, as is the heart of every good story, and New York is a great story. “I think I’ve earned it,” said someone whom I asked if he was a New Yorker. No one has said, “I think I’ve earned ‘Californian’.” Some say 20 years is when you’ve earned it, and then there’s the added tier of Native New Yorker. I find this hierarchy nauseating and prefer the Fran Leibowitz definition: “A person who lives in New York.” Some people overcome struggle quicker, some never need to and are here forever; time isn’t much of a measure.

When I hopped off the plane at JFK with a dream and more than a cardigan in an unusually snowy January 2018, I didn’t know the form of that dream. Yet I believed that if I could make it anywhere, it would be here, because making connections is my personality, and this is the place for it. On my previous visits, first as a vacation in 2013, and then a couple more scouting visits to stress test whether I could live here, I was continually amazed at how easy it was. Not just because Americans are great at connection—I would say the best in the world—but because New York is an on-top-of-each-other town.

American socializing is peach-esque, with a soft, penetrable outer layer before an almost uncrackable core; they open up to the potential of connection, but deeper friendships are more difficult. Australian socializing is the opposite, being much more coconut, with a hard outer shell, but once you’re in, there are no more tests. These metaphors were developed in the 90s by business consultants training bemused Americans deployed around the world and getting cold receptions. Made even colder when coconuts interpret this unmoored positivity as deception, thinking something like, ‘No one can be that nice without knowing me.’

Australians call Americans fake. And they’re right, because optimism is faking positivity until it manifests as destiny. Australians fake negativity, which in social situations means being playfully mean. The purpose is to draw out vulnerability by testing your defensiveness.

If you need physical evidence of the difference, American bars, of which there are plenty within easy subway access in New York, have bar counter seating. Peaches squish together to get to know each other. Hardly any bars in Australia have bar seating, as people fortify their coconuts with a table or booth.

Standing on a boardwalk looking at the ocean in a hotbed of connection, Fire Island, I remember the most American approach, “Excuse me, do you have a lighter?” I replied, “No, I don’t smoke.” “Me neither,” he said, “I don’t even have a cigarette. I just wanted to say ‘hi’.” This pickup line demonstrates the fearlessness to seem stupid that is sometimes necessary for an introduction. Australians are terrified to a stifling extent of seeming stupid (however, in recent years, Americans could have a scooch more hesitation). Another time in an elevator, someone said, “Heading to the roof?” Well, yes, I thought, since it is the only stop left and I’m still in the elevator, but instead I said, “Yes! Looking for somewhere to read in the sun. Yourself?” Another in a Soho House pool started with a conversation involving me, but not to me, “Hey!” he said to his friend, “You’re splashing people,” and gave a general, “Sorry!” He wasn’t splashing me at all, but this is the public narration from a peach (I didn’t respond, having decided we didn’t have much in common given their conversation, which was an acceptable non-response response to their general statement).

There’s a formula. Narrate anything to the within-earshot target, make a tiny request, or apologize for nothing much. The insignificance is the point, as it doesn’t entrap people into a required response, which makes the response chosen, indicating reciprocal interest. And from the insignificant, it can be escalated to useful, one increment at a time, gauging interest along the way. For people approaching me, it’s always been, “Where’s your accent from!” There is excitement from the abundance of small talk that can unfold from an accent. Another avenue is a positive comment about the shared experience, “How nice is this pool!” Never negative (I’ve tried) because the positive context imbues optimism for the interaction. Or a throwaway compliment, “I like your shirt!” From there, if the responses are equally enthusiastic, you can increment your way into medium talk: “Where did you buy it? Is that where you’re from? Me too! Whereabouts? What do you do?” And before you know it, you’re talking about a job vacancy at their company.

The insignificance and increments allow for a feature that Australians are completely incompetent at: Exiting. If you don’t think you have much in common, you can choose not to respond to their first comment if it's general enough, or at least dial down the enthusiasm. Americans are looking for these signals in a muscle memory dance. They even have a magical phrase which means, ‘I am finished with this conversation and would like to leave now.’ I don’t think Americans are at all conscious of this, which is the beauty of social technology, because it’s in the water. The phrase goes like this, “It was really nice to meet you!” The degree of enthusiasm correlates with the desperation to leave. If you add a shoulder touch, it means you really want to leave. I was once demonstrating this to someone, and they thought I was actually leaving, the response being so conditioned. The problem with coconut cultures isn’t that they don’t know how to start conversations; it’s that they don’t have a mutually agreed-upon method of ending them.

My prophecy that New York would be suitable for a connection-obsessive was self-fulfilled within weeks. On March 4, 2018, I wrote to friends back home, a month after arriving: “I've had remarkable luck in New York, and it’s thanks to the kindness of strangers; ready to open themselves to a new friend.” I went on to add a reflection of how much harder I found it in Sydney, meaning I was a constant, not a variable, “It was such a problem in Sydney that I consciously tried to overcome it for people new to the city.” Maybe I earned ‘Sydneysider.’

The luck I was referring to was securing a delightful share apartment in my favorite neighborhood, the East Village, with a caring flatmate I just met, growing my inner circle of fascinating friends of artists of all media, marketers who cared about their craft, and people with jobs I never knew existed, like a specialist in textiles. And a life-changing job, “I know you applied as a writer, but you’re a better strategist,” said my new boss in classic New York directness. It took me two weeks after landing in New York to land this contract for the global rebrand of Smirnoff, where I collated and analyzed international research on how the newly number two vodka in the US could prevent that happening elsewhere (and it worked).

I came to this contract through a contact at a party, after a series of yeses that weren't my preference. I didn’t like the club, and I can’t remember the people I went with or who invited me to the after-party where I met the contact. I wrote to friends back home again to detail my ‘say yes’ approach with a list of things I said yes to in my first couple of months, along with my internal monologue:

“I always say ‘yes’:

• Yes, I’m free this weekend even though I have a tonne of errands.

• Yes, I want to go to a pumping dance party with a steep cover charge which I later realize is because no one orders drinks because everyone is on Molly, gyrating to unrecognizable, melody-less music.

• Yes, I want to go bowling even though I suck at it and it’s objectively boring.

• Yes, I want to play laser tag even though I’m well over 30.

