when you share a wall/ceiling with a stranger who is a tenant in another apartment.
i've done this twice. the first time it was in my studio apartment and i shared a wall with my landlords. james and i would hear them having acoustic family sing alongs and talking on the phone. they would hear us washing dishes and screwing.
now we live in an apartment where a guy, young and recently divorced with 2 children who visit on the weekends, lives above us. he is a kind man who is always concerned about making too much noise. we assure him that we can never heard him but the truth is we hear everything.
if you are in my closet or my kitchen you can hear every word of what he says as if he is in the same room. i have heard him yell at his children. i have heard him having his buddies over. i have heard him talk to customer service. i know a lot about this man and yet in real life we have maybe talked once or twice.
on the flip side he has heard me fight (loud booming arguments) with my husband, heard me have an orgasm and even mistakenly saw me walk past the back door naked a few times.
what's most interesting to me about my psuedo-intimate relationship with this man and his children is that if i were to be murdered or go missing, the police would probably question him before they spoke with my parents. he would be able to serve as some sort of important figure in my life (and i in his) when, if there were a gun put to my head, i couldn't possibly tell you his last name.
but i like it. it's like he's the camera crew that you're not supposed to acknowledge when you're on reality tv. he's a silent third party witnessing my life, and some years from now he won't even remember that i exist.
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