Won't You Be My Neighbor?

Hey, guys. Keep it down, wouldja? I have NEIGHBORS, you know...

So, I hate my neighbors. I do. I don't actually KNOW any of them but MYLANTA are they annoying.

I always imagined my 6th floor living to be quite luxurious and special. However, I forgot about the three other apartments on my floor. I live in constant fear of the other people on my floor. Are they judging me? Can they hear the elevator 'ding' when I get home at 1 a.m. on a Tuesday night? Do they worry about me when I haven't left my apartment in 24 hours?

The girl who lives directly across the hall from me seems to be insane. Every night when she gets home from work, she announces "I'M HOME!" seconds before she actually puts her key in the door. Once, her boyfriend scared me on the elevator because he's a superhumanly enormous weightlifter. They are just weird. Plus, they are both CRAZY fit so my bi-monthly trips the gym are definitely not impressive to them.

There's a woman who lives diagonally from me who yells are her two sons nonstop. Based on echos in the hallway, her two sons play video games 100 hours every day and vehemently disagree with their mom about the violence of the games. They wake up at 4 a.m. and go to bed at 8 p.m. Also, she parks like a maniac. But whenever I see these kids in the hallway or elevator, I feel like they are hissing "Youuuuuuu watch Jerrrrrrrrrrry Sprinnnnnnnger allllllllllllllll dayyyyy."

There is another person who allegedly lives on my floor who I've never seen or heard. That's the person I'm the most freaked out by.

For reasons unknown to me, I am terrified of disappointing my stranger neighbors. I don't want them to think I'm weird or crazy or rude. And, given the fact that I work from home three days a week, there are a lot of assumptions that are made. "That crazy girl NEVER leaves!" "That insane chick only leaves at night! She's a vampire!" "Sometimes, she goes on walks in the middle of the day for no reason...um, DRUG DEALER, MUCH!?"

Yeah. I'm freaked out by what my neighbors think of me. I get my mail at weird times of the day and watch dumb shows on TV that anyone who is waiting for the elevator can hear. And sometimes I wonder if they laugh at how much I curse when I'm cooking.

My point is that there is an entire population of people very near to me who scare me that I've never even met before. I only have a vague awareness that they are around. But as I sit here, click-clacking on my computer and watching an informercial about hair care, I am constantly fearful that some stranger will be all "What is WITH that girl and weird TV shows? She needs a boyfriend."

Jerks.