• Yes, I want to go to an expensive seafood brunch, blowing my budget on my least favorite food at the worst time of day to eat it.

• And finally, and perhaps worst of all, Yes, I want to go to a spin class.”

I also talked about my focus on finding and connecting with nodes, “This is going to sound exploitative and strategic, but when I identify these people, I make time for them, and give little concern to our compatibility.”

After Smirnoff, I got a contract for brand work on Rockefeller Center through a connection I made in a booth at an ice hockey game (again, not a thing I wanted to say yes to). Strange to brand an icon that has a clear story, but it’s about finding what doesn’t flow in the narrative. In their case, literal flow, because I introduced them to the concept of wayfinding, well-established in the less-talkative Australia where asking for directions makes you seem stupid. I’m no Liza (yet), but my contribution is now obvious, and importantly for wayfinding, not obvious, everywhere on that landmark.

By year two, I moved from contracts to a permanent role in a dream position, under a mentor-like boss who struck a delicate balance between instruction and empowerment. I developed original methodologies and refined stories to crack clients’ creativity blocks and get them to own their identity. CO OP Brand Co. referred to itself as an academy due to its alumni's tendency to advance to more senior roles. And they were right.

I became a strategy director at one of the big agencies next and eventually had my own business. Specializing in startups because I was drawn to their pace, I believed that if I could connect directly with founders, I could take their brand to more creative places. In the last two years, I’ve done the most creative and fulfilling work of my life. I got a nonprofit to reflect the urgency of a tech company. I got a primary care brand to live their revolutionary spirit of challenging insurers. I got two boutique consultancies to redefine themselves as change agents. And so many more. We’ve branded 23 companies in 2 and a half years. My business is appropriately called The Connected.

It’s only in writing this that I think: ‘Okay, that’s a dream you’ve made.’

Like me, Lorde moved to New York about 7 years ago, which is when she recorded Melodrama. One of the tracks, “Green Light,” which is about rebirth, became my theme tune. That sentiment is calling me again. Australia is inspiring with once-in-a-century infrastructure investments across the three major cities. People can still talk about politics without violence. I’ve also changed, because although I’m returning to the land of coconuts, I know like never before that there is juice just under the husk. And while some of my favorite people are in the US, I’ve come to miss my favorite people in Australia. Finally, all the American problems have sapped my enthusiasm for working here. I just don’t feel the dream anymore. So I’ll take my growth as an endpoint and decide that I did ‘make it’. Because dreams don’t really end, you just wake up.

That’s actually what the process feels like, too, during the intravenous infusion: Everything happening all at once. I remember having numerous interconnected thoughts and trying to follow them to interesting conclusions; initially, I would will myself to reach that fascinating insight. But I was hit with a sense of: ‘It’s OK. You always have this in you.’ Stimulated and alleviated all at once.

The first session is the slowest and lowest dose, 30 milligrams over 90 minutes, to monitor your response, as your body is unadapted. Testament to that lack of adaptation, it was my most intense. This is despite the latter four sessions being incrementally higher doses over shorter periods, reaching 45 milligrams over 65 minutes by the fifth, along with a nausea aid which I hadn’t previously felt I needed. I did 5 sessions instead of the recommended 6 because at $525 each, I thought I could shave off one, since doctors always give an extra dose to be sure. I was here to discover trauma, not for a fun time.

I was brought into a nice, if clinical, small room with aluminum Venetian blinds, letting in reflected light from the office buildings of the Financial District. An intake nurse asked about my state of mind, recapped that the experience could feel floaty, that I may have hallucinations, but they’re not common, and a few other details. The previous one-hour intake with the supervising doctor, Dr. Glen Brooks, was very thorough already, and I had been reading about ketamine for years. I especially liked that he said I didn’t need to do or expect anything during the infusion, as the drug will do all the work, both at the time and in the days and weeks ahead. That tracked, given this treatment was discovered by accident. Administered to soldiers in the Vietnam War for pain, it surprisingly treated the newly discovered PTSD. I can’t imagine doctors in a field hospital waving incense, lighting candles, or playing Native American folk music, so I was relieved that I didn’t have to either.

I began getting comfortable, lying back in my chair, pulling the blanket into position, and turning away as the nurse connected my vein. In her Slavic accent, she said to press the call button if I needed anything, almost like I would be disappointing her if I didn’t. She dimmed the lights and said she would be back every 20 minutes to check on me.

Left alone, I looked around the room, finding humor in the quotidian piece of paper stuck on the wall with the wifi password. It reminded me that it was okay to use my phone, although Dr. Brooks advised no politics, and I couldn’t agree more, as someone who really feels politics. There wasn’t much else, except for a cup of water and a seemingly purposeless box of tissues. The kind of box left in a room to create a sense of amenity.

I lay with songs on repeat, which may be a neurodivergent need rather than a part of the experience. One of the songs was Dice by Finley Quaye with Beth Orton, and that’s when I started to lose it. I remember thinking how deep the song was because it’s called “to say” in Spanish, completely forgetting the English meaning of the word.

However, I knew the deeper resonance was Orton’s voice, and its evocation of her songs, one I’ve listened to in my happiest morning-after moments, “Central Reservation,” but also its diametric opposite, “Stolen Car.” It’s about wanting to belong, feeling at sea, standing for something while misunderstood, and ultimately, unloved.

It welled up in me, and for someone with a constant inner dialogue, I don’t remember articulating it. The crying just emerged, and I said in my head, “I’m sorry,” and I cried more. I cried like I had never cried before. I checked my chair for a puddle of water, but it was bone dry; it just felt like an ocean of sadness. I kept saying on repeat, “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry.” But I knew it wasn’t enough; I could never apologize enough. And so I kept crying for 40 minutes—I guessed that’s how long because the nurse entered at two intervals, saying nothing, checking my infusion bag, and leaving. It wasn’t a howling but a sobbing, and eventually, I thought I couldn’t breathe. Then I saw the tissues and blew my nose. I could breathe; I just needed the purposeful tissues.

I don’t know at what point I started visualizing the entity I was apologizing to, but he was a sweet, kind thing, with a balloon-like face, and looked like Junior from Duolingo—a recent, daily reference. He was tiny, sitting in a dark, cold pit, not saying anything, not capable of saying anything, and knowing nothing needed to be said. I would dry my tears and think it was done, and then apologize again and cry more. I can still cry if I think about it.

