When Neighbors Try to Holla

Dating a neighbor can be convenient or disastrous, depending on how you look at it. I know people for whom it's worked out just fine. But after one bad experience dating a past neighbor who'd miraculously appear outside when I'd go to my car and would leave me messages saying he knew I was home because my bedroom or bathroom lights were on and he was a stalker (#FAIL), I'm not eager to try it again. Still, that doesn't keep the fellas from trying.

Enter the two back-to-back blizzards the DC area had in one week this month, which meant lots of time digging out outside--and seeing neighbors I've never seen before.

First up was Snow Angel, the guy who always cleans off my car when it snows. He asked me out to dinner last week. I declined. He's cool and nice but I'm not really attracted to him, plus he lives too damn close for comfort. The second guy who tried to talk to me last week lives nearby but not in my building, but I wasn't interested in him, either. He was a little creepy.

And the third guy--well, he just really, really, really seemed to like himself, and that was a turnoff. He started the conversation by telling me all about his job (I didn't ask about it, he just told me and didn't ask me about my own career). He has a high-profile government job, according to him, in addition to his night gig throwing parties with friends. He travels all over the world, he said. He made it seem as though he has it all together. But soon I realized that, at thirtysomething, he lives in a small two-bedroom condo with his mom and brother, which made me wonder if he's just frontin'. I'm always suspicious of people who brag anyway -- They're usually hiding something.

The final nail in this guy's coffin was when I asked him to walk me down the street to my car (where I'd moved it while our parking lot was plowed) because it was getting dark and I didn't want to walk alone. His response? "No, I'm not walking down there." Needless to say, that was the end of our conversation. Snow Angel ended up walking me to my car instead, which was the gentlemanly thing to do, after all. 

Anyway, I had to laugh at how forward my neighbors got with all of the snow on the ground. All three admitted they've seen me coming and going before, but none ever approached me in the past--and I don't recall seeing or meeting any of them before this winter. Why did they all of the sudden get comfortable enough to ask me out, just because I was outside with a shovel in my hands?

TALK BACK: Would you date a neighbor? Why or why not?

My DC Snowpocolyse Survival Story

I don't know why and I don't know who, but *someone* cleared the mountain of snow from atop my car after the DC Snowpocolyse this weekend.

We got nearly two feet of snow. It literally snowed for more than 24 hours straight. I watched from my window as my car disappeared beneath the snow, and I began to wish I still lived in a former apartment building where an overly friendly neighbor routinely cleared snow from my car.

As it snowed, I realized I'd be clearing the snow myself this time -- or so I thought. When I looked out the window again at nearly 10 a.m. on Sunday morning, my mouth dropped: My car had NO snow on it. I rushed outside to ask the few people out shoveling if they knew who had been nice enough to clean my car off. No one knew. It was an angel, I surmised, and I thank him or her wholeheartedly.

I still had work to do, though. The plow had my car trapped something awful with snow piled as high as its hood, and it took an hour's worth of shoveling just to dig myself out. And you know how I hate manual labor.

Still, I knew someone had done me a huge favor, so when I heard a friend needed a shovel to dig her own car out, I headed to her place next to help her dig out.

About an hour later, her car was freed and I headed home ... To rest my aching back.

TALK BACK: Were you snowed in this weekend? What did you do to pass the time?