Oh I know you are not bad people. Not at all. Well written past by the way. It gives insight into the psyche of those who don’t like nature. I don’t like mosquito’s just as much as the next guy, and I’m not about to use 100% deet - btu I can tolerate them after having learned a few tricks of the trade over the years…i.e. I spray a chamomile tea mist on myself befor goin hiking, nary a bug to land on my skin after that. Cool and organic! 
I gave up camping and hiking and fishing in my teens, due to lack of interest. I don’t find it calming or relaxing to sit in a boat for 14 hours (starting at 5 AM), with no protection or escape from 100+ degree heat and relentless bugs, injuring fish by ripping holes through their mouths, and then throwing them back. No fish ever did anything to me.
I have a friend who can’t wait to be doing that. He keeps asking me to go. Thinks about it all week, is gone all weekend. Dude, there is a reason why I don’t have any wrinkles, and you look like you’re made of leather. Pretend to understand when I politely decline, OK?
My family did the camping scene for the first half of the '70s. Watching the procedures, it was a helluva lot of work to get set up to live primitively, and then tear it down and set it up somewhere else. My favorite year was the one where the rain followed us all over Ontario. The longer it went on, the damper we all were, and the more angry and drunk my father got. That was the least amount of fun five people can possibly have. I’m done with it.
Excuse me, I’m going to go turn the AC down a notch or two.
What others have said about nature not really resonating with me. Well, that’s not totally true: I do appreciate natural beauty, but not to the extent that makes wandering through a forest for three days worth it. It’s not laziness at all. Drop me in a foreign city, and I’ll spend three days walking its streets and having a great time.
For me, what it comes down to is human endeavour. A city had meaning; a forest just is. Both are attractive in their own ways, but a city has a history, it has stories, it has purpose. I can look at a building, and learn how it was built in the year whenever, by Lord Randomguy, for the purpose of some damn thing. A tree is just a tree. An acorn landed on the ground, and now it’s an oak. The End. Eh. Hard for me to care about that.
I have a love-hate relationship with nature.
I love (tent) camping and day hikes sort of thing… but I doubt you’ll ever get me on a long hike again or anything reall rough. I love being outdoors, I hate the bugs and the sunburn and the too hot or cold or rain.
Somedays I like nature more than others (just as somedays I like the city more than others).
What I just don’t get is when people go somewhere and then stomp around saying they hate it. Why did you come then? I doubt anyone held a gun to her head and ‘made’ her go.
Phlosphr, its not like you’d walk into a Lobstermobster’s bar spraying moquito spray and tossing around granola shouting loudly “I hate bars. I hate bars.”
PS: I’m not picking on Lobstermobster either; she’d cool people and I wish her well.
Re: The loud obnoxious lady ruining the day in nature in the OP: Go Home!
People who don’t like camping/hiking/nature: we get it. But you’re not Molly Parker and no one dragged you there at gun point. There’s a word made for people who don’t like it in the wild: its called “No.” You said it enough when you were two; don’t tell us you’ve never heard it before. If being around trails & bugs pisses you off that much, then you should have used it long before you ever came to the woods. There were plenty of Malls, Multiplexes, Museums & Mediteranean Spas back in your town/city staffed with people just waiting for your business. If you come out to Nature, be respectful or leave. Because there is no excuse for channeling the Foghorn of Cape Asshole. No, sorry. None. If you need drama in your life, fake an ankle-twist and remember that the trail to the parking lot is thataway. Stores close at 5pm. Don’t let us poor rubes make you late…
yes yes please don’t spray bug spray in my bar and I won’t drink and smoke and complain about the state of everything in your nature.
I mean I guess I dont HATE nature. I just don’t want it near me. I like taxis and 2 am sushi and red lipstick and high heels and wine and beer and witty repartee. okay those last two things could be had anywhere. But no one should do anything they don’t enjoy and potentially ruin it for the people who do enjoy it.
