If you remember the old movie The Cable Guy starring Jim Carrey, you probably know that the person who considers you their best friend isn't always the one who actually is. If you haven't seen the movie (or even that funny Super Bowl LVI commercial), just watch it, please! But read this story first, for sure.
So, our narrator today has an incredibly friendly neighbor who, by all appearances, considers their hallway a kind of shared social checkpoint she's supervising. Otherwise, how can you explain that whenever someone comes over, the first person they see is always her?
More info: Reddit
Turns out, sometimes, overly friendly neighbors can be even worse than the mean and hostile ones
Image credits: Wavebreak Media / Freepik (not the actual photo)
This guy lives in a small apartment building, and his closest neighbor is an elderly woman
Image credits: freepik / Freepik (not the actual photo)
The woman has a habit of greeting all the author's guests and visitors even before he answers the door, and sometimes makes quite inappropriate remarks
Image credits: Wavebreak Media / Freepik (not the actual photo)
The poor guy tried to open the door first, but she perhaps had some supernatural skill of sensing his guests and then teleporting
Image credits: HushPavilion77
After the man politely asked her to stop doing this, she took offense... but kept opening the door first anyway
The original poster (OP) lives in an apartment building, and his neighbor on the same floor, an elderly woman, actually freaks him out. No, if you suddenly thought this was one of the many representatives of “nightmare neighbors,” you're wrong. This lady is quite friendly and polite. The only problem is that she extends her friendliness beyond what is reasonable.
Whenever our hero has guests or comes home himself, the first thing they see is a neighbor standing at her door, greeting them with some phrase. Not always appropriate, by the way. For example, when one of the author's friends dropped by, she said something like, "He has more people over than you'd think."
The author tried to get ahead of her, tracking his guests so he could be the first to open the door, but to no avail. This woman likely possessed some kind of supernatural sense of approaching people and the ability to instantly teleport to the door. The OP can't explain it any other way. Well, her exaggerated friendliness also prevented him from calling her out.
When the guy finally tried to reason with her, politely explaining that he didn't like her behavior, she only took offense, declaring that in a building like that, "Neighbors should know each other better." By and large, nothing has changed since then – only now the neighbor greets the original poster and the people who visit him with a much less welcoming face...
Image credits: freepik / Freepik (not the actual photo)
Let's start with the fact that Americans, in general, aren't very connected to their neighbors. A recent Pew Research survey shows that only 44% of respondents trust most or all of the people in their neighborhood, while 9% actually trust no one. Moreover, trust has only decreased over the years – for example, a similar survey in 2015 showed 52% trusting their neighbors.
At the same time, apartment buildings, with their thinner, often unsoundproofed walls, create a rich source of various conflicts and disputes. But disputes are actually ineffective. This dedicated article in The New York Times strongly recommends that if your neighbors are bothering you, you should gather evidence and file a complaint with the landlord or the board.
The concept of shifting conflict from a personal to a legal level, methodically documenting violations and invoking house rules (if they exist), has proven its effectiveness over many years and decades, the source says. Perhaps this is exactly what the original poster should do, especially since the neighbor has now become unfriendly towards him.
People in the comments noted, on the one hand, that a friendly neighbor is always better than a hostile one. On the other hand, such behavior can indeed be quite disturbing, especially given the neighbor's numerous inappropriate remarks and questions. Many responders even urged the OP to resort to petty revenge. What would you recommend?
Some commenters urged the guy to resort to some kind of petty revenge, and others recommended that he complain to the landlord or the board