A doctor friend, albeit in economics, but an avid researcher nonetheless, later explained what was happening, and it perfectly aligns with what the research indicates ketamine treats. The walls in my Internal Family System—this group of identities people create from trauma—had broken down, and the dominant Protector was confronted with the Inner Child, whom he keeps in line. He had been chastised for making mistakes, isolated, and blamed for everything the Protector, whom I called The Monster, felt had gone wrong. I could never be powerful enough, let alone want to, inflict this level of pain on any actual person. It was also the singular time I knew, without a doubt, that an apology would not be enough.

Physically exhausted, I stopped apologizing and started pulling myself together, and just rested. The nurse returned, and the whole saga felt like it had lasted only 20 minutes instead of almost 2 hours. She said I could stay as long as I liked and was reassuringly present, yet space-giving; she’s seen enough people go through this. She later told me not everyone cries in the first session, but some do. She said it in a way that intuited that I needed this.

It felt weird leaving by myself and entering the bright, wide world, as if I should have had someone take me. This was another realization that I don’t ask for help, despite knowing the research on how much people like to help. I didn’t think I could walk, but I tried, and to my surprise, I felt completely fine, walking straight with no wobbles. I kept walking and got to the 9/11 memorial, drawn to the open and contemplative space, but my mind also felt more manageable juxtaposed with a literally monumental tragedy. And I did turn to my friends for help.

Finding myself in FiDi

I started explaining the experience and had to articulate to myself for the first time where it came from. People have told me enough times that I am too hard on myself, so it has been somewhere on my mind. It’s also odd that I had always been curious about these treatments for trauma, and had considered MDMA too, as the other, albeit lesser researched, but still strong option. In my intake, after describing my childhood, which involved undiagnosed neurodivergence, the sudden death of my brother, and being gay, Dr. Brooks said I was a perfect candidate. I believed his honesty deeply while not knowing what I was in for.

The very next session felt positively placid, how could it not? Just a floaty, restful experience in a chair in a room. But it was outside the room that I noticed the change. I felt explosively creative, and it led to this very project you’re reading now. My Inner Child’s unvarnished expression was beginning to surface. I would be walking down the street, talking to him, sending kind but sorrowful thoughts, and extending that kindness to others. I came to identify everyone around me as people with a sweet child inside that I could also connect with and nurture.

In the third session, I realized why they tell you not to make any big decisions on ketamine. Because you feel an immense sense of clarity and decisiveness, which will be right, but you may not have put the practical steps in place to carry it out. I decided to cheat the system a little by making a big decision right before my first session, pressured by the knowledge I wouldn’t be able to after. I booked a flight to Australia for 6 months, intending to live there. And the therapy added a sense of obviousness: Why am I working in this American mine when I have access to the most livable places in the world.

In the fourth session, a breakthrough happened that caught me by surprise. I said to myself, “It’s OK, you were trying to protect us, and you didn’t know any better.” I identified as the Inner Child, and just writing it now makes me cry. I now saw this Inner Child as not an isolated mute in a cave, but a bright, smiling superhero in a red Lycra suit, like The Incredibles. What I didn’t think was possible happened, and every day I forgive the Protector and nurture the Child.

The Inner Child’s thoughts come through unfiltered all the time. For instance, I did something I would normally be incensed to do as a millennial: I entered a bank branch. I needed to cancel a scheduled transfer and was perplexed as to why I couldn’t do it online. I smiled and said, “I really need help with this, and I don’t know what I’m doing wrong.” My vulnerability opened her kindness, and I could feel her eagerness to help. As she requested details, calmed by her kindness, I started looking through the app. I found the transfer not in the Transfers section, but in the Wires section, and successfully canceled it before she could retrieve my account. I explained, “Oh, this definitely tracks with the sort of mistake I would make.” She laughed, and I left. Kindness towards my own mistakes has brought out kindness towards everyone else’s.

I should add that it’s a Brené Brown-type of kind, which is that it’s about being clear in what you can and can’t do. I have cut short social interactions upon realizing that I can’t bring the warmth I would like to bring because I am unable to experience theirs. A long-suffering people-pleaser always ends up with sharper edges.

By my fifth session, I felt like I was simply going through the motions. I understood why people could get hooked on this because it’s both restful and uplifting—stimulating and alleviating. But for $525 a session, I can get that in more interesting ways. Still, I reminded myself that the value isn’t in the experience itself but in the rewiring it sets in motion.

My interpretation of the research and experience of ketamine is that it throws all the neural pathways up in the air and lets them land back in the here and now, which is why it works for trauma. It says to your brain: ‘Look around, what do you see? Are people trying to hurt you? Are you getting in trouble for mistakes? Has someone died in the last week? No? Well then, why are you defensive?’ It’s not magical, it’s practical.

I’ve heard, and we’ve all heard, of ketamine addiction. There were so many times I thought: ‘It’s so lame that I’m doing what Elon Musk does.’ Having long associated ketamine as the breakthrough trauma treatment, I was now thinking of someone who believes we’re in a simulation and that he is Player One. I had to process this contradiction. First of all, a good thing associated with a bad person has happened before. We separate hot yoga from the sexually abusive artist behind it. I also remember some advice I gave to a startup founder. She was discussing her leadership team structure and was concerned about coming across as not collaborative enough. I told her, “You never have to worry about that.” People this hard-wired for collaboration have already done the work. It’s the people who never ask the question who need the answer. Musk didn’t need more kindness to himself or clarity and confidence in his decision-making. But you do.

Life is what you’re capable of making it, and there’s no insight or experience that can take the wheel. In this vein, I know I need to do the work. I keep thinking about how helpful it was to bring my friends into this with me. Not just their feedback on my experience, but having to clarify to them and for me what it meant.

The sessions had me bringing forward so much kindness for myself and everyone else, but I felt pangs of it slipping. Every session, I would take my Apple Watch off for the needle, but in my last session, I wanted to see my Heart Rate Variability—a good track of emotional health—and put it on my other wrist. In a reflection of the resetting that happens, I was certain my watch was on the side I always wear it. I realized my mistake after the session, but I thought if I can believe that to be true, I can be the kinder person I’ve always wanted to be. I now wear my watch on my right arm as a daily reminder. And as the sunnier Beth Orton song goes, “Today is whatever I want it to mean.”

