Hell no!
I’m only giving out my number to neighbors if I know they’re gonna be low-key and not annoy me at all hours.
So I can see where this guy is coming from.
Do you think he acted like a jerk?
Get the story below and see what you think.
AITA for politely declining to exchange phone numbers with my neighbor?
“My wife (29f) and I (33m) purchased our first home a couple years ago, and the neighbor across the street (50-60s m) has always been really friendly.
Pretty much any time either of us are outside, he comes over to chat and make small talk, but it goes on, and on, and on.
Oh, boy, this is annoying…
I’ve noticed he spends 4-8 hours a day outside in front of his house, often stands there staring at our house for minutes at a time, and he stops literally everybody who walks by to talk to them.
When he comes over (walks onto our property uninvited) to talk to us, we indulge for a minute and are ALWAYS polite, but keep it light and try to find an excuse to go inside or around back because we’re fairly shy people and he’s a little bit odd.
Also, we don’t really have