these are not my walls

There was a knock at our door yesterday afternoon, which is unusual - people have to buzz to get in our building, and though we know many of the people in our building to say "hi" to, it's not like we hang out with them or anything. But I'm on the strata council again, so I thought it might be someone with a problem.

In a sense, I was correct; turns out, the problem was me.

See, on Friday I drove my car to work (to deliver the precious cake*), and when I drove home a car drove into the garage through the open gate (that I'd opened) behind me. Then the driver of that car followed me through the open garage door (that I'd unlocked) into the building. Neither of these things is terribly unusual, and it made sense timing-wise. But the guy didn't look familiar to me, and we've had a few break-ins recently, so I sucked it up and started a conversation with him.

If you know me, and know how much I hate making conversation with strangers, I think you can imagine how painfully awkward that was for me.

Basically, I said hi, and asked him if he was new to the building because I didn't think I'd seen him before. Turns out he's been in the building for over a year - hi, I'm an asshole - and then we stood at (and then in) the elevator and made awkward conversation - as you do with neighbours - until I escaped to my apartment.

Or at least, *I* thought we made awkward conversation. Based on the complaint his wife made about me to the Strata Council president, *he* thought I grilled him with intrusive and inappropriate questions.

So yesterday afternoon I got a talking to about how, while it was perfectly fine for me to ask him about living in the building, I should not have gone any further with my questioning. I don't recall asking any more questions, but whatever. I think the poor strata council president felt almost as uncomfortable as I did, having this conversation, but I'm willing to bet it was a tad less humiliating for him.

So there goes that foray into community-building. Guess I'll just return to my much more comfortable hermit ways. It's not like *our* apartment ever gets broken into...


*Erica: the leaving-then-not-leaving girl had planned to take a month off between this job and her new job, and had scheduled a trip; the head honchos at our job told her to go ahead and take her trip, which is why she's going to be gone for a month. And sorry if I've been going on about her/this forever; I didn't realise I had!!