A nurse told me recently, “This treatment is great for young people.” I asked, “Is that me?” She laughed, “Of course! You’re young at 40. In healthcare, you’re either young or old.” Things are either growing or dying. I love the gay holiday towns of Provincetown (the Boston one) and Fire Island (the New York one), still, it’s clear they’re in the ageing sequence, going against the tides of culture, economics, and actual tides—in 10 years, Fire Island will require regular evacuations due to total inundations and Provincetown will need prohibitively expensive infrastructure upgrades (extreme climate estimates, yes, but those have been more accurate in recent history).

I first visited both in 2013 and have been back almost every summer since moving to New York in 2018. I even went to Fire Island for my first summer when I didn’t have ‘a share’, making it so expensive that I could have gone to Paris for less. But it was all the reasons I was in the U.S.: open, social, stimulating, and where the unexpected is just around the dune.

Going alone, I had a couple of moments of loneliness, but looking back at the photos, you’d assume I went with a group. I discovered a house party, “Reflections”, which I now know was essentially a public party, albeit one where you were expected to bring your own drinks. I didn’t know and didn’t, thinking that spirits are so cheap here compared to Australia that, of course, people would buy a bunch and share for free. Luckily, no one called me out for making drinks with someone else’s vodka—and mixers. I found someone staying at the house and thanked him for hosting, and he mentioned, to my surprise and delight, that this party always becomes naked, just a bit later. So hyped by how open and easy conversations and coming together were here, I thought, ‘Why not get that started?’ It was one way to make friends, literally being the one naked person in this 50-person party. Eventually, others joined, but not all, and I would later realize that this place brings out a lot of insecurity.

Plopping myself in these situations to overcome being alone doesn’t always pan out so well. My first night out on this visit got off to a rough start, but it was also filled with fascinating moments. My inclination was to make my way from the more developed, exclusive, and superficial side of The Pines to Cherry Grove. I had a preference for The Grove, having been introduced to it first, and it was the side with more women, inclusivity of all types, and just a little more warmth in the sea air. I made my way through the woods that divide the sister settlements, and usually, you stumble across a lot more salacious activities, but this night, I stumbled across a beach party with a DJ and colored lights dancing across the shrubbery. It was pretty magical to not know about this scheduled full moon party and see it manifest before me like I was inside a Midsummer Night’s Dream.

I found someone standing on the edge and said hello. We shared our love for Fire Island, but he added, “It’s the best beach in the world.” My loneliness is never more important than facts, so I said, “Really? I guess it’s good for New York.” The Fire Island beach is narrow, the water has a steep drop-off, meaning there isn’t much space for splashing around, the swells can be unpleasant, and the North Atlantic current rarely makes temperatures inviting. He doubled down, “No, it’s the best.” I think my accent was stronger then, but I thought I should clarify, “You know I’m from Australia, right?” I tried to find our commonality and reflect what he meant to say, “But the community here is the best, and I love it for that.” He didn’t agree, “You must be homesick.” I either assume he didn’t find community here (he was at the edge of a party), or it was American hyperbole. This latter one always catches me because Americans keep escalating their superlative arms race. I didn’t realize “the best” doesn’t mean singular; it just means “very good” (imagine my surprise when someone called me their “best friend”). Even so, the beach is not ‘very good.’

Failing that connection, I moved on to a heaving dance party at the Ice Palace, meandered through, finding no place to stop, let alone connect, so I retreated back to my expensive room in a shared Airbnb. Turns out, it was their regular Friday night Underwear Party, and so I started with the most challenging, exposing environment possible. Still, sometimes, my confidence surprises me and is a no-show.

I was by myself because, while I had already made friends in New York after 6 months, none would include me at such late notice—these groups are vetted and organized around October the year before, such is the scramble for accommodation across the two settlements that amount to 1.5 square kilometers (0.6mi²). At a house party shortly after I arrived in New York that year, I remember a conversation over a kitchen counter where I said to a new acquaintance, “I’d love to be part of a house on Fire Island,” and he sneered in response, “Ha! Well, you can’t just be part of a house—you need to be invited, and that’s very exclusive.” I decided to burn that friendship right there.

By 2021, I was hosting my own share house and bringing my misfit friends, some of whom were New Yorkers who had never visited, which is surprisingly common among natives. When asked, they say they’ve never had a group organize a visit, which says there’s no motivation, and I’ve tried to investigate why. Some admit to having negative impressions formed early, along the lines of “superficial, sex-obsessed,” which is not wrong, but also hard to separate from homophobia (hot tip: straight people are sex-obsessed too, they’re just less effective).

I’ve formed and solidified countless friendships over the years through these places, mostly at the in-between moments of getting ready, coming home, or recovering on the beach. It has the key ingredient for friendship formation, which is repeated, low-intensity interactions through proximity. Sociologists have documented the decline in these kinds of community occurrences and tie it to greater social decay and loneliness. Online communities are a great addition, but the science is in: they’re not enough by themselves, and these facsimiles of community are deceptively dangerous empty calories. However, physical community spaces are not a given for connection, as Jeremy Atherton Lin points out in “Gay Bar.” It's not inherent, and the fact that it seems inherent belies the effort required.

The structural benefits of the ‘schedule’ at both destinations are clear: you keep bumping into that cute guy you were too scared to say hello to the first time, or you pick up the conversation with someone from a different angle the next time, or the person you previously met now introduces you to their new friends who just arrived. The Fire Island schedule seems a little absurd given part of it involves movements between slightly different bars next to each other at intervals known as low, mid and high ‘tea’ (‘tea’ comes from the early 20th century when dancing, drinking, and socializing between gay men was euphemized to police as simply, “Tea time before dinner”). Fire Island also has more house parties that add to the schedule, given that the houses there are more luscious with pools, decks, and hot tubs. “Which party is ‘our house’ going to now?” is a common question, with the ‘House Mother’ who organized the share usually the most connected one who will list off the options. Provincetown has always been more of a guesthouse place, although less so now as the town becomes ever more exclusive.

