The Tale of Two Neighbours - filler blog entry

This blog post takes us on a bit of a side journey, steering away from the ‘bus’ blog. Get it? Steering (laughs like a manic psychopath at my own cringy wittiness).

But I’ll start it off true to form – by getting off the bus between 16:45 and 17:00 on a weekday, when I get home from work. I usually have to take a ten minute walk to get to my apartment from the bus stop, depending on how cooperative the robots decide to be (sidenote: South African word for ‘traffic light’ – seriously.) Spoiler – they’re never cooperative. God must think he’s real funny with making them turn red as soon as I get off the bus and approach them. Without failure…no matter what time I get off the bus between the above-mentioned times – when I get to the main robot, it will always be green turning red or already be red having just turned red.

Anyway, this blog is not about the robots and God’s witty humour throughout my days – it’s about a tale… a tale of two very awkward beings that happen to live beside each other. Who are these two people you may ask? Maybe you’ve already guessed that I have the unfortunate role of being one of them. It truly is the story of my life. I cannot escape a sort of awkward discomfort while being here in Korea it seems - and trust me, I knew that this would be the case.

The first time I ‘encountered’ my neighbour was when I came across a pink, apple-shaped sticky note that was dwelling on my front door one day, shortly after having just moved in. It was cute and not at all threatening or ominous to say the least. However, the Korean on it did make me antsy in anticipation as to what someone could be trying to tell me. I knew this had to be from someone on my floor, no doubt the person(s) living next to me.

To paint you a picture; I live high up in a building and I happen to be on the end of one side – so I only have one neighbour (Thank you Jesus – God knows my soul can only bare so much of this.)

Anyway, I proceeded to take the sticky note and ‘Papago’ it. For those of you who have no idea what that is – it’s an app used especially for Korean to English translations and vice versa. You may want to get it or make use of it – should you ever find yourself in Korea.

To my horror, the note was telling me to stop slamming my door and to close it gently upon leaving and entering. Now, I’m not Korean, so I don’t know if this note was written with rudeness, sassiness, politeness, or annoyance. The latter most likely, however I do think this person was being polite. (I tell this to myself, so I don’t have the urge to hide myself under a rock forever and never come up from under again.) I don’t think my neighbour meant any ill-intention. If anything, I felt extremely awful that I wasn’t aware enough to know that my front door makes a very loud noise if I let it close by itself. You see, I was new to the apartment building – so I didn’t even think to manually close my door even though it’s really no trouble to do so.

I also really wanted to leave a note on my neighbour’s door, apologising for being inconsiderate, but at the back of my mind, I was hesitant in case it wasn’t my direct neighbour who had left the note in the first place. I also didn’t want to out myself for being a foreigner. No doubt my note would give it away… so I decided to drop it and respond back by consciously closing my door manually when entering or leaving. Even when my friends come over, I have the habit of letting them in or out first, so that I can close the door myself because I don’t trust them enough (sorry guys). I know I won’t be reprimanded for slamming it accidentally once in a blue moon, but my toxic fear and anxiety trait don’t know this, so we like to keep close tabs on whoever is closing the door.

The second time I actually encountered my neighbour was in the elevator I think… to be honest, it’s a bit of a haze but I remember entering the elevator and if there’s something you should know about me, it’s that I hardly look up when I’m in there. I look down to avoid eye contact, to mind my own business and to judge people’s shoes. (I’m kidding, I’m kidding – but this plays a role in my story, I swear.)

I got on and saw that one of the people in the elevator with me was going to my floor. (You can tell by the wall buttons highlighted of course.) Eventually, there were two of us left. Me of course, and a man that wore white Nike sneakers. I told myself in my head that it would be so funny if this man happened to get off and walk to the door next to mine. What are the chances? God? What are the chances??

As I said, God’s got humour – because that’s EXACTLY what damn-well happened.

This man saw the future and he knew it was grim. He finally realised that his neighbour was none other than a ‘waegook’ (Korean word for foreigner). I make jokes about this a lot, but a lot of Koreans seem to be engulfed with utter fear when some of them encounter us. It’s hilarious and I don’t blame them. I’m the same when I have to try and interact with Koreans (because my Korean is still very bad), but because I have no choice, I’ve gotten used to it. I chose this life. This man did not. But alas, now he’s living next to one. Even today, one of my fifth grade homeroom teacher sat down next to one of my male, Korean coworkers. Tayla, why does this even matter? Well, because countless times he has had to sit next to me and without failure, he always leaves a space between us at lunch. Not with my male Korean coworker he doesn't. Its comical really but I also like this man. He gives off good, wholesome vibes, so I forgive him (albeit salty AF).

