Neighbour Diaries: Meeting My Neighbourr

A man is designed to be the bread earner. He is built to go out there and hunt, and bring back food. And it is the duty of the woman to organize a home for the man to return to. Of course, like everything else in life, there are variations to this basic natural arrangement. Once in a while, you will find a man who has no push to be the bread earner, and he is quite comfortable with staying at home even when there is nothing to eat in the house. You might get curious as to why I am bringing this up. It is because in my house, things seemed to be reverses. Not that it is of my own making (I hurriedly correct you), but because that’s the way things happen to be; Jojo has more money than I do. In fact, I and she don’t even compare financially. And still, let me correct you before you think I am the kind of man who takes money from women, or likes living off women; No I am not. This girl just swooped in and without asking for my permission, she paid my rent, stocked my fridge. And please don’t ask me why I didn’t refuse to play along because I was in that situation where you sometimes just want to stop fighting against the tide. But one thing I tell you is that I am not comfortable at all. I feel ashamed to return to a house I know I am not paying rent for. Yesterday, after one month of living in this house, I went to pay rent to the land lord, and guess what I discovered; the flat belongs to the girl’s family. In fact, Jojo owns that particular apartment. I couldn’t believe it, I didn’t know whether to be angry or amused. So, I went back to the house, and waited for her to visit. She didn’t come. But she called me over the phone, and when I told her what had happened earlier, she asked me why I was getting all worked up over nothing. She asked me, “don’t you like the house?” I really like the house; it is a classy apartment in a nice neighborhood. So I suggested she let me pay the rent. And she told me, “You can’t afford the rent. Just like that. I asked how much it was but she refused to tell me. So, I walked over to my neighbour and knocked. My target was to kindly ask how much we all paid for rent. But when the door opened, rent was the last thing on my mind. There standing right in front of me was a girl, about 23 years old, and she managed to knock every thought out of my head for at least 15 seconds. Finally, she asked, “yeah?” And forgetting what I had come for, I said, “hi”. She answered with a “hi”. So I told her, “I am your new neighbor.” I expected her to ask, “so what?” But instead, she smiled and said, “oh, how nice! Welcome. Do you want to come in and have something to drink?” There was no way I was going to refuse such an offer, so I walked in. She was apparently home alone. We talked. Her name was Becky, she had just finished university. An hour later, I headed back to my apartment, very happy to have such a sweet neighbour. The next day, Becky called me and apologized or being rude to me. She suggested she helps me find a cheaper apartment, but hell no, I wasn’t moving out of this apartment, not when I had just made such a stunning discovery. She told me how much the apartment cost, and, yeah, I couldn’t afford it, it was about three times my monthly salary. I told her I had had a change of heart, and maybe I would stay a little longer. She didn’t ask what had caused my change of heart, and neither did I volunteer the information. Ends