Dear Miss Manners:Is my neighbor my new bestie or a frigid hag?

[jadelennox]

Dear Miss Manners: Several years ago, a divorced woman exactly my age moved in next door. I liked her very much and tried to become friends with her. Although she was chatty enough outside the house, she never invited me in, and the few times I invited her, she had other things to do. I eventually gave up and settled for the occasional brief conversation in the yard.

Last year she was very sick and completely housebound. I started visiting her, and she seemed very pleased to see me and always encouraged me to return. As she gradually improved in health and began going out again, my visits became fewer. I kept trying to come up with reasons to text her or go over. Every time she saw me, she claimed she was very pleased and that we should keep getting together, but she never initiated a single contact.

At Thanksgiving, I texted her and she enthusiastically wrote back that she was so glad to hear from me. A few days before Christmas, I noticed her car was gone. I realized she must have gone to her daughter’s, several hundred miles away, for the holiday. I felt very insulted that she hadn’t bothered to tell me she was going, and that despite all my attempts at friendship, she never sent me any sort of Christmas wishes.

Should I just give up on this woman? Shouldn’t a friendship be somewhat of a two-way street? I had thought after all the contact we had last year, we had finally cemented our relationship, but it doesn’t seem to have happened. What do you think?

---

That you are a good neighbor. But too anxious a friend.

Miss Manners suggests that you stop monitoring the lady’s car. She is not obliged to check in with you before going away.

But if it means that much to you, you could encourage her to do so by saying, “If you let me know when you’ll be out of town, I’ll be happy to take in your mail.” source

Comments

[jadelennox]

Confession: although I tagged this "why are men?" I can absolutely see a version of this letter by a woman. If it's by a guy, it's bog-standard harassment; if it's by a woman, it's some weird Kathy Bates in Misery creepiness. (IMO the "divorced" qualifier makes it obvious romantic interest and statistics makes it by a guy, but YMMV).

Anyway Miss Manners's cute little snark, combined with Judith Martin's kids' lack of Judith's genuine moral core and understanding of real world consequences, makes for an extremely inadequate answer.

[full_metal_ox]

Is it just me, or does LW’s looking in on their neighbor during her convalescence have an odor of loan-sharking?

*

[minoanmiss]

Rather strongly, yeah. UGH.

[ashbet]

That’s really interesting, I read it as a busybody woman neighbor!

I really don’t like the “new Miss Manners” — so often, the responses are rude and inconsiderate, just so that they can get a little pun or barb in.

It reminds me a lot of Emily Yoffe writing as Dear Prudence, back in the day — she really wanted to get a clever little verbal sting into a lot of her responses.

[mrissa]

I did not even feel "very insulted" when my actual best friend forgot to tell me she was going to see her ailing parents until she was already there (and thus not coming to my house for supper that night on our usual schedule). Let's save "very insulted" for actual insults, shall we, LW? It'll save us all a lot of grief.

[magid]

Even if this weren’t a problematic man, LW has started a friendship where they are the one initiating most of the time, and then complains because that is the balance of the friendship. If LW wants something else, they need to use their words not for an invitation, but to discuss the dynamic, and ask what the other person would like. Because it sounds to me like from the neighbor’s point of view, when they were trapped at home, they couldn’t put off this pushy nearby person easily, but aren’t particularly interested in actual friendship, especially with someone as nosy/paying attention to too many details of someone else’s life.

[topaz_eyes]

I read LW as a busybody woman as well.

The title of the original post was "Miss Manners: Neighbor tries to force friendship." Editorializing the post title with "frigid hag" is kind of offputting to me tbh, because it assumes LW is a man. Except it's not just men who do this (and I know plenty of men who do). I've been the neighbour who's had other women attempt to force a friendship with me. They were usually kind and concerned people otherwise, but couldn't take my 'no thank you' for an answer. It was awful to have to keep telling them I wasn't interested.

[rachelkg]

From only the info we have in the letter, we can't tell whether this is a situation where the neighbor is uninterested in the friendship (and does pro-forma expressions of welcome that LW mistakes for genuine), or one where the neighbor is interested but much less outgoing than LW.

I suspect that LW should drop it in either case because she's unlikely to get the kind of friendship she's looking for out of the situation.

[conuly]

LW, please just give up on this woman.