HTFU
Sounds like a ■■■■■■■■ who came here for the wrong reasons in the first place. Feel sorry for the wife and child.
give his mrs a wristy.
Sounds like a bit of a wanker.
Your best bet might be to try and encourage him to find an American Expat community to hang out with. There is a lot of value in being able to vent to friends about things and Expats may share a lot of his gripes. When he complains about being invited to yet another BBQ, an Aussie might say "what's wrong with that?", while an American might say "Yeah these Aussies love their BBQs don't they? We do them so much better in ___". There will be people in that community who've moved to Australia to be with their partners and will share so many of his issues, the right person for him to talk to will be there somewhere.
I've gone through a couple of tough times whilst living overseas and what's helped me to push through them have been having close friends from Australia, and failing that friends who are also immigrants, to talk to throughout. I hated being in the UK during two Ashes losses, but it was made bearable by having other Aussies here to share it with.
Alright, so my wife and I have an Aussie friend (female) who met a guy from New York, moved over there, got pregnant and came back here to have the kid, who is now 2yo. We've welcomed them with open arms and had many bbq's and helped with babysitting, had play dates with the kids etc...
Now, you wouldn't believe it, but apparently unplanned pregnancies aren't all they are cracked up to be, and things aren't working out. The father wants to go back to NYC because he's bored in Australia, but the mother (our friend) is staying put as she got support over here from her family (his family actually live in LA). He's 42yo and likes the edgy lifestyle that NYC offers, and he'd prefer to be hanging in cool bars or bike/skate shops with his BMX and fixy riding mates than chillin in Cheltenham.
So the issue is that lately he's been slagging off about Australia, and his partner, constantly on facebook. Things aren't going well for them, and he's really hating it here, and while I want to help him out and be a friend, I think I'm about to smash his head in.
Here's a sample of the sh*t he's been saying...
For those of you living in America, I hope you appreciate what you have. I f***ing hate my life down here and I have to endure this sh*t, empty life because I can't leave my son. Appreciate what you have America. It's greener on your side. It's empty down here.
Had yet another ■■■■■■ Father's Day filled with nothing. Every holiday down here has been filled with nothing. Remembered by nothing and no one. Here's to doing nothing with no one other than meaningless small talk for the next 15.5 years.
How do you think this makes the mother feel?? Anyway it's gonna be hard to be there for her and the kid without calling the father out on his bullsh*t.
Someone who is still that big a manchild at age 42 is too far gone imho.
Give him a lift to the airport.
Shoot him.
Yanks love that ■■■■
It's quite possible that he does need some help, but he's certainly not letting on, rather he's blaming everything else in his life. Every other email is pics with him teaching his kid to skate, or with the kid on the back of his bike having a great time, or about some museum or festival they went to, having a great time, and then it's the big "I hate Australia and Australians" rubbish. Maybe that's just when he's smoking weed in his shed.
So it's highly hypocritical, and it could be to garner support/sympathy from friends back home and make the mother look bad. It's pretty full on 'passive agressive' if you ask me, like airing all your dirty laundry at a BBQ.
He makes out like he's the best father for "enduring" this country and "doing the right thing" by his son, but when the kid grows up he's going to feel like he's ruined his dad's life. I dunno, it's like giving someone an expensive present and then complaining about how broke you are now and how you regret buying it.
The fact is he can take off back to NYC and just pay child support (or he could probably just not pay and it would be too hard to chase him), so I guess she just has to make a decision on whether having the father around is a positive or negative. If he's just angry and whinging all the time and not helping it would be a pretty easy decision, but who knows what goes on behind closed doors.
Anyway I think Im just going to let it slide for now. If he wants to catch up over a beer I'll tell him what I really think, but it might be that he just thinks he's so superrior that I won't hear from him again.
Actually one of his past posts was about how we are all bogans and have no culture. Now I'll admit I can bogan it up with the best, but when we visited these guys in NYC (3 years ago) here's how the day went:
- Met at a bike shop where his mates work and they were sitting around a keg drinking beers
- Went to a bar and drank beers and had tequila shots
- Bought takeways and sat in the gutter outside a pizza shop while his mate did bmx tricks and we shot-gunned cans of Pabst Blue Ribbon (basically the VB of the USA).
But yeah, clearly wouldn't fit in Frankston, eh?
Sounds like a bit of a wanker.
