Fact for Friday: Three's Company

I'm still getting used to having neighbours.

I guess this is what it means to live on Queen Street West. The noise of raccoons and people crawling on my roof to smoke crack (the people, not the racoons) has been replaced with pounding music, furniture being re-arranged and strange voices.

On Wednesday night, I went to bed at midnight. As soon as I turned out my light, music started up full blast next door. Jazzy, bluesy stuff. I initially enjoyed it, until one o'clock rolled around and I was still awake. And then, my neighbour started hammering stuff into our shared wall.

I very unceremoniously banged on the wall with my fist.

Last night, around 2:30 a.m., I woke up to moaning. At first I was concerned. "Natty must be having a nightmare. Maybe I should wake her up," I initally thought. But the moaning didn't cease. It was constant. "Did she bring a guy home with her?" I wondered groggily. I walked out into the hallway and there was dead silence. Back in my room, the moaning continued, rising and falling and then there it was: the definite noise of two bodies slamming against each other. I let out my own groan, but it wasn't one of pleasure, and I laid back, staring at the ceiling. The moaning continued for an hour, the woman tremendously loving every moment with her silent, phantom lover.

Tonight, when I returned from dinner with Ulrika at Sweet Lulu (where the server accidentally poured an entire glass of guava juice down my shirt and into my lap), there was a reasonably attractive bearded guy in his late twenties ringing the doorbell at my place.

"Hey, are you Scott's neighbour?" he asked me, referring to the neighbour that Natty and I share a hallway and entrance with.

"Yah, but he's m.i.a right now," I told the guy, "this is all hearsay on my part, but apparently he randomly took off and is driving to Vancouver." Scott just went through a messy breakup, apparently. The guy kept asking me more questions about Scott, "I don't really know," I finally said, "I actually just moved in myself, so I don't really know Scott."

"Oh, really?" he said. "I actually live just down there."

"Down where?"

"Right next door," he said, "above that clothing store."

"So does that mean we share a wall?" I asked him.

"Yah, I guess so," the guy told me.

My brows furrowed as I connected the dots. "So, were you the one having REALLY LOUD sex last night?" I asked him, rather bluntly. In retrospect, I realize this is something you probably aren't supposed to ask someone you only met 2 minutes earlier.

His whole face flooded with blood. "Yah," he said shyly.

I ignored his obvious embarassment. "Well, I hope she was a one night stand and not your girlfriend. I don't know if I can deal with that on a regular basis."

"I'm so sorry," he said, avoiding the question.

"Don't be sorry. It sounded like you were having fun. So, is she your girlfriend? Like, is this going to be a regular occurrence?"

"Um, not really."

"It was a one-night stand?"

"Not really. It was a friend, and it was the first time it happened," he responded, still not meeting my eyes. "I don't know if it will happen again."

Oh, good work me. I had somehow managed to take an awkward situation and make it that much more awkward. Here this poor guy was; he'd obviously drunkenly slept with just a friend and was still wallowing in the confusion about that, and then I come along and decide to engage him in an in-depth conversation about his sex life moments after meeting him.

We chatted for a bit longer, and then parted ways. "I guess I should get going. I'll try to keep it down next time," he told me, smiling. "I'm so embarassed."

"Don't be," I told him. "You don't have to keep it down. But she does."