The nice thing about blogging is that I can tell as much, or as little about my life as I wish. If someone asks me a personal question or is a little too curious, I can ignore it, or craft a answer that is appropriate, and doesn’t make me feel all squirmy. I don’t feel like I had to tell them more of my personal life then I wanted to.
Not so in real life. It’s hard being the “new people,” this is a lovely neighbourhood, and we are following the old adage of “get to know your neighbours.” It’s a good thing to have neighbours look out for your house when you are not home, and you can do the same for them also. But that’s where I want it to end.
I have always made it a habit to say hi to my new neighbours when they moved into the condo beside us. That was as far as it went, I never asked questions, and as curious as I might be sometimes, I left it up to them to set the boundaries of what they wanted to tell me. We would ideally like to be on speaking terms with our neighbours, maybe a little chat over the fence about the weather, but that’s as far as we wish to go. Maybe tell where we are from, what we did, that kind of thing. It’s how people place other people, it’s life. But we draw the line at inviting them in, and showing them our house. It’s our sanctuary, it’s private, I don’t care how curious they might be.
Curiosity is a tough one, we all have it, it’s pretty normal. We met the neighbours behind us, and they already knew we were from the coast, rumours are flying over fences, and through the bushes just like the little birds. We are on everyday talking terms with the elderly neighbours beside us, they are pleasant, friendly, and we share hello’s and how’s the weather, how is the grass doing, hey the snows finally gone, everyday kind of things. I met the neighbours on the other side, with the brand new baby, and the big black dog, [who is lovely, and no longer poops on my yard, I’m embarrassed to have written about it now] and they are very nice also.
It’s just… how do I deal with questions that I don’t want to answer? What do you do when a neighbour asks a perfectly normal question that you don’t have the answer to? It’s not rude, so I can’t pull out my standard reply of “why do you want to know that?” LOL. Believe me it works… curiosity does sometimes get more then the cat. There is a certain amount of information we all exchange every time we meet someone, it’s normal, and everyone has different levels of privacy, I think mine are on high alert right now. I feel uncomfortable telling too much, and I would like to keep some parts of me private.
So what do I do when I am asked about work, kids, life, and what we plan to do with our life? How do you answer that? I could really use some answers. If you feel like sharing…