Remember that one time when some dude on the fourth floor randomly dragged me into a conversation about cruise ships, and I was horrendously awkward about the whole thing, and then was inadvertently possibly rude by leaving when he might have been in the middle of saying something? I met him again! He recognized me in the dark as the Cruise Ship Girl. (Or maybe that's all he ever talks about.) He said, "You just missed a cruise ship!" as I was coming in and he was going out. I definitely kept my cool and talked about the cruise ship that I'd seen a few days ago on a walk with Charlie, which prompted the neighbour to speculate on the correlation between cruise ship size and wealth of passenger. We definitively ended the conversation this time, then went our separate ways.
There is also my next-door neighbour, who I am always superbly awkward around; we have graduated to having two fully normal, non-painful conversations! (Except for one time when he mentioned that the house he is moving to has a suite for his mom who has early dementia, and I said, "Nice!" and as soon as he left I was worried that he thought I was a huge jerk and was saying nice to his mom having dementia, when in fact I was saying nice to that the house has a suite for her. But since we've had conversations since and he hasn't glared at me for being a horrible person who thinks it's nice to have dementia, I don't think he misconstrued what I was trying to say.)
Then just now I came in from Charlie playing with another neighbour's dog, and it came up in conversation with the neighbour that I was moving shortly, and he said he and his wife will miss me!
I'm kind of upset that I've figured out how to be a good neighbour and talk to strangers JUST AS I AM MOVING AWAY. Timing is not my strong suit.
No comments:
Post a Comment