Love thy neighbour

Or “parts N+1 through oh gods make it stop”.

Can you believe that in the previous post’s poorly structured 2,000-odd words I actually forgot stuff? So this entry probably isn’t going to have many jokes either. Also, this is why I should keep a book of grudges.

One of the things I forgot was one of my least favourite types of human: neighbours. My current set – aside from their probably-daughter’s (thankfully ended) habit of listening to crappy music at dead-wakening volumes when nobody else is around – are fine. Quite pleasant, really, when I run into them (which, of course, I avoid as much as possible). Sadly, not all neighbours have been so agreeable.

My parents’ house is detached, and didn’t really have any neighbours for many years, so I wasn’t prepared for what was to come. My first post-University flat was the eye-opener.

A while after I moved in, a new guy moved in across the hall, and he and his friends were a right bunch of cunts. They would come in drunk at weekends, shouting, and then decided that kicking my door was a fun time. As the only altercation I had had with him was complaining about his using the communal landing to dry his clothes, being an utter cunt is the only reason I can think of.

Later on, new people moved in below me. Unfortunately, their hobbies included screaming rows first thing in the morning, followed by listening to crappy music at earthquake (almost literally, what with their being below me) volumes. Why do people with awful taste in music always have to listen to it so loud? After a while of this I left the washing machine to hit spin cycle at around 1am, and the resultant passive/agressive exchange of notes led to some moderation of their behaviour.

Still, I was glad to leave that flat, and the people near the next house seemed more pleasant. It was short-lived, however.
One day, we get a knock on the door. It’s a woman from a few doors away asking me to move my car; we’d came in late the previous night, and I’d misjudged parking (which was always tight, and not marked) by a foot or so. So I move it, let the woman out, and re-park.
As I’m turning the car off, the woman’s husband walks over to the car, reaches through the window, slaps me in the face and calls me a cunt. I jump out; turns out that “respect” is a stop-lock wielded as a club (and “restraint” is not using your makeshift weapon to smash your enemy’s skull; similarly, “regret”).

If only you could murder the humans. Now that would be something.

Unfortunately, the police have no interest in protecting you from your attackers, and they certainly don’t want you protecting yourself; if nobody were afraid of being attacked, or people were able to defend themselves, the police would not be able to keep up their charade and would lose their priveleged powers. They don’t want that, and so. Oh, and if they should have to deal with a crime, it’s much easier to write it off as the victim’s fault. And probably less dangerous. No I don’t have a lot of respect for the police, why do you ask?

On the bright side, while this incident upset me for quite some time, he posed no further problems.

But that is why I’d really rather live in a house, surrounded by a curtain wall (of the “medieval fortification” type) and electric fence, alone in a valley, only reachable by a winding road, with just a supermarket, railway station and telephone exchange within a couple of miles. I don’t see what else you’d want or need.

 
That would be a reasonable enough post on a single topic, wouldn’t it? But, in the interests of getting this over with, something else I forgot. If I were to divide the last couple of posts by topic, this would go in “things I do that are stupid and maybe even wrong”:

I expect people to hate me, and assume that they do. If they claim otherwise, I assume they’ve some ulterior motive and are lying. Even my friends – whom I like – only, I think, keep me around to make up the numbers, to make themselves feel more popular, because I’m occasionally useful, out of habit, out of pity, or due to some sense of social obligation. I’m surprised that they consider it worth the effort.
A side-effect: doing unpopular things means that I may be hated, but at least I’ll have done something to deserve it for once.

Unfortunately, it seems likely that if you hate somebody, they’re going to hate you in return. And, in this case, it’s impossible to measure the difference between perception and reality. That is probably one of the major reasons (alongside those mentioned before, plus a strong desire to avoid people and an inability to find the line between “cold and distant” and “overbearing and obnoxious”) that I’m bad at humans.

 
I wonder what my next post will be about? Something more interesting and amusing, hopefully.