Samuel Johnson, Claudia Karvan and Deborah Mailman in The Secret Life of Us. Image: Network 10
In the first episode of the early 2000s series The Secret Life of Us, main character Evan (Samuel Johnson) wakes up next to two beautiful women. In the following scene, he ushers a third goddess out of his flat, who asks, ‘Will I see you again?’ Without a hint of irony, budding novelist Evan replies: ‘Look for me in all quality bookstores.’
Running for four seasons between 2001 and 2006, the show follows the lives of a group of 20-somethings in Melbourne. Set among postcard St Kilda scenes of Luna Park and Fitzroy Street, we follow the characters (played by Johnson, Deborah Mailman, Claudia Karvan and Sibylla Budd, among other familiar faces like Stephen Curry) as they navigate careers, love lives and friendships. Regarded as an iconic Australian series (it won a few Logies, if that means anything), it now has a new life on streaming.
The show straddles soapie and drama, particularly in its first season. The voiceovers are reminiscent of Sex and the City, musing on life, pondering conflicts, saying little but sounding magnificent. It also showcased the absolute best (worst) of early-2000s fashion: butterfly clips, low-rise jeans, garish men’s shirts. Gen Z have already started revisiting these ‘vintage’ styles, and I can see the full force of this aesthetic on the horizon (or I would, if I ever wore the glasses I’ve recently been prescribed).
It’s almost impossible to look back on the things we loved in our youth without cringing. Sometimes the source of the cringe is ourselves—a photo from adolescence, for example, taken at that unfortunate stage when no physical part of you looks like it matches the others, especially teeth—and other times, it’s from the things we thought were so cool. Like Evan—obnoxious and over-confident while projecting deep insecurity, a horrible communicator with his intimate partners, emotionally immature, convinced his creativity is genius, never washes his bedsheets. We have all dated an Evan.
This is what my 20s will be like, I’d think. I’ll live in a fun sharehouse and we’ll drink on the rooftop and watch the sun set.
Rewatching this series of 20-somethings prompted some big cringes for me. Some of the dialogue is awkward and unconvincing. Gabrielle shares stories about having the best sex of her life with Alex, who giggles and replies, ‘Do you think you’ll fall in love with him?’ Jason ends a short-lived relationship with a cop (fair enough), stating, ‘You’re a beautiful woman. And that’s why I wanted to have sex with you.’
When I first watched The Secret Life of Us, though, it was with excitement. I had moved to Australia as a child, from Canada, where almost everything I consumed was American. Australia’s zest for Tall Poppy Syndrome and defunding the arts meant things weren’t much different here—and I would deeply crave anything that resembled my own experience. I’d watch Neighbours with wide eyes, soaking up everything that mirrored my life. ‘Look at Susan’s shopping bags, Mum! They’re the same as ours!’ In 2001, I was just entering high school, and soaked up everything Evan and Kelly and Alex did in St Kilda with the same desperation. Watching this group of cool and fashionable friends enter adulthood—This is what my 20s will be like, I’d think. I’ll live in a fun sharehouse and we’ll drink on the rooftop and watch the sun set, and the next day we’ll all be hungover but we’ll still go play lawn bowls.
As millennials age, accumulating memories, debts and streaming services in equal measure, we’re able to revisit shows like The Secret Life of Us and feel that pang of nostalgia. We watch again as the group navigate the confusing world of adulthood, and inevitably remember our experience of first watching them. But can you be nostalgic for a life that never happened?
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When we’re school-aged, we imagine how our lives will look at certain ages. When I’m X, I will be Y, and will have done A, B and C. But reality usually plays out differently. My 20s were filled with debilitating social anxiety, alcohol blackouts and lots of mental health diagnoses. I can count on one hand the number of times I went out to live music, or to St Kilda, or tried to accept myself.
Can you be nostalgic for a life that never happened?
The ridiculous state of the real estate market means I’m in my 30s and still living with housemates—but we’ve never been best friends who cook each other breakfast and salsa dance on the rooftop. I’ve played lawn bowls a grand total of once: at a work Christmas party, when I was 26. I was cornered by a colleague who performed a monologue about his divorce and I never finished the game.
Now, in Melbourne’s fifth—sorry, sixth lockdown, I’m ploughing through the series (I am not about to start baking now) and feeling nostalgic for a life that not only didn’t exist for me, but might not exist at all. A life where doctors and freelance writers pay the same rent, where nobody’s too tired or grumpy for a chat, where heartache only lasts a single episode.
Claudia Karvan, Deborah Mailman and Samuel Johnson in The Secret Life of Us. Image: Network 10/IMDb
The realities of young adulthood are often far lonelier. Claudia Karvan doesn’t climb in and hold us as we grieve the end of a relationship, we lie in bed alone. We don’t always have a friend attending an abortion appointment with us. The realities are the bits in the show we don’t see—Will travelling to Europe to ‘find himself’, the new mum struggling with postnatal depression in an unhappy relationship, the family left behind after a husband leaves. This is the real ‘secret life’.
The characters rarely need to reach out, because unspoken support exists around them at all times, and I’m reminded of how lonely youth was for me. Most of my friends didn’t thrive in their 20s—maybe that’s part of what connects us now.
It’s okay to cringe at our younger selves, but it’s also okay to cut them some slack. We’ve all dated an Evan, but at one point or another we’ve been the Evan too. Sure, he is self-centred and annoying: he’s young. He’s also kind, loyal, and welcoming, and will grow up.
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As I near the end of the series, I attempt to label that feeling when we revisit old shows that feel like old friends, those ones that depict a coming-of-age and make us feel that ache of a life we haven’t lived. Is it really nostalgia?
It’s okay to cringe at our younger selves, but it’s also okay to cut them some slack.
The word nostalgia—from the Greek nostos (return home) and algos (pain)—originally described a ‘morbid longing to return to one’s home; severe homesickness considered as a disease.’ You want to go home so badly it physically sickens you, debilitates you, causes you pain. Over time our use of the word has transformed that yearning for home to anything from our past—from people and places to butterfly clips. So what is that fluttering in my chest, that warmth?
It feels lighter than the original definition of nostalgia—I don’t feel sick, but I do feel that yearning. It’s yearning for the future though, not the past, and certainly not my past. There’s no desire to return to my youth, but I’m pulled to return to those of the Secret Life.
It’s not really nostalgia. It’s hope.
Coming-of-age stories make us feel hopeful. No matter what age we are, or what generation we fall into, that glistening of possibility keeps us going. It’s what gets us through the heartache and grief and the utter bewilderment of nothing going to plan.
Hope energises and inspires, it fuels us when we are heavy, and lies next to us when we are alone. It is so fiercely and desperately important.
The Secret Life of Us offers a familiar hug. We might cringe at first, but ultimately surrender into it. We need hope, and we need each other. And it’s okay if that all looks so different than you initially imagined. One day I might look back and regret being so earnest. But not now, not today.
The Secret Life of Us is available to stream now on Netflix.