The regimentation, where around 100 people will leave in unison for the next destination, raises a concern that people are not living in the moment—what if you are enjoying the conversation with someone? What if you are feeling at peace in the pool? What if, by making a different choice, you connect with someone who thinks like you? On my current visit to Provincetown, I trudged through the salt marsh to the partially nude Boy Beach at 4pm and was greeted by a tide of people coming the other way, questioning my decision.

But I love to be in the sun when the UV is low and the sunset over the ocean is near. The result of my decision was to make friends with a former diplomat who loved reading, a theatre producer, and the writer of a show about the struggles of non-monogamy—a production I happened to see my first year in New York and thought, ‘I never would’ve seen this in Sydney.’ I got to share that with him as we shared the sunset on a now deserted beach.

This sense of movement between spaces responds to that young anxiety to find the perfect place.

I tried to pass this on to those I introduced to Fire Island: ‘Yes, everyone is at Daniel Nardicio’s Underwear Party, but if you’re not feeling comfortable, don’t force yourself, stay here with me and let’s talk about life in the hot tub.’ Some took the advice, others fell to the pressure. If the point of being here is connection, then seek out spaces, people, and moments that foster connection. I always find it fascinating when the structure meant to encourage a particular behavior is followed so religiously that people forget the reason they were following it.

Another questionable part of the schedule is the drinking, as the venues center on alcohol to make the economics work. It’s almost impossible to avoid drinking heavily every day, given it’s the central activity (I would love a coffee house moment sandwiched somewhere in the schedule, where people meet over a machiato). While drinking is conducive to connection, brilliantly argued by Edward Singerland in “Drunk: How We Sipped, Danced, and Stumbled Our Way to Civilization,” there is a point of excess that these places have you flying past regularly.

It took a couple of visits for me to realize the benefit of connections, but what I noticed instantly was the upside-down world. We adapt, even if in defiance, to straight-biased societies, despite straight people representing a minority on the Kinsey Scale. Here, you have to say, “Sorry, I’m straight,” and that’s a fundamental neural shift. No longer in adaptation mode, it’s common to see people exploring with looks at tea, being a bit performative, yes, and certainly peacocking to the extent that people start planning their looks well in advance. These ‘showy gay summer looks’ are almost a category of clothing on Amazon. But it’s experimentation nonetheless. I tried high heels for the first time and discovered that the height and toe-numbing were not for me. People even experiment with more gender-conforming clothing, knowing they don’t have to signal that they are gay. I’ve often been assumed to be straight, so I enjoy being assumed to be who I am, from dinner to the grocery store to, yes, the bar and club. The Other is flipped, if just for a summer.

It’s one of our great strengths as humans to adapt; it’s how we settled in every corner of the globe, from the tundra to the tropics, and adapting to the expense at these destinations is another. Share houses on Fire Island are a key way to make it affordable, requiring a commitment of one week a month over five months with friends and friends of friends. People will often sublet their weeks, or the house will sell its couch and even spare floor space, to further reduce costs. The mathematical gymnastics and hidden extra fees that pop up make it hard to estimate how much you’re really spending. “There’s the pool heating fee, of course,” one leasing agent told me, in addition to cleaning fees. And “a week” is actually 6 nights, with a fallow night between guests. And there are always a couple of people who need to arrive a day or two later or leave a day or two early because these assigned—not chosen—weeks invariably conflict with their calendars. And sometimes when subletting, you’ll have to sell at a discounted rate, especially if it’s in the quieter month of September (my preferred month). Given all this, the per-night cost is a lot higher than the sticker price.

The costs only go up from there when you factor in food, drinks, tips, transportation, and the time it takes to get there. A meal may be as cheap as $25, including tax and tip, but it’s mostly processed and cheese (that was the cost of a chicken and cheese quesadilla I couldn’t finish at Bay Cafe in Provincetown). Fire Island has a grocery delivery service that slightly reduces costs, and there’s a grocery store in Provincetown that’s within a 20-minute walk for most (just don’t pay too much attention to all the food you throw out on the last day). Drinks are strong at least, and two “Provincetown Punches” or “Island Punches” will be enough for tea at $18 each, including tip. The transport costs are likely comparable to those of other destinations. Still, they cost you in time and convenience: For Fire Island, you’re switching from old trains to rickety buses and then to a ferry, with transfer and travel times that mean you need to allow 4 hours from New York for a destination 80km away.

The lack of affordability has affected racial diversity, only being addressed in recent years. In 2018, I met a Black guy on Fire Island, and I asked him why there weren’t more Black people here—he was literally the first one I had seen in three years of visiting. His answer was nuanced: “It’s known as a rich white person’s place, and so even if a Black person can afford it, they reject it for not being open to them.” He added he was only there as a sex worker. Since 2020, the change has been noticeable, and my non-white friends have no hesitation about going there.

Economics aren’t easy for the people who keep these places running as well, with the exhaustion obvious in staff slinging vodka sodas in the heat, and businesses running razor-thin margins. Businesses cut corners wherever they can, dodging tax with cash-only bars, hiring teenage or immigrant labor, making sugary drinks with cheap booze (the punches), and making very average food. It’s not a lucrative choice for workers, given that they face similar expenses to patrons, and yet it should be given that they are only here seasonally and are taken away from their day-to-day lives.

Showtunes Sunday sing-along at the Pavilion, Fire Island, 2023

Fire Island is staffed mostly by New Yorkers, some of whom benefit from subletting their apartments in the city, or the timing may work for the ever-intermittently employed New York artist. One I spoke with said it can be hard to remember that you’re not on vacation and you need to be saving money, saying he almost just broke even one summer. I took the opportunity to work on Fire Island one weekend in 2021, helping to run the clothes check for the Underwear Party, which made for a nice break-even vacation. However, that night, I was exhausted and excited for bed, not for befriending.

As for Provincetown, Eastern Europeans have come to make up a lot of the workforce. These workers are usually housed in the adjacent town of Truro and are bussed in daily. A Lithuanian I spoke with said he was on a 6-month work visa and chose Provincetown not because it was particularly lucrative but because it was safe, explaining, “They have ‘open carry’ in the US, which means they can just have guns on them all the time.” Patrons comfort themselves with, “But these people are making tonnes in tips.” The worker I listened to was guarding the gate to the beach, so no tips were coming his way, and that jar on the bar will be spread thin—if it is by the Americans who take the more lucrative bartender jobs. These jobs seem more like subsistence than substantive.

