I give cookies to the bus driver, I pick up after my dog, I don't make noise after 10:00 pm. I'm friendly with the neighbours.
Most of the neighbours.
It started a few years ago. Well, it really started when I first moved here, but I only found out about it a few years ago. A new family moved in next door, and I asked how they were settling in.
"Just great", the husband told me. "We've met the Ryans and the Lindstroms. Yesterday we met the Hawcos down the street."
"Curt has been introducing us around, of course. He's like a department store greeter," The wife said.
Curt?
"Yes, you know. Lives across the street in the yellow house. So friendly."
Yes, I knew Curt. I just didn't get it. I'd been living on the street for eight years and he had never spoken more than two words to me. His wife Peggy was very friendly, and always stopped for a chat when we met. His kids played with my kids. I just thought he wasn't a people person.
I asked my husband about it.
"Curt? Yeah, he's friendly enough. I run into him at the store or the mailboxes and we shoot the breeze."
That's when I started watching him. I watched him stop on the street to talk to the neighbours. I watched him help the Johnstons shovel their walk. I watched him knock on the Lindstrom's door and chat for fifteen minutes. I passed him on the sidewalk three times that week. Nothing. No smile, no nod. He didn't even make eye contact.
I watched him on the days he brought his kids to the bus. He talked with the other parents, but when I entered the conversation he talked around me, never to me. No one else seemed to notice. On the days we were there alone he wouldn't speak. I wondered if I should try to talk to him, show him I was friendly. Show him I was nice. Making eye contact was difficult. He turned his back to me.
One day I spotted him at the mail boxes. This was it. There was no way he could avoid me. I said good morning in my friendliest tone.
"Hello, Dear," he said, and walked away. No warmth. No smile.
Since then he has gone out of his way to ignore me. He crosses the street when he sees me coming.
Everyone likes me. Everyone thinks I'm nice. So I really need to know.
What has he figured out?
