Overwhelming Incident

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I feel for you. I had to buy foam earplugs to sleep in the room at my last apartment, sometimes people could be really noisy downstairs, other times there were drunken, shrieking teens in the parking lot outside......

I know when I have been frustrated I have done similar things to you.

I was woken by loud music again, today. I had slept in, since it's a holiday. I got up and felt like screaming. I opened my back door, to see how loud it was, and I could hear it outside, too. I was about to get dressed and go over there, but he must have heard the door open, because the volume went down. One of the reasons that this guy makes me nervous, is that he doesn't associate with the other neighbors. So, I am not sure what he's like. And I have had some ugly experiences before, when I tried to assert myself about noise. Sometimes, a meltdown involves me screaming at people. I hope that doesn't happen. I'll just be glad when today is over.

Okay, hartzofspace, that's twice the same thing happened. He heard you moving around and he turned the music down without being asked.

I can't believe I'm hearing this from an aspie. I can see your point, but still...

Y'know, this thread got me thinking about Thailand. They have this weird custom there. If you point the bottom of your foot towards somebody, it's a terrible disgusting insult, something like spitting on the person.

Guidebooks always warn visitors about it, but it's something somebody from anyplace else would never even think about. I thought it was probably exaggerated or something, I mean, how could somebody react that way, but one night me and my ex were sitting on a couch in the hotel lobby talking to some people.

This Thai waitress came by to see if we wanted anything and my ex crossed her legs, like anybody would, and the bottom of her foot pointed at the waitress. I looked at the waitress. She was trying to be cool about it. She knew foreigners were uncivilized, and she was at work, but she actually looked like she was about to throw up.

I'm sure that to people who grow up there, it seems so obvious they would assume everybody would have sense enough to know it without even being told.

I wonder if some of our aspie quirks seem that strange to normal people.

I was afraid that would come out wrong. What I was trying to say, is that when I moved into this intentional community, I made a point of leaving my comfort zone a few times, and spending some time in small talk with each neighbor. There are five houses, fairly close to each other. It would be horrible to be on bad terms with someone that close. I didn't mean to say that my neighbor's lack of associating was a bad thing. Heck, I can relate to that. It's just that I had a really horrific experience with a male neighbor that I didn't know very well, once before, one that put me on his vendetta list and myself in grave danger, just because I asked him to turn his music down. Turns out that he was a drug dealer. (long story) So my apprehension with this situation, was that I recognized a piece of a past pattern,and panicked. I'm good at that.

The good thing about taking the time to chat with my neighbors, however painful, was that when a girl who lived nearby decided to try and blacken my name, nobody believed her, because they had this image of this friendly, outgoing person that wasn't around much. Hope that made sense!

Bake him some cookies and thank him for turning the music down. Food = positive reinforcement.

^^ The same idea occurred to me. Very unlikely to provoke a negative reaction and likely to generate the conclusion that turning down the music was a good idea.

He also has a neighbor he doesn't know, and he'd likely be more concerned about disturbing you if he was sure you weren't an a**hole who hated him anyway.