Glutton for Disappointment

Finished. Complete. Over. A five week election campaign of meaningless sludge and a two and a half week wrangle up the greasy pole to government. For weeks I've been praying to a God I do not believe in for it to end, and yet…

Now that it's over, I find myself romanticising over just how horrible it really was. I mean, it was fucked. Full of bullshit, disingenuous manipulations, promotions of xenophobia, dilution of important policy, meaningless polls, pathetic journalism (aside from the usual suspects), swinging voter morons on A Current Affair, PR drivel, debates consisting entirely of buzzwords, empty grandstanding and yet…somehow mesmerising, addictive, and all consuming.

I'm obviously a masochist. While I sometimes despise what politics in Australia has become and almost all its participants, I can't turn away. Like that episode of Survivor that you accidentally catch at 11.30pm at night, where you think you should just go to bed and then suddenly you are yelling at the TV: "VOTE THAT FUCKER OFF, HE'S THE ONE WHO STOLE YOUR RICE."

I flit between starting political discussions and avoiding them. I can't watch the news but I can't turn it off. I keep coming back for more, and I keep getting slapped in the face. I'm like a pathetic stalker, constantly rejected by an obsession he despises. I hate it, but I love to hate it.

One day it will completely tear out my soul. I will be a shell, watching only Masterchef, eating a thin gruel microwaved in identical plastic containers and drooling on my lazyboy armchair, applauding food I will never eat. It's just a matter of time.