Truth #9: Living in an apartment complex

Living in an apartment complex is always a strange experience. In some ways you feel connected and bonded to the other tenants just because of the complex itself, but in other ways it always just seems awkward and weird when you have interactions with them.

The awkwardness comes in the fact that you actually don't know these people, but you feel like you should (?) just because they live in the complex too. I always get this feeling like I should have a comraderie with the other people living there, but that comraderie always seems to be one-sided in some ways.

I imagine such a comaraderie of apartment complex neighbors to be similar to Tim Allen's relationship with Wilson in Home Improvement. In this relationship, we would all talk to each other on the balcony of the complex at set times each day. We will wave at each other, and even invite each other over for dinners, and discuss the issues that we are having at work, with our kids (I don't have any though), and with our marriage.

But for some reason, sadly, this has not happened for us. All that we get (and give) are awkward hellos and slight head nods of approval.

There are at least 18 units in our building, and out of those 18 we have probably only seen about five or 6 couples/people enter and exit from the same 6 units each day. Sometimes I wonder why no one else comes outside to protest the bar when they play loud music and have bar fights outside late at night. Maybe we haven't lived there long enough yet to be apathetic. So, in essence, if I walked past one of my neighbors on the street, I probably would not recognize the fact that we live in the same complex. Which is sad . . .

I told my mom about this issue and she said that we need to put ourselves out there, and get out of our comfort zone! Invite people over! But, unfortunately, for two introverts this is not as easy as it seems.

Maybe the thing that keeps people away is the associations that they have with the former renter of the unit that we live in. He left behind several "presents" for us, that we have yet to understand the meaning of. For instance, we have a blue light outside of our apartment (I don't like to turn it on in case someone thinks we are doing a drug deal), a weird massaging shower head (that was pretty much broken), a burn mark in the middle of our kitchen counter (that Braden covers with a mug), and a subscription to the clothing magazine for Tween girls, Justice . . .

Sometimes I like to imagine this person that used to live in our apartment. Upon moving in we were told that he was . . . eccentric.