I have no use for the woods or the mountains. The woods are full of bugs and other assorted critters that I don’t want near me, and they lack climate control. There is no mountain so beautiful that I can’t be satisfied by a photgraph of it. And hiking sucks, and camping is just absurd. Why on earth did we go about building all these boxes with proximity to other humans and indoor plumbing if sleeping in the wilderness is so damned wonderful?
That said, I love the beach. I’ll walk five miles carrying a heavy bag to get there. You know why? Because when I get there and I’m all hot and sweaty, I can go in the water. I’m not lazy. I walk, I run, I swim, I even occasionally play volleyball or tennis (very badly). I just hate the woods.
I most enjoy the glory and majesty of nature when it can be soaked up in relative comfort. Bug bites and lower back pain make me tetchy and impatient – what can I say? Not the best frame of mind for pondering the awesome eternal verities.
Not to say that I can’t be moved by a glorious landscape, just that I prefer to view it from within an air-conditioned train car, or off the side of a mesa that happens to have a city on it, or on a mountain peak supplied by a tent that offers lots of lovely oatmeal and tea and to which my belongings have been transported by horse, or in a Radical Faeries encampment complete with hot showers and an ample supply of drag outfits. It puts one in a more relaxed mood.
Besides, I’m from Montreal. Where I come from, stashing your house and household in a bag and getting sweaty dragging it from place to place isn’t called “camping,” it’s called “homeless.” I don’t work my ass off to pay rent so I can go sleep on the ground.
Obviously, she hated nature so much, she wanted it to suffer. That’s why she went out in it.
I think it’s possible that I don’t love nature as much as I think I do. I love the idea of going camping or hiking, waking up to nature and no people. However, I’ve never actually done it. I’ve been camping once, and I don’t really think it counted, since running water and a futon cushion were involved.
We all do things we don’t like to do every now and again. Most of us understand that if we are doing something we feel is horrid we have chosen to do it (make the kids/spouse/friends happy, lost a bet, whatever) and thus shut our cake holes. This lady was rude, and that sucks to be sure but cut her a little slack. Like you nature freaks have never been dragged to a mall-a-thon and wanted to gouge out your eyes with a hanger so you could have an excuse to leave.
I’ll make a deal with you outdoorsy types…don’t drag me out into the mud and bugs for no good reason and I won’t make you get all gussied up and go to see Madame Butterfly with me.
I wouldn’t mind going out on a boat or on a short walk somewhere. I enjoyed Death Valley very much back in February.
That said, I would want the chance to get back to the hotel when I’m finished enjoying the natural wonders. I can’t sleep in a sleeping bag, and I’m not about to carry a ton of stuff on my back for hiking and camping. I can’t bear the thought of not having a proper shower or bath while staying out in the great wide open.
The thought of having to go potty in a hole or something makes me sick.
I don’t particularly hate Nature, but it hates me right now. My husband and I got bug bites from something awful like chiggers, and both of us have big red blotchy patches and pustules on our skin. Ewwww…
Backpacking is work, but you can jump in a pond or stream, I eat very well when backpacking, and a well fit pack doesn’t give you any sores. There’s no denying that hiking for 12 hours a day is a lot of work but it doesn’t have to have the downsides that you mention.
Now, of course, I can relate 12 hour winter hikes, getting back well after dark with hours and hours of postholing through waist deep snow, at temps of 20 below barely on the edge of exhaustion; but no bugs!
Nature vs. Kunilou
Tick bites leading to Lyme disease
Skin that burns after 5 minutes in direct sunlight
Swimming in a lake followed by 3 days of diaherrea
Seasickness
My mother stepping on a rock while hiking and finishing her dream vacation to Hawaii in an ankle cast
It’s not that I exactly hate nature. It’s more like I have learned that nature has it in for me, so I tend to not give it a chance to get me.
Go ahead, you can complain about my nature. It’s almost a Free country. Og knows My wife complains about my nature all the time. (and no, I don’t & won’t drag her camping)
Fair enough. And once and a while I admit it might be nice to enjoy a glass of wine while camping. Its just that I usually camp with my son & I want to be at my best just in case since I tend to do the heavy lifting.
