I’ll never understand why Americans complain about living in America

I’ve traveled to close to 90 countries in my life and lived in a few and while I’ve learned so much there’s always things that annoy me and things I miss about home (America). But for all its faults, I can’t imagine living in America compared to elsewhere. The comforts, lack of crime, infrastructure, etc. As far as opinions go, I think many places in the world are far more beautiful (geographically and the architecture) but there are far too many things that annoy or make me uncomfortable. Most recently I’m in Italy and I’m sure it’s just a part of being abroad but it feels like the men here are very aggressive in their flirting.<br><br>Something I think about a lot is the violence and crime against women being the most prevalent. I’m sure part of the reason I feel less safe is I’m often alone as a female traveler, but still women being subjected to violence just seems so much more prevalent everywhere. After reading through the comments it does seem many people are women who don’t feel safe anymore. I think a lot of it has to do with the portrayal of women in media here in America. It feels like women are more often degraded and demoralized in American media compared to international media. But I also feel that a lot of women these days are choosing to act like the stereotype created in American media and further perpetuating it and I believe in the other countries, the women and girls are more independent and more encouraged to be independent and strong. <br><br>I also strongly believe that American media has a challenging effect on women in all aspects. I think it’s very rare to find women who are happy with themselves. And it’s sad. I’ve read so many comments from this thread about how women just aren’t happy anymore. And I don’t think it’s totally true. I think women have been subjected to so many expectations and stereotypes for so long that it’s finally taking its toll. Just look at the amount of plastic surgery in this country. Americans are amongst the most insecure people I’ve met in my travels and a lot of them have no reason to be. <br><br>And as for costs, I think it has a lot to do with budgeting. It’s so easy to go out to eat in America. A lot of families have two incomes and both parents work. Also with women in the workforce comes more availability of daycares, etc. These are all things that other countries don’t have. Daycares are far less popular in most of Europe for example. It’s tough to be a working mom and juggle the rest of your life when you have to take your children to someone else’s house. <br><br>I think the biggest issue in America and probably the thing that has declined the most is the lack of quality in people but I believe that is also due to media. When I was growing up in the 80s we didn’t have cellphones or the internet. We went outside and played. We met people at the park. We walked to school and a lot of times, walked to our friend’s house after school. If our parents were divorced, we went to our dad’s on the weekends or stayed with our grandparents. We had sports, clubs, etc. I believe social media has been the downfall of a lot of things in our country. It’s caused a lot of the unhappy people to become even unhappier. People who have never left our country are comparing their lives to the highlight reels of others and it just makes it worse. I believe that people are becoming less and less genuine and more egotistical. It’s disgusting to see how many people decisions are based solely on their image. It’s the main reason why I refuse to use Facebook and instagram because they’re based on people needing to feel better about themselves for the validation they get online. And I use TikTok but it’s a lot harder to compare your life to Tiktok videos. <br><br>In closing, I just want to say that most of my friends have moved out of the country and I just haven’t had the desire to. I think it’s the biggest mistake in the world to just give up on living in America (or any country) because there are better things. It’s just like a bad relationship. There are always good parts, it just may not be a good relationship for you.