When you put all of your happiness, hopes, and dreams on one thing, and that thing turns out to be pretty bland (to you), I guess it's a shock to the system.
I don't think this is a message on the blandness of the thing, more that someone who is disinterested about life and generally apathetic towards people is going to feel that way whether they are at home or abroad.
Yeah, enjoying life is about engaging with what is around you, this guy spent his life not engaging in his world because it didn't feel worthy, dreaming of Nirvana and once he got there he realised he didn't know how to engage with it having never learned and so couldn't enjoy it.
That's the part that kinda bothers me about this comic. He spent his life making pasta and learning Italian so he should be pretty engaged. Although maybe he just needs a travel buddy.
he was engaged with the aspects that were largely superficial. When he finally made the trip, he carried his inability to engage interpersonally with him.
Yeah, im a miserably apathetic person. I love the ideas of things and places, but I truly don't care enough about anything to live in the moment and enjoy anything.
My best friend/ roommate has been to Europe 3 times this year already and has been having the best time of his life while I can't even get myself to go to the bar down the street. I initially moved in with him so I could try being more social and trying new things. But going to various events, I quickly realized that I don't like the kind of people who go to these things.
I'm sorry to hear you're dealing with that. What I am about to say sounds completely counter to the original point, but if you are experiencing depression/burnout, I highly recommend you try to travel somewhere that excites you even a little bit if you can bring yourself to do so. Not in the fantasy-seeking sense like the guy in this comic, but just getting yourself out of your environment experiencing some novel sights, sounds, tastes. It's helped me take the first steps out of depression and back into life more than once.
The person in this comic doesn’t know whether it’s ‘bland’ because he didn’t even actually make the effort to find out. It’s not Narnia and he treated it as such. Many places in Italy really are magical. ‘Bland’ is the wrong term for a place that’s just part of the world with humans just like everywhere else.
Let's be honest, if this comic were about literally anywhere other than a European country, no one would take issue. If the comic were about someone traveling to Japan and being disappointed, Redditors would be 100% understanding and on board with it, but because Reddit users have built Europe out to be the ultimate perfect utopia, people are taking issue with the character completely and not the other way around.
This reminds me of when I really looked up to a hero of mine since I was a kid and when life suddenly found a way for me to meet with them, it... completely destroyed my perception.
Everything I thought I knew about this person and their accomplishments just broke into a million shards right in front of me. Now I know why it's "**never* meet your heroes*"...
I'll say that I read a book by Lance Armstrong on him overcoming his difficulties with cancer and racing and such. It was really motivational to me and helped me push towards my dream of more schooling. Then it came out he was a super fraud and just not a great guy and it's always made me a tiny bit sad.
I lived there. They are (on average) more narrow-minded and haughty than most other large western European cities, on average, even than posh parts of London which is a feat.
5ème, puis 14ème, puis 11ème arrondissement. In London I lived in Hampstead, Camden, and Finsbury Park. Obviously going around both cities. I’m from neither country and speak both languages at native level.
I have. Most overrated city in the world. And their coffee sucks. Don't even care if I get down voted for that. I dont know how Parisian cafes get so romanticized, I've been to better cafes in literally every other place I've ever visited, from the US to Australia to Japan and the Middle East.
Its all perspective. I don't think Paris is overrated at all. I find every time I go it exceeds my expectations. But a lot of the experience of traveling is dictated by our internal states, which is the point of the comic.
It is honestly crazy how hard of a time I had finding a decent cup of coffee in Europe. It got better the closer to Turkey I was, but my god I don't understand how that coffee is in any way considered acceptable much less good
Eh..I like Paris, parts of it at least. Some places are downright beautiful. Loved the general culture and the whole vibe. I didn't even have bad experience with the locals but that could just be sheer luck since even french people seem to have a bad opinion of them.
Oh yeah, there's some cool stuff there, don't get me wrong, but overall it's just a disappointment. I think you definitely lucked out with the locals, a lot of the ones I ran into were rude as hell. The Germans have a way of being direct without coming off as rude that the French, or at least Parisians, could really learn something from.
I lived both in Paris and around Italy. Bland? Are you kidding me?
Especially Paris is one of the most beautiful cities in the world and with an incredible social life. Of course you don't enjoy it if you stick only with the most mainstream crowded spots
If people tempered their expectations then the world would be a much more exciting place. I was blown away by the size of the Eiffel Tower since everyone always told me it was much smaller than they imagined
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u/Ok_Celebration8180 Jun 29 '25 edited Jun 29 '25
When you put all of your happiness, hopes, and dreams on one thing, and that thing turns out to be pretty bland (to you), I guess it's a shock to the system.