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I learned a valuable lesson last year: be careful about befriending your neighbors. To be clear, I’m talking about becoming close friends with a neighbor. Having a friendly, acquaintance-level relationship with your neighbors can be beneficial—especially for women living alone. But when it comes to developing a BFF level of friendship, you may want to look elsewhere besides your next-door (or downstairs) neighbor. Or, at the very least, you may want to take things so slowly. I became close with a neighbor in my building, eventually realized that I did not want to be close with her, and then I didn’t feel at home in my own home. I knew that several times I day I would run into her in the driveway. It made me feel on edge. She has since moved, thank goodness, but you may not be as lucky. Here’s how to handle a clingy neighbor who wants to be BFFs.
Don’t say yes to the first invite
A neighbor who is eager for a BFF wants to find someone who is pretty available. If you say yes the first time she invites you to hang out, you set up a precedent—because then, if you say no the second time, she’ll be disappointed. But, that first time she asks you to hang, you have no established dynamic. Just say you can’t make this one, to prepare her for the understanding that you’re not that available friend she hoped for.
