And so it came to pass, that we all sat up 'til 1:00am Sunday like bewildered virgins on our honeymoon ('Is it in yet? How about now?'), waiting for something to happen, waiting for someone to stride in and make some sense of it all, waiting for common sense to prevail. Nobody, of course, seemed as irritated by the whole affair as Kerry O'Brien who appeared to spend the majority of the evening checking his watch and wondering just how long he was going to have to keep saying 'looks like it's still too close to call' before he was allowed to have a bottle of red wine.

Time ticked on, Antony Green's brain started downloading information about marginal seats faster than the entire ABC computer system, and before we knew it a new day had dawned and everybody had wasted at least 10 drunken minutes trying to figure out whether Rage had actually started or if the Presets had just taken control of the country.

And yes, as a nation we got the leader we deserved. Which is nobody. No wait, both. Either. Neither. Half of each plus a couple of farmers, a hippy, a whistleblower and the unclassifiably deranged Bob 'Many times I've gone to bed as a cockle-doodle-doo and woke up the next morning as a feather duster' Katter. Everybody's sitting around blinking at each other and smiling nervously and waiting to see what happens next. It's like being trapped at a suburban key party moments before some brave soul claps their hands together hopefully and says 'Right! So who wants to start?'

It's true, we do deserve this sad and sorry mess, this sickly, confused, tentative blind date of a result. We've been so busy bickering with each other and micromanaging campaign stumbles and finding Mark Latham amusing we've forgotten what it is we as a nation actually want or need, which Saturday's overseasoned gumbo of a vote count reflects. We've treated the respective party leaders like beleaguered partners helping us hang a painting ('Bit to the left... lower... bit to the right... oh great, now it's crooked and you've ruined everything') and they've behaved accordingly, jumping through imaginary hoops and tap-dancing with a manic, fevered intensity to give us what they think we want. Debates, mango-eating, Rooty Hill, flirtations with Tony Jones on Q and A. "Is this enough?" They ask through the sweating and the good-natured batting away of difficult questions and the general indignity that comes with a knife-edge political campaign. "Am I enough for you now?"

The answer's no, of course, since we're completely unsure of what we ever wanted in the first place and probably don't deserve to put numbers on a ballot paper. Half of us are idiotic enough to actually believe Tony Abbott and his personal bat phone will be single-handedly turning asylum seekers away ("I think I'll let three boats in a year," he announced with puffed-up importance on Saturday, as though he'd be strolling the coastlines on a daily basis, as though he wielded any semblance of control over those hapless, desperate individuals seeking refuge on our shores), while the others can't agree on what climate change may or may not be for long enough to do something about it. We congratulate ourselves on being socially progressive yet continue to sidestep the inestimably difficult area of Indigenous Australia as though it were an irksome ex in a crowded bar.

We're the faceless men. We're the faceless men - and women - without a purpose, without a mantra, without an idea of what we really want yet intensely, irritatingly vocal about who and what we don't want (Down with the Other Guy! Off with his head!). We've spent so long pointing out the foibles of our foes we've forgotten that the term 'moving forward' should really be accompanied by a big idea or two, a firm and exciting notion of where we should be at as a country, a notion that has nothing to do with big taxes or grubby factions or delicate handouts of funding here and there to keep the rowdy suburbs at bay. We're just a mish mash of hopeless idealism and world-weary cynicism and until we decide who we really are we're going to keep ending up with a crippled government of stymied personalities and tremulous crowd-pleasers too terrified to put a step wrong lest we again pounce. And we deserve it. This is what we get.

I'm off to get roaringly drunk. Wake me when we decide on a united vision and have something interesting to say.