Neighbours are a funny thing, I think. Funny weird, that is. Not funny ha ha. Not usually.
For most of my adult life I've lived in apartments (some fabulous, some not so fabulous) and it's always struck me as bizarre that on the other side of a relatively thin piece of plywood or cardboard or rice paper or whatever it is that they make apartments out of these days, is a person whom I've only ever met in the elevator and have never spoken to beyond the odd grunted salute. Whilst I'm lying in bed reading my book, this stranger could be lying inches away from my head, and could be getting up to all sorts of tricks, from kinky sex to cannibalism.
When you think about it, it really is quite strange how, in a single apartment complex you can have literally hundreds of people living side-by-side and yet they know nothing about one another. The last place I lived in in Dublin was like that. It was quite a fancy complex of about five or six four-storey buildings, with about 20 apartments in each building. I lived in one of the penthouse apartments (ooh! posh!) and I think I only ever exchanged greetings with one person in my building for the entire six months that I lived there. And that was only because we just happened to step into the lift at the same time. In fact, I know there were people in that building (yes, stuck-up-lady from number 419, I'm looking at you!) who used to deliberately wait to make sure no one else was leaving their apartment for the elevator at the same time, so that they wouldn't have to make small talk with a stranger. How bizarre is that? Why are people so afraid to make contact with one another nowadays?
Anyway, at the moment I'm living in the upstairs apartment of a nice little duplex about twenty minutes from Manchester city centre. My downstairs neighbour should be The Neighbour From Hell for many reasons, some of which include the fact that he's a complete alcoholic and has a very tempestuous relationship with his ex-wife. I've only been living above him for two months now, but he's a constant source of soap-operatic antics that will keep me amused for many a time, I hope.
One day last week, I left my apartment in the morning and found him fast asleep on his doorstep. He'd obviously been so pissed when hed gotten home the night before that he couldn't even get into his own apartment. I checked to see if he was breathing, but didn't try to wake him up as I was in a bit of a rush to get to work and just didn't need to deal with that first thing in the morning. However, Norman the Mormon (my car) was parked right next to his door, and his head was resting about an inch from Norman's front bumper. The guy didnt budge even when I slammed the door, started the engine, revved it a bit and drove off. He was out cold. Nutter.
Every now and then, his ex-wife calls over with the kids and they have the most spectacular rows. They'll be screaming insults at one another, calling each other every name under the sun, slamming doors etc. They're very considerate though - it often spills out on to the street so that all the neighbours can watch. Hilarious. Thank god for soundproofed apartments, is all I say.
But he's by no means the worst neighbour I've ever had the unfortunate luck to live next to or above. He doesn't watch TV at ear-splitting volume, doesn't play his Dire Straits album at full blast well into the night, doesn't throw garbage into the back garden until it rots in the sun, etc.
Even the smallest thing can turn a good neighbour into a bad neighbour. I lived in a terraced house once and the girl next door had the most beautiful singing voice. She liked to sing aby herself quite a bit, and it really was a pleasure to listen to her. Sometimes. At 3am, it's not quite so magical. And no amount of banging on the wall would shut her up.
I like to think of myself as a good, considerate neighbour. Although that wasn't always the case. In my first year at Uni, a bunch of us were sharing a ground floor apartment in a duplex in a student village. The students who lived above us were noisy buggers always dragging chairs across the ground when we were trying to watch Friends or Podge & Rodge. So we used to phone them, pretend to be the owners of the building and tell them they were having a spot check in the morning to make sure the place was clean. All night long, we'd hear them vacuuming and cleaning like mad trying to get the place in shape, whilst we sniggered downstairs. Childish, I know, but you take your pleasure where you can. And they never copped on it was us either. Dumbasses.
But that's neither here nor there. The point of this blog was merely to say how strange it is in this day and age to live literally side by side with someone else, often for years and years, and never even know their name. Or have a decent conversation with them. I think human beings are possibly the only creature on earth that could have this amount of unfounded fear? loathing? for another of their own species. At least dogs sniff each other's arses when they meet for the first time. They don't scurry away, afraid that the other dog might realise how lonely and vulnerable they really are.
People make me laugh.
In a weird way.
Not in a ha ha way.
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