Once, a long time ago, I camped over night with my brother & his friends before going canoeing/tubing the next day. There were beers around the campfire and it was a Lot of fun. Miserable SOB that I was then, I brought up two ‘crave cases’ of ‘white castles’ to share with everyone and we ended up burning the boxes in the fire-pit until the wee-hours.
I’m not sure if they make a Cutters strong enough for Madame Butterfly. 
I still remember bringing my toddler son to the park to ‘expose’ him to opera for the first time (‘Aida’ was playing). We gave him no preconceptions either way as we felt it was important for him to make up his own mind. He cocked his head to one side & listened intently. My wife & I waited for his reaction. Ten minutes later he turned to us & asked “Mommy? Daddy? Where’s the gorillas?”
“What gorillas, honey?” I asked him, puzzled.
“The gorillas that are singing…! Where are they…?” :eek:
Well…I am in love with a tech geek and I sit here surrounded by all the amenities of modern technology taking full advantage of the wireless router, laptop, projector and 7.1 that my Boy Wonder has installed. Modern life sure is nice, and I love having instant access to All the Knowledge in the Known World. At this very moment I admit to watching History Detectives, proofreading this text on a 20 inch monitor, and listening to the freezer crap ice cubes one by one. As soon as I post this I will take a long, hot bath, and paint my toenails because I’m wearing strappy heels with my new skirt tomorrow. I’m a Modern Girl, make no mistake.
But… I just came inside after a couple hours of sitting on my butt on the dusty earth with the sun warming my back, listening to evening bird chorus and the leopard frogs croaking while I picked cherry tomatoes. Ants and wolf spiders ran across me as just another obstacle, a couple hornets took turns investigating my bucket, and at dark, brown and black bats swooped close to snatch the insects I was stirring up. The peace was only disturbed when I threw a few rotten Brandywines in the general direction of some nosy deer. I came in when there were more lightning bugs than butterflies. I was content to the point of purring.
And… my tech geek hates to get hot, discriminates against bugs of all kinds equally (even ducks when a dragonfly or hummingbird buzzes by), and becomes positively sullen when the thermometer breaks 75 degrees in summer. We have had loud arguments over insecticide, DEET, and whether or not snakes should be killed for the simple offense of trespassing. (no!) And most of my friends share simliar feelings about The Outside. They insist upon eating inside rather than on the patio at restaurants, feel that the AC, and not the robin is the True Herald of Spring, and have absolutely no idea that their common enemy: bees (!) made the food on their plates possible.
I truly enjoy the company of my indoor friends, but if a new acquaintance thinks nothing of sitting on the bare ground, investigates rather than stomping or squealing at a bug, or cases the views out the windows upon entering a new abode: I feel something stronger than kinship, and a palpable sense of relief. Ah, there you are. Let’s go pick blackberries, turn over rocks and poke caterpillars.
I have this admittedly prejudicial belief that those who panic at the sight of an insect and turn their noses up at picnics are socially high maintenance. I have to wonder how they would have fared 100 years ago, before becoming dependent on insecticide, climate control, and fast food. I am equally as afraid that my indoor friends will crack in the event of a power outage as they are afraid of an active anthill. Our homes are made from trees. Our food and its progenitors come from Out There. Nature inspires art and music and prose. How can it be so discomforting and foreign to some?
I know that my POV is unfair. I read all the replies to Phlosphr’s OP, and I have to agree to some extent with those that complain of mosquitoes and sunburns. And this one time I related a truly disgusting story from a co-worker that would cause any sane person to question the merits of hiking. But for those of you who prefer to enjoy the natural world via windowpane, are you afraid, or just disinterested?