In the bones of these localities are the remnants of an affordable origin, with the shack-like homes now fitted with air conditioning and heated pools, the cottage like shops that look too short for a building are now boutiques with beige beach art, and narrow streets (or the lack of streets) now all part of the charm. I wonder what the working class and struggling artists who created these havens would think of the wealthy who now have a hold on Provincetown, intent on keeping the charm while losing the charmers.

I’m staying in a tiny two-story cottage, the home of a friend who chose to spend more time here than in New York when remote work became possible. Only 15 years ago, it was $300,000, which seems like a lot for the two-room, narrow house with a ladder staircase at this remote end of the world. He’s a successful corporate lawyer, and this is the best he can afford, or rather, couldn’t afford anymore: Today, it’s estimated to be above $1 million.

Real estate unaffordability will go down as the second most catastrophic contribution of Boomers after climate change. I don’t know what the solution would be, but it’s certainly not this. Three years before Ezra Klein took aim at leftists undermining affordability in “Abundance,” there was a deeper dive by Jenny Schuetz in “Fixer Upper.” Schuetz spelt out how both the left and the right have conspired to keep house prices high, with the right blocking affordability measures and the left prioritizing neighborhood character above all else. Fire Island has geographic limits on its development, but Provincetown’s limits are more deliberate. Those who took advantage of what was built before refuse to upgrade the infrastructure to allow more housing and block anything that would be too gauche. There are certainly ways you could increase density while maintaining character, but such is the way of Boomers to take the shade of trees rather than plant more.

Younger generations could always do more. After my first visit, I brought the spirit of these destinations back home and created my own PTown and Fire Island. A friend branded them ‘Big Gay Weekends.’ We would pick a town with a gay event, such as the Queen’s Birthday Disco at the Blackheath Community Hall, organized by Blue Mountains Pride, and rent a house nearby. The Blue Mountains event was the first time I had been in a space with so many gay women and people of all ages—albeit mostly older ages—but the younger people there were people worth meeting. After the Canberra Bushdance, the Daylesford ChillOut Festival, and several more trips back to the Blue Mountains, we started choosing destinations where we would bring the gay, gay-crashing the Barossa Valley wine region with 20 of us. “Are you a bachelor party?” The bemused wineries asked, “Confirmed bachelors,” we said. All of these were cheaper than a visit to Fire Island or Provincetown. The gay disco, for instance, was BYO-whatever-you-want for free—no $18 sugary ‘rum’ punch—and we got to do hikes, wine tasting, or just running in open fields (seriously, we did that last one).

These trips, as fun as they were, don’t compare to the number of new friends you can easily make in Provincetown and Fire Island, but they were much better at deepening friendships. And that’s why on this trip to PTown, I’ve spent much more time writing than collecting a quantity of friendships of unknown quality. I wish a greater focus on quality connections were possible, of finding your people, because in these homogenized environments, I'm not sure what people truly value. Perhaps through rose-colored nostalgia, I imagine that before the oppressive economics, there was more time for deeper connection. And I wonder what younger generations would do if they had more of a say and a stake in how people connect. Already, we know that it wouldn’t have taken George Floyd to center diversity, there would be less alcohol, and the subsistence working class would be better looked after given it’s a much more relatable reality.

Something will always grow after the death, it just takes time and effort. Younger generations will build physical community elsewhere. But we know it won’t be at Provincetown or Fire Island, which will soon vanish off into the horizon, consumed by wealth and the sea.

Apart from the positive vibes, I also had on my mind the two big question marks of Brazil: crime and language. I thought I could get tips from locals about the crime, but their advice wasn’t super actionable: ‘Be afraid all the time, be careful about where you choose to go, and never use your phone outside, ever.’ Street crime is bad and there’s an obvious data point that explains it: Brazil’s Gini coefficient is around 52, making it the 9th most unequal country in the world, right up there with South Africa—a place I’ve never wanted to visit for that reason. Secondly, language. Now I knew the fact I was learning Spanish wouldn’t help because I had gotten enough warnings from my well-traveled Latino friend, “More dangerous than the crime would be speaking Spanish in Brazil.” Interactions always went better when I opened with English because there’s a demilitarized value to English. Spanish seems like a value judgment, i.e., ‘you should speak Spanish.’ English just means you’re not from here. This is despite 40% knowing Spanish and perhaps most understanding it. It was only after Brazil that I looked up the stats: English literacy is closer to Afghanistan than Argentina. For an upper-middle-income country, similar to Costa Rica, Türkiye, and Mexico, these two issues feel more like choices.

Despite this, I had a strong start in São Paulo. In the first few hours, I met my friend for brunch, and in the first week, I went to a house party, a concert, and even saw contemporary dance at Teatro Municipal. The concert was Filipe Catto singing the classics of Gal Costa. I never knew of Costa, but damn, she seems like a ballsy warrior for love. I was translating as much of the lyrics they was singing as possible, just so eager to soak up this beautiful world I had been let into. My friend was laughing at me as I tried to make Google Translate work. The final song was a magical moment, with Catto belting on repeat the iconic words of Costa, “eu sou amor da cabeça sos pés,” as they sauntered through the crowd (“I am love from my head to my toes”). I’ll always remember that aggressive declaration of love, and the physical act of being one with the crowd, and turning gazes away from the stage and toward each other, underscoring the point of connected love.

The contemporary dance, Réquiem SP, was probably my first indication that Brazil is working through some stuff. It was a sophomoric performance with a fairly simple narrative about digitally-induced malaise and anonymity in a big city, or at least that was my interpretation. The signature moments were a live deconstruction of the stage between acts, with carpenters tearing up norms (get it?) and a motorbike ‘breaking in’, as the streets break into the hallowed hall (again, get it?). It received critical acclaim, and someone explained that the contemporary style was a major divergence for the conservative institution.

In that context, I feel terrible for my review, but I’m no Gal Costa, and I lose my love quickly if you force me to sit still through two hours of labored points.

