Pet Peeve: Other People

Also, people make me really anxious, then angry for paying attention to me and causing me anxiety.

My next door neighbors:

There are two neighbors in the middle section of the walkway and another at the very end. I've said this before and I will say it again. I'm not particular about about niceties and that I'm the one who has to concede to be considered a decent human. I hate things like that. My *preference* is to not talk to those with whom I have no desire to have a conversation. Why can't my preference be accepted without judgment? Jesus. Mary. And Joseph, too. However, that's a tangent.

It started with the hoarder. When I realized she was a hoarder it pissed me off. She puts up decorations that inevitably block the walkway. She puts out a million flowers that fall over into the walkway beyond dead. Then, I saw her. First off, she's the scariest looking woman. Ever. She wears her nightgown and housecoat outside and has the deepest black circles under her eyes. It is so disconcerting combined with her pale skin. She has a pet dog. She always speaks to me and then stares at me, creepily, as I walk by. Please, save me.

My sister actually told the front office something that I told her, when we went to sign our new lease. I'm not about that snitch life. Especially in this instance where the higher ups already know she's a hoarder and no action has been taken. My sister told them that the hoarder threw out an almost full package of cookies, an Oreo sized package, out on the lawn, in front of her house, for the rabid squirrels to eat. I texted my sister to tell her about her potential death and doom via rabid squirrels. My sister divulges this info, to no avail. Whatever. Just stop speaking to me, stop killing plants, and keep that trash out of the fucking walkway. Is that too much to ask???

You ain't no friend of mine. You ain't no kin of mine. ~50 Cent

The woman who lives above the hoarder thinks she and I are kin. I'm assuming she thinks this because we're both Black. I actually have more in common with the hoarder minus the compulsion and replace it with laziness because: cleaning. Ugh.  Anyway, she speaks to me and just talks about anything. How can no one understand that when I walk out the door with my purse, I am actually headed some-fucking-where for fuck's sake. She told me how much she loved the dress I wore one time and she wanted one the same color. She said it twice. I hated the damn dress so I offered to give it to her...which I actually did. Annoying, though, she may have been.

Another time she talked to me about the hoarder. She said that she told the hoarder that she had to keep the porch clear. I was thinking, "hmmm, you have your own balcony. Her porch is hers. You just want to be on her porch because you're a Porch Dweller who stares and harasses passersby and want to be closer to the "action"." I hate porch dwellers, by the way. You know Porch Dwellers. Watching the comings and goings with bugged out eyes when you're just trying to get in the house with your pants twisted around your thighs, earbud falling out of your ear, and phone jumping out of your coat pocket like a rogue runaway without anyone seeing. An anxious and/or shy person's worst nightmare. 

These hoes ain't loyal. ~ every bullshit ass, worthless dude who has never been loyal to anyone in his life

My friends and family LOVE to embarrass me. I don't know why, but they do. I would never, and I mean, NEVER, discuss someone's looks, in a negative way, in a group setting. I just wouldn't do it. What's worse is to have something I said repeated, falsely, to that person!

When I was a senior in high school, my best friend called me trying to set me up with a friend of a friend. I told her that I was studying for finals, but she convinced me to talk with him on the phone. He actually turned out to be pretty cool, right. The next time I saw the best friend and her friend they waxed poetic about him and showed me pics. Now the pics were not the best I had ever seen, so I said, eh, he's not as fine as you guys were saying. We had a slumber party, for lack of a better word, and the next day he came to visit. He was THE finest dude I had ever seen in person. Certainly, the finest guy to ever want to talk to me. 

The friends introduce us and I'm acting coy because I'm so nervous. While I'm trying not to set my hair on fire as a distraction from interacting with him, the friend says, "Do you still think he's ugly?"

WHAT?!?!? Who the fuck would say some shit like that to someone's face? I would never call anyone ugly to their face.  (Also, I didn't say he was ugly. I said that based on the photographic evidence compared to the way they went on and on, there seemed to be a disparity.) I wanted to melt through the fucking floor and merge with the river. Thankfully, after I stammered out my rebuttal he didn't seem affected in, any way, by this info.

Smile in your face, all the time they wanna take yo place. Them backstabbers!

Another guy who we'll call Langford.

Langford lived not far from my best friend so when we started talking, I invited him to see me every time he was available. One day, he came over before he had to go to work. My best friend was combing my hair for the day when I got that call, I asked her to stop so that I could brush my teeth. SHE tried to tell me that he should like me as I am dirty mouth and all. That sounded ridiculous, I wouldn't like his ass with a scum-y mouth.

Whateva.

He came over and we (me, him, my bff, and bff's little brother. Sigh.) We sat chatting when, suddenly, her little brother announced, "Man, you ain't fat. You're big, but not fat. She (me?!😶😦😡🤕) said you're fat!" Da fuck! Someone bring the smelling salts. I almost fainted. I looked back at Langford wide eyed trying to figure out what did say before I died of embarrassment. All I came up with was the truth. "I didn't say that!"

Same guy SIMILAR scenario. Christ. What is my life? Anyway, I was about to go away for college and Langford came over to see me off. My sister roped him into helping to pack the truck. I would have preferred he never met my family, but alas. While we're all walking back and forth, lugged bullshit for me to take along, my sister stopped Langford and said, "I'm not even going to tell you what she said about you." I grabbed her sharply. What the fuck are you talking about? 

There is a saying that I have never, ever uttered, that used to be a thing. That thing is what she said to me, claiming that that's what I had said. First, when would I have told anyone anything about his appearance least of all siblings? 

The saying is: big, black, and ugly.

Technically, the way it was used here, I may have said big and black, but that is doubtful.

  Langford was fine as wine and I would have never maligned him with such a negative phrase. (At least that is how it was used  as far as I knew.) I turned to him and just asked him to ignore her.I hope he didn't hear her. 

Until this day I feel awful that people I knew and loved would say such bullshit to my guest even if I HAD said that shit.

Ugh.

Anyway, to be continued...