Well, Beaucarnea, I’ve spent a lot of time in the forest. Back when I didn’t have anything to do, I could walk to several forests around my little town, and go exploring. Plus which, it was a thousand miles north of here, without the extreme summer weather. Nowadays, I have all kinds of stuff to do that requires me to be indoors. I think I tend to cultivate indoor activities, so I don’t have to go Outside. Outside, it’s too hot and humid to do anything or go anywhere. We can’t open our windows, or Inside gets just like Outside, and we live in the place where AC was invented to combat that sort of thing.
I often see old-growth forests and swamps that I’d love to go walking in, taking pictures, but I don’t know the local critters. I would not like to come face to face with a water mocassin (again). Or any of his relatives. Nor would I like to go wading in a swamp, on the off chance that there may be a crocodile or alligator hiding under the surface, along with the snakes. I guess you can call that fear, but it’s also good sense, I think.
I do love nature; I love how the area where I live was carved out of the forest. I love how green it is here. But I don’t want to spend that much time in it when it’s hovering around 100 degrees. And I really don’t want to have come this far to suddenly become gator food.
Get a horse. And a packhorse for the gear. It’s a marvelous way to explore the great outdoors.
From the time I’ve lived here in the last frontier my parents and later boyfriends and then a husband all dragged me out on numerous camping and fishing trips. When I was a kid there was a huge limit on salmon. My family would drive to Copper Center (all of them, aunts, uncles grandma and grandpa) and then they’d fish and can for a long weekend to get our winter’s worth of fish.
Copper river, despite it’s name, is in a grey place. There are grey rocks, grey dust and greeny-grey nearly dead trees (what few of them there are on the freezing cold and stony river-bank. And there we kids would be, no place to play outside, too cold and windy and having to be quiet inside so that the adults could rest up for more fishing and canning.
Then there were the boyfriends. I drink very rarely, so it was my job to drive so that they could sock back the beer (fishing is just really an excuse to drink) while supposedly looking for a good fishing hole. And the there’s the whole camping thing. It’s just non-stop housework, IN HELL. Instead of a nice sink full of soapy water (or preferably a dishwasher) there is cold lake or river water and gritty sand. And to get the water hot, for when you’ve sandscrubbed all the guck out and are ready to wash the dishes, you have to boil it.
Everything you do at home insofar as housework, you still have to do in tents and such, only it’s colder, nastier and takes 10 times as long. If a girl DOES get a second to herself while out camping, there’s nothing to do anyway (I did used to bring books along, but then the jerk would start whining about “doing something” even though HE was just sitting there beside the pole drinking beer).
I once spent an entire summer living in a hunting cabin with no water, electricity or heat. We had to use a wood stove and haul water (and I did this while still commuting an hour both ways to a job as an admin assistant and having to wear office-y clothes). That was horrible.
Oh and as to the “people who don’t like the outdoors don’t like to do anything anyway”? NONSENSE! I love dancing, love my job, (which is active and most of it takes place outdoors), dancing, shopping, plays, concerts, dancing (I did say dancing right? :D).
I get some sort of weird allergic, almost burned reaction to the sun, so mostly I like to be outside when it’s slightly overcast, or preferably with that misty type rain. I will take the dog on the trails, or to the tennis courts to play “boomer” (we have, IIRC, a couple hundred miles of them in the Anchorage muni, Chefguy probably knows for sure). So I do go outside, I just hate the staying there for extended periods of time and/or “roughing” it.
However, even if I were someplace where I was miserably outside in a situation not of my choosing, I wouldn’t “crash and yell” (what was the crashing noise the blue tank shirt lady was making anyway?).
What is stopping you from learning about the local flora and fauna and adventuring outdoors?
Ah- I think that is what I haven’t been getting, fishbicycle- that indoorsy types are concerned mostly about about personal comfort.
I must be wired differently- heat and humidity don’t bother me much, and the occasional bug landing on me is barely a minor annoyance. And the white noise of machinery (like the humming heat pump) frustrates me, because I am unable to hear an approaching coyote pack, or the black bear that occasionally raids the compost pile, or the burgler jiggling the front door. My brain must tend toward the primitive rather than the sophistocated. Probably safe to say that I need more culture and less tree-hugging.