LA is the loneliest place on earth.

I'm from LA. I feel like I have insight here.

If there was ever a place that could make you feel hopeless, hopeful and also hopelessly lonely— all at once— it would be Los Angeles.

Maybe it’s because I wasn’t cool in high school. I was theater kid, eating my lunches backstage with other theater kids who would disrupt my meal by T-posing and making weird noises— of course that’s a rough start for anyone’s life in Los Angeles.

As much as anyone will say so, being weird is not celebrated in a place like this. Once a hub of creativity, now scorned by corporate greed, botox and ozempic. The obsession with how we are perceived has created an epicenter of judgement. And although there is community when there is a crisis, like the wildfires that destroyed so much of this complicated city, the younger generation here has melded into a social-climbing machine. Growing up with a lack of confidence, I felt I had to get out of the way to avoid getting stepped on.

This city is like that friend who avoids conflict at any cost. She won’t look you in the eye, but she will pick up that $20 bill that fell out of your purse and chase you down maybe 40 ft and try to give it back to you. She’s nice. Not kind. She doesn’t give you that warm fuzzy feeling when you meet her, but she’ll buy you a drink when you get that new job.

A city of life. A valley that feels like death.