Once you start to think about Brazil as a conservative country, the high inequality and the bilingual reluctance make a lot more sense. It’s no wonder they have a former president who was the ‘Trump of the Tropics’, the strictest bans on abortion in the region, hyper-macho culture, and their most iconic symbol, Christ The Redeemer, that is actually a statement of intolerance. It was built as a pushback against the newly secular constitution, a proverbial middle finger to the modern revolutionaries. Knowing that, I can’t unsee the statue as less of an embrace of people and more of an institutional domination. I never visited and don’t care to, especially as I would be feeling the anxiety of Instagrammers trying to capture a serene solitude moment.

After São Paulo, I visited Paraty on the way to Rio. It looks like a UNESCO town because it is a UNESCO town. It has cobblestone streets set below high tide so they are washed daily by the ocean (which might have made more sense in an earlier time, when there was more organic waste), beautifully preserved little cottages, and candle-warm street lighting at night that brings an historical glow. It’s terribly touristy, but this is the kind of tourist place where you’re like: I get it, and I can just avoid the shops selling beige-white everything with seashells. My Airbnb was up on a hill overlooking the rainforest and just a 15-minute walk from the town. I arrived to see a toucan chilling outside my shower window. I thought, ‘Wow, toucans by my window every day!’ But I never saw a toucan again. I think they really avoid humans.

The best thing about Paraty is the harbor full of old-timey boats that take you off to little gold and jade bays for the cost of a New York cocktail. I took a boat ride right after a client call and felt very cheeky that I was able to pull that off. I would say that at least half of the eighty passengers were Brazilian, based on their reactions when the announcement came over first in Portuguese. So Paraty is touristy but a little more real than my next destination.

I had been warned particularly about how unsafe Rio is, and so that may not have put me in the best mood. When I arrived, I was unnerved at the bus terminal, with taxi drivers yelling and honing in on me as the clearly-not-from-here guy. I finally realized I had to respond as they weren’t taking body language for an answer, “No! Leave me alone! I am not interested.” And the woman scrunched her face and said, “Calma!” Which isn’t “calm” like a meditation teacher, it’s “calm down!” But more accurately translated as, “You’re the problem.”

Rio was hard to crack for someone like me who is desperate to get to know a place, so much so that even my playlist changes—I love this messy and relatable song about cachaça:

Unfortunately, Rio wasn’t very relatable. The beaches felt inauthentic as if the music and scene were curated to fit what a tourist thinks Brazil is. I walked past cabanas with hardcore techno at sunset while people sat at tables eating in silence. I found a restaurant called Bossa Nova, but they weren’t playing any music, making it feel sad, like they were exhausted by tourists asking “What the hell is this music? Where’s the techno?” I tried the gay bars but Silêncio was always heaving with people that I wouldn’t know where to squeeze in, and open at odd times that didn’t line up with Google Maps. Another gay bar, Tau, had space, but the crowd was just young straight people and confused tourists who had seen the same reviews I did, listing it as the top gay bar. Nothing seemed to make sense.

It’s not a place to be by yourself. I didn’t do any hikes, which I had hoped to do, because all the advice said not to be alone due to the crime. I was also cautious about where I traveled in the city, again, due to the crime.

I had a few friends from New York put the feelers out about coming down. I wish I had taken them up on that. The reason I didn’t is that I like traveling by myself because I have an intense need to take care of people around me, to the point where I lose focus on what I want to do (don’t worry, I’m working on it). Besides, my ADHD-induced extroversion means I can meet people easily. But when I can’t, it’s surprising and the loneliness hits hard.

I did do some exploring with a Canadian woman I met on a tour in Paraty, bonding over homosexuality and ADHD (the first one she knew, the second one I told her). We had dinner and walked along Copacabana to find something real. We sat in front of some loud and terrible live music and were offered wildly overpriced drinks from a criminal wandering the beach—not a judgment, he was wearing an ankle bracelet.

Since I didn’t get anything stolen from me, even when I casually pulled out my Thief Phone in Lapa (a Thief Phone is a phone you don’t care to get stolen because it doesn’t have your bank details and it’s not expensive), I wonder if the crime advice is overblown for someone like me who has traveled the world, has gay hyper-vigilance, is clinically over-attentive, and is from New York. A Brazilian said, ‘I’d never visit New York—it’s too unsafe,’ so I said, ‘Yes, exactly, that’s why I know how to stay safe in Brazil.’ He disagreed, ‘You won’t, it’s too unsafe.’ I’m not sure that this makes sense. I also heard about a tour guide who wanted to teach a tourist a lesson by taking her bag when she left it on a stool. I wonder if he knew how alert she was and she just didn’t expect her tour guide to steal her bag. The alarming is so common that even after a month in Brazil, my barber thought he should tell me to be careful with my phone.

Instead of “careful with your phone,” which I would like to get on a t-shirt so I never have to hear it again, my advice is tangible: hold your phone like a wad of hundreds, because that’s what it represents. Most stories I've heard about foreigners having their phones stolen seem a little obvious, which makes me think that these simple mistakes are a result of exhaustion from constant alarm. It’s like terrorism advice in the early 2000s: be alert, not alarmed.

I probably could have turned around my experience in Rio if I had done a mental reset and tried again to make friends. What destroyed my momentum was a case of seasonal diarrhea that comes around so predictably you can set your watch to it. And Brazil is not a place you want to have diarrhea: every toilet can’t take toilet paper. A friend visited a TED conference 10 years ago and got a briefing on crime for an hour, but had to learn the hard way about toilet paper with a blocked toilet in his official hotel. And in a cruel twist, all the paper is flimsy half-a-ply; either have great paper and don’t flush it, or have flimsy paper and do flush it. But Brazil chooses to have the worst of both worlds, and you know the reason is that they are hedging their bets and assuming some amount of paper flushing.

Leaving Rio, I was able to reset and think better of Brazil. Salvador really helped. It’s a city that wants you to know how much self-respect they have with all the carefully tended details of tidy and colorful streets. I was amazed at the warmth, when not just a car but also a motorbike stopped for me and gave me a thumbs up instead of a hurry-up gesture. I thought for a second if I would need to get cash out for the local currency here (I really did think that for a microsecond). I made friends at the gym and online, and went out dancing in clubs and chatting in bars and restaurants. It makes me think that, while the north is famously different from the south, this is so dramatic that maybe it’s the tourists to Rio that make the locals close off.

