On neighbours

From when I was very young, one of the things I remember being taught was that the best neighbour is the one you don’t even know you have. You don’t see them, you don’t hear them, and you certainly don’t interact in any other way. Is my family strange for having taught me that? My family (like everyone’s family) is strange for many reasons, but I didn't figure out the true wisdom of the neighbour theory until I moved out of home myself.

I've always tried to be the kind of neighbour I have wished to have: courteous of others’ tolerance to noise, and allowing people the right to be left alone in the place where you have every right to be alone. Now I know some people are different to me, some people want interaction with the people around them, and they think it’s courteous to interact with the people who share their street or their neighbourhood. I once even had a friend my age who when she left the house, would go knock on her neighbours’ door and tell them that she was going out. Maybe it was purely because she had some health problems  and took comfort in knowing that in times of need her neighbours would likely (or be expected to) come to her aid. Maybe that was the reason, I don’t know, but I found this very very strange. Or maybe I’m strange.

I once lived in an apartment where I had the misfortune of renting the unit above where the owner lived. I made agreements with the real estate agency and moved in, and that was my expectation of all I would have to do in order to live in this place. That was all our written contract said: I would not destroy the property, inspections would be scheduled ahead of time, and I would just do the “living” inside the unit as per my choices in life and the standard human rights afforded to anyone. But the owner downstairs would count the number of showers I had a day and approach me if I had more than two in a 24 hour period (which can happen if you work shift work like I was doing at the time). She would question me persistently if I had visitors and ask if they were moving in. If I went out onto the little veranda where I kept some pot plants, that was somehow an invitation for a conversation with her. She wanted to know what I was doing, who if anyone was living with me (no one was), what times I was expecting to be working in the following week, why I was having a shower at a particular time, why the extraction fan was running (i.e. when I was cooking), why did I let my mum park in my parking spot and leave my car in the street when she visited, etc., etc. It wasn't just friendly banter or genuine interest, it was always in the style of an interrogation, and it was so exhausting. Why couldn't this woman get through her head that living near each other did not make her my friend, comrade, ally, family member, or anything other than a stranger? As soon as my lease ended, I moved out. That was the craziest neighbour I've ever had, but certainly not the craziest I've heard of!

So what exactly is it with some people thinking that just because you share a similar street address that you somehow share something deeper? I don’t understand this. Yes, the people we live near probably share a similar income demographic, similar priorities in choosing a house to live in, but that really is about all we share in common – and this common ground does not give us greater privilege unto each other. Yet I see it all the time, neighbours believing it is their right somehow to integrate themselves into your life. Why? Is it loneliness? Is it that because of the high rate of mental illness in our society that you’re more likely to encounter “interesting” people as neighbours? I don’t know the answer to that. I just wish that people would understand that it isn't your right to impose or seek from your neighbours any sort of validation, positive or negative. I wish that more people understood that people do have a right to privacy and to have their home be their retreat. And why do I think of these things right now? Not because of me; I couldn't tell you the names of my neighbours or recognise them if I saw them anywhere other than our street, so I consider myself lucky in this sense. But I am currently witnessing a close friend’s joy in life being sucked away by her over-involved and intrusive neighbour – and that’s not fair. She now has no retreat to come home to after work. We’re not talking here of some sort of Hollywood celebrity who has signed away their privacy for the industry they work in. I’m talking about everyday people being robbed of their basic right to be free from interference. And even if what I've believed since early on about interacting with our neighbours is wrong (and it may be), why can’t we at least try to be good neighbours to others?

AFTERWORD: Yes, I believe there is too much solitude in this world and we should be more caring and “neighbourly” towards other fellow human beings.  But the neighbourly we speak of here is more like in the biblical sense of considering every other human being as our “neighbour” and thus doing good to all other human beings. That is a concept I support fully. What I've spoken of here is of not respecting our literal neighbours right to privacy and peace.