Alright, so this neighbour downward-spiral thought stuff is all happening in my head. He didn’t really show fear in his face. He may have, but I wouldn’t know because I only briefly looked at his shoes. When we got out the elevator, we walked in the same direction and low and behold when I saw him turn, I wanted to drop my jaw. Evacuate the floor. Run for the nearest door. Anything to avoid giving him the dreaded truth that I was his neighbour. But if he saw me in future? He would know I did just that. We’d run into each other again eventually… right? (YOU HAVE NO IDEA!)

Anyway, we both said nothing and went into our apartments, where I proceeded to cry and die from awkward cringe-ness of that situation (crying and dying on the inside of course). I will say this happened when I got home from my ‘close’ school last year. So I assumed this man worked close to where we lived too since we managed to get home at the exact same frikken time.

Eventually, the imaginary wound healed, and I recovered…until it happened again.

I got into the elevator and there were those white, damn Nike sneakers. The day of writing this, I met up with a friend and he was wearing a white pair of Nikes to which I had told him my neighbour wore similar ones. He then argued how many Koreans wore white shoes – to which I challenged. I lost as soon as we walked out of the front door of my building and proceeded to see at least six people within range wearing a white pair of shoes. Case proven, I get it. But these shoes – I could tell from a mile away, that they belonged to my neighbour. It was just my sixth sense. I don’t care how generic they are. I just KNOW. ALWAYS.

Now, this has happened a few times, but not too many times. Each time I consider saying a simple ‘hello.’ (In Korean of course), but you see, Koreans keep to themselves a lot. One might think they’re not very friendly upon first impressions. You don’t walk passed a Korean and smile. It’s not a thing they do here. Yet I proceed to do it to all my students and die a little inside when they don’t do it back. They do say hello though so I can’t really complain. But I’d rather smile than have to open my mouth and speak to be very honest.

Okay, back to the main plot. I often go through this cycle called my ‘existential crises of what to do when I see my neighbour and cannot escape him.’

Do I say hi?

Do I look him in the eye?

Do I bow in acknowledgement?

Do I bring up the note and say sorry even though it’s been what feels like eighty-four years?

So many questions run through my head, yet I just choose to ignore him like he ignores me and walk to my door. I’m a real bitch. At least that’s how I feel. But I do this because I don’t want to cause him any discomfort if he’s anything like me and prefers not talking to people. At the same time, I don’t want him to think I hate him. It’s a real struggle. I sometimes think maybe he feels awkward himself for leaving the letter on my door that day. Maybe he thinks I’ve got beef with him because of it. I tell you - these things are really enough to keep one up at night. I often contemplate how I manage to sleep sometimes.

Recently however, some shenanigans occurred. Now, when I do happen to run into my neighbour in the elevator (we get home at the same time more frequently since both my schools are now close to home) – I always message my friend and tell her about my inner turmoil and recent events with him.

So around two or three weeks ago, I got into the elevator and saw those shoes. Damn how I hate those shoes. The literal cause of my inner mental demise they are. But onwards we go.

As we get to our floor, I don’t look up and proceed to head for my door first. However, he doesn’t follow? He turns the other way. Oh? Maybe it wasn’t him…but I’m too confident that those are HIS shoes. It’s my useless ability remember – the sixth sense. I considered that he went around the other way so that we didn’t have to get to our doors at the exact same time because of the awkwardness of it (laughing my literal ass off at just how ridiculous this sounds but I don’t doubt its plausible.)

Days shortly after that, we got into the elevator at the same time again. This time when we got to our floor, I got out and immediately heard RUNNING from behind mein the opposite direction. I dared not look back. Was I being trolled in some weird, fever-dream-ish way? Wtf was going on? I didn’t stay outside long enough to find out. But I concurred in my brain that he bolted the opposite way for whatever reason. (To avoid me? Perhaps.)

Most recently, we rode up and this time, I let him walk out first. I was not letting this man have another mental/bodily malfunction episode, that’s to say if my brain wasn’t hallucinating the prior events. This time, he simply walked in front of me (as if admitting defeat to whatever game I’ve manifested in my brain) to his door - blazer, Louie Vuitton satchel and of course, white Nike sneakers completing the look. We both had packages waiting, so we picked them up and went on into our apartments – once again, failing to acknowledge each other’s existence.

Will I ever pluck up the courage to say hello to him? Even a simple head nod? Probably not. That bridge was more than burnt when I didn’t do it the first eight times, and who knows what the future holds for us? More back-tracking? More bee-lining it? Only time will tell.

What I do know is that these two neighbours are both equally as awkward in their demeanors. Whether his internal awkwardness matches that of my own, I will never truly know. I’m not sure I even want to know.

To anyone that has to suffer the amount of awkwardness I suffer internally on a daily basis – I see you, and I empathies with you. I just don’t acknowledge you – because that means interacting with you in some way, and if there’s anything this blog post has taught you, it’s that I’m real shitty with just that.

Until the next stop,

Bus Blog Driver Tay