But I still kept running into language barriers. Even in welcoming Salvador, I would often say “não entendo” (“I don’t understand,” not that I ever mastered the ã sound), but they would repeat what they said and often add more verbiage. A pharmacist asked three or four times if I had the national identification number, CPF (pronounced “see pee effy”). By itself, I could’ve understood. But since I had no idea what she was saying, it would’ve been safe for her to assume I’m not Brazilian.

I realized in Argentina what I was missing: the over-emphasized facial expressions to supplement verbal communication. The smile that means “yes/welcome”, widened eyes that mean “can I help”, and the squint that means “don’t understand.” In Uruguay, too, a cashier asked about the identification card and I sheepishly said “no entiendo”; she chuckled, nodded, and we moved through the transaction smoothly. Brazilians are not a very non-verbal culture, perhaps because their language is quite descriptive, which I’m sure gives clarity in verbal communication.

Another big difference with Argentina is the food, which unlike Brazil, is light, flavorful, green, and healthy. I.e., modern. I don’t eat red meat, and it’s comical how every time I say, “I don’t like Brazilian food,” the response is, “Do you like meat?” They’re well aware they have one card to play. They also like their fried dough and cheese, such as Pão de Queijo, which is quite cute. It makes me think there’s conservatism in food too: the health food trends haven’t hit yet.

My lack of love for Brazil is surprising to people who have visited with Brazilians, which makes all the difference: being an insider versus an outsider, and I experienced both. Because there are two types of people who visit Brazil: those who absolutely love it, and those who don’t speak Portuguese.

Of course, New Yorkers think they invented the style of cappuccino they make here, which is a flat white, but some say there’s a difference with slightly more foam, splitting hair-sized bubbles. It’s ridiculous and not even a discussion Australians tend to engage in, so confident as the sky is blue that the flat white is Australian (or maybe Kiwi, but either way, Antipodean) and any rendition on it is inspired by it. The timeline puts this insistence that New Yorkers have into a ridiculous reality. Australia and New Zealand have been making this style of coffee for 40 years (mid to late 80s). New Yorkers discovered you didn’t have to burn coffee about 10 years ago. It was common for Australians to warn each other, and still is, about the terrible coffee in the US. We even advise that Starbucks is the best of the worst if you’re on the road in the US, despite how well-known their terrible take on coffee is. The conversation would start like this: “I know it sounds crazy, but honestly, you’re better off going to Starbucks.” (I think culture changes more slowly than it seemingly does and Starbucks isn’t a European coffee house but an update to the American milk bar, replete with sugary shakes. It’s a dessert store).

When I first visited New York in 2013, I was shocked to find one good cafe in the East Village and thought: I have to live here (five years later, I did). I told the barista, “Wow, this is as good as Australian coffee!” He snapped, “Maybe Australian coffee is as good as this.” I looked puzzled, unaware that someone could be so unaware. It was the tip of an iceberg of ignorance I would later live through. Returning on another visit in 2015, I remember making a flat white with components from a cafe. We asked for espresso and steamed milk in two separate cups, which we then combined to make into a flat white, using the right amount of foam, and ensuring the milk was not too hot to avoid bitter burning. When I moved here in 2018, I was excited by the next evolution where I could Google ‘Australian coffee’ and have several great cafes pop-up. New York was getting a group handle on coffee.

I’m aware I have an addiction. It’s the texture that I am particularly sensitive to. The smoothness of the foam while having a coffee and milky sweetness in every sip is particular to flat whites. It’s a physical sensation my sensory sensitivity adores. And this is very ADHD, goes without saying.

As a brander, I can appreciate why the Australian verbiage was initally a challenge. I still remember Americans being puzzled by the colored language of our coffee, scanning it for racial undertones—not just flat white, but also long black, and short black. It required a chain, Starbucks, to make the verbiage famous in the Americas.

As you can imagine, I have happened to mention from time to time to New York friends and even baristas—if we’re on friendly terms—that the cappuccino they’re making is basically a flat white, and certainly not a cappuccino, with its lack of tall foam and cocoa dust. Baristas have been politely perplexed (‘why are you telling me this?’), and friends seem initially skeptical. This isn’t even hard to fact-check; it’s on Wikipedia, where there’s no mention of the New York rendered cappuccino.

My obsession with this is odd. It’s something I’ve introspected on at length. It all started when I got told, “We just do cappuccinos, which is the same.” I think that was particularly upsetting. I felt that this tie to my culture had made itself successful in this big, bad city. And then I was told, ‘it’s not yours, it’s ours.’ And that hurt. It’s like a Mexican going to a restaurant that serves New York-style corn wedge sandwiches being told, ‘No, it’s not a taco.’

While I certainly worry that this is an identity issue for me, tied to a sense of insecurity, I also wonder why it’s so hard to update their thinking. Yes, I’m holding on to this, but what are they holding on to?

In Mexico City this year, I found a cafe called “Flat White” and made a beeline. I told them I loved the name as an Australian, and they said they didn’t know it was Australian, but since it is, I’ll have to tell them what I think of their flat whites. I said, “Oh no, I wouldn’t dare.” She could tell I cared, so she invited me to show them how (I have been hoping for this moment for a long time and almost thought of asking cafes in New York if I could make my own). Bit late in the piece to mention this, but I was trained as a barista and it was my job for much of my time at university. As you can see from this video, my joy was overwhelming.

I don’t know why New Yorkers are so steadfast. My guesses are two: it doesn’t fit their Steve Irwin image of brand Australia to be perfectionist obsessives with subtle flavors and styles (ironically, Steve Irwin was popular because he’s more American in affect than Australian). My second guess is that Americans are surprisingly herd-like: if their tribe is confident in what it knows, shifting them can be very hard. I’m talking to baristas who were trained by some militant hipster Brooklyn barista who berated them for their small-town Ohio mind.

The answer I land on, though, is that they are steadfast in just lacking any care to change. Even though I’m showing that it matters to me. I care, and why is that not enough? They say, ‘New Yorkers aren’t nice, but they are kind.’ I’ve never quite thought that this was true because these reactions are still closer to nice than kind. And I think people who say that need to visit Mexico.