Mary Ann’s blog started me thinking about the importance of neighbors. It’s great to have good neighbors and can make living in a place difficult when they are not.
While it’s great to have neighbors who are helpful and supportive, sometimes there can be too much attention.
I know someone who had exactly this problem. Her neighbor treated her house almost like it was her own. As soon as the woman, who was a writer, came home from shopping or being out, the neighbor was sat the door.
It got to the stage she tried to sneak into the house or pretend to be out when she really was home. Writers can often experience this problem. Being a write she worked from home but the problem is some people seem to think just because you are at home, you are doing nothing. They don’t seem to realize that you are working.
For that reason I often have my answering machine on even when I am at home, so I can keep working. However I can hear the message so that is being left so if it is an emergency or someone I really need to talk to I can always pick up.
Often I had friend ring and tell me, ‘I tried to ring you earlier and you weren’t home.’
‘I didn’t get a message,’ I’d say.
‘Oh I didn’t leave one.’
It took a bit of convincing of some friends to get them to realize they should always talk to the answering machine because I might be at home after all.
Unfortunately the neighbor who is always at your door is not so easy to deal with. If it starts to become a problem I suggest the only way to deal with it is to talk to them about the situation and explain that much as your value their friendship, you have work to do and cannot be available as often as you’d like. Maybe then you could suggest a time when you would be free to spend some time with them.
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