Your best bet might be to try and encourage him to find an American Expat community to hang out with. There is a lot of value in being able to vent to friends about things and Expats may share a lot of his gripes. When he complains about being invited to yet another BBQ, an Aussie might say "what's wrong with that?", while an American might say "Yeah these Aussies love their BBQs don't they? We do them so much better in ___". There will be people in that community who've moved to Australia to be with their partners and will share so many of his issues, the right person for him to talk to will be there somewhere.
I've gone through a couple of tough times whilst living overseas and what's helped me to push through them have been having close friends from Australia, and failing that friends who are also immigrants, to talk to throughout. I hated being in the UK during two Ashes losses, but it was made bearable by having other Aussies here to share it with.
I agree. ( my son was in same position when he was living in England, also like you was during an Ashes loss).
Wannabe, just out of curiosity, does this guy have any type of employment, if not, does he have any thing else, apart from his wife and child to occupy his mind.
Sounds like a bit of a wanker.
Your best bet might be to try and encourage him to find an American Expat community to hang out with. There is a lot of value in being able to vent to friends about things and Expats may share a lot of his gripes. When he complains about being invited to yet another BBQ, an Aussie might say "what's wrong with that?", while an American might say "Yeah these Aussies love their BBQs don't they? We do them so much better in ___". There will be people in that community who've moved to Australia to be with their partners and will share so many of his issues, the right person for him to talk to will be there somewhere.
I've gone through a couple of tough times whilst living overseas and what's helped me to push through them have been having close friends from Australia, and failing that friends who are also immigrants, to talk to throughout. I hated being in the UK during two Ashes losses, but it was made bearable by having other Aussies here to share it with.
I agree. ( my son was in same position when he was living in England, also like you was during an Ashes loss).
Wannabe, just out of curiosity, does this guy have any type of employment, if not, does he have any thing else, apart from his wife and child to occupy his mind.
Yes, he does. He worked for Yahoo in the states, and now he's working for an ad agency in Melbourne. As I said he likes riding bikes, and so he was racing at a belodrome somewhere regularly until recently when he tore a calf muscle pretty badly, but he's riding again now, and has a few mates he rides with. He's met a few other Dad's who skate to so they head to the local skate park and give the kids lessons. He's also set up a bit of a bike workshop in the garage and is a bit of a Mr Miyagi who tunes up peoples bike for them, and he's into photography too, so always has his big camera with him. He's got plenty to do, it's just not as exciting as NYC.
I think on one hand it's just a matter of him needing to be a bit more patient. He's met a lot of people but I guess there's no one that he feels really close with, or really "understands him". It might just take one person, or a new hobby. Or maybe he just needs to stop "fighting it", and try and get into things we do over here. It took me a few years in Melbourne to find my feet, get into AFL, start playing cricket etc and find my feet.
I understand that it must be hard to move somewhere where the pace is a lot slower, and that could be why he's carrying on like a kid who's had to move from the city to the country.
Oh, he's also asian-american, and so he might be missing the 'multi-culturalism' of NYC, or just doesn't like it that the majority of people around him are white. He's complained about our society being racist, so maybe that's underlying everything too. ("you make me live somehwere Im not welcome").
pabst blue goes alright if you ask me!
but you didn’t ask me, so play on!
Sounds like a bit of a wanker.
Your best bet might be to try and encourage him to find an American Expat community to hang out with. There is a lot of value in being able to vent to friends about things and Expats may share a lot of his gripes. When he complains about being invited to yet another BBQ, an Aussie might say "what's wrong with that?", while an American might say "Yeah these Aussies love their BBQs don't they? We do them so much better in ___". There will be people in that community who've moved to Australia to be with their partners and will share so many of his issues, the right person for him to talk to will be there somewhere.
I've gone through a couple of tough times whilst living overseas and what's helped me to push through them have been having close friends from Australia, and failing that friends who are also immigrants, to talk to throughout. I hated being in the UK during two Ashes losses, but it was made bearable by having other Aussies here to share it with.
I agree. ( my son was in same position when he was living in England, also like you was during an Ashes loss).
Wannabe, just out of curiosity, does this guy have any type of employment, if not, does he have any thing else, apart from his wife and child to occupy his mind.
Yes, he does. He worked for Yahoo in the states, and now he's working for an ad agency in Melbourne. As I said he likes riding bikes, and so he was racing at a belodrome somewhere regularly until recently when he tore a calf muscle pretty badly, but he's riding again now, and has a few mates he rides with. He's met a few other Dad's who skate to so they head to the local skate park and give the kids lessons. He's also set up a bit of a bike workshop in the garage and is a bit of a Mr Miyagi who tunes up peoples bike for them, and he's into photography too, so always has his big camera with him. He's got plenty to do, it's just not as exciting as NYC.
I think on one hand it's just a matter of him needing to be a bit more patient. He's met a lot of people but I guess there's no one that he feels really close with, or really "understands him". It might just take one person, or a new hobby. Or maybe he just needs to stop "fighting it", and try and get into things we do over here. It took me a few years in Melbourne to find my feet, get into AFL, start playing cricket etc and find my feet.
I understand that it must be hard to move somewhere where the pace is a lot slower, and that could be why he's carrying on like a kid who's had to move from the city to the country.
Oh, he's also asian-american, and so he might be missing the 'multi-culturalism' of NYC, or just doesn't like it that the majority of people around him are white. He's complained about our society being racist, so maybe that's underlying everything too. ("you make me live somehwere Im not welcome").
Just tell him if his son goes to school here there is 99% chance he won't be gunned down by a 3rd graders who lost a game of Madden '14
Can’t say I blame him for wanting to be in the best city in the world
Sounds like a bit of a wanker.
Your best bet might be to try and encourage him to find an American Expat community to hang out with. There is a lot of value in being able to vent to friends about things and Expats may share a lot of his gripes. When he complains about being invited to yet another BBQ, an Aussie might say "what's wrong with that?", while an American might say "Yeah these Aussies love their BBQs don't they? We do them so much better in ___". There will be people in that community who've moved to Australia to be with their partners and will share so many of his issues, the right person for him to talk to will be there somewhere.
I've gone through a couple of tough times whilst living overseas and what's helped me to push through them have been having close friends from Australia, and failing that friends who are also immigrants, to talk to throughout. I hated being in the UK during two Ashes losses, but it was made bearable by having other Aussies here to share it with.
I agree. ( my son was in same position when he was living in England, also like you was during an Ashes loss).
Wannabe, just out of curiosity, does this guy have any type of employment, if not, does he have any thing else, apart from his wife and child to occupy his mind.
Yes, he does. He worked for Yahoo in the states, and now he's working for an ad agency in Melbourne. As I said he likes riding bikes, and so he was racing at a belodrome somewhere regularly until recently when he tore a calf muscle pretty badly, but he's riding again now, and has a few mates he rides with. He's met a few other Dad's who skate to so they head to the local skate park and give the kids lessons. He's also set up a bit of a bike workshop in the garage and is a bit of a Mr Miyagi who tunes up peoples bike for them, and he's into photography too, so always has his big camera with him. He's got plenty to do, it's just not as exciting as NYC.
I think on one hand it's just a matter of him needing to be a bit more patient. He's met a lot of people but I guess there's no one that he feels really close with, or really "understands him". It might just take one person, or a new hobby. Or maybe he just needs to stop "fighting it", and try and get into things we do over here. It took me a few years in Melbourne to find my feet, get into AFL, start playing cricket etc and find my feet.
I understand that it must be hard to move somewhere where the pace is a lot slower, and that could be why he's carrying on like a kid who's had to move from the city to the country.
Oh, he's also asian-american, and so he might be missing the 'multi-culturalism' of NYC, or just doesn't like it that the majority of people around him are white. He's complained about our society being racist, so maybe that's underlying everything too. ("you make me live somehwere Im not welcome").
Thanks wannabe.
I suppose all you can do, which you and your wife are already doing, is to give them (him) your friendship and support.
Can't say I blame him for wanting to be in the best city in the world
He's going to NYC, not London or Paris.
Buy him some ruby red slippers
Clean started needed. He needs to head back to his home where he will probably realise that all his mates have grown up and moved on and that Australia wasn't such a bad place after all. I would suggest he takes a break of at least 12 weeks in the USA to clear his head and give everybody clear air time. If he really wants to commit then clear terms are set if and when he comes back to Aus.
But yeah, clearly wouldn't fit in Frankston, eh?
My first thought was he sounds like a little Aussie battler. Would fit right in in Frankston.
But yeah, clearly wouldn't fit in Frankston, eh?
My first thought was he sounds like a little Aussie battler. Would fit right in in Frankston.
Nah, he's looking for a thrill, I'd suggest Lakemba or Bankstown in Sydney, always something happening around there.
If you're that cool and edgy then you're also obliged to not give a fark about things and make the best of your situation while maintaining just how freaking awesome you think you are.
Reminds me of the LA and Texan exchange students at uni residential. Never stopped complaining (loudly, always loudly) about where they were and how awesome home is. Meanwhile the Canadians and north easterners slipped straight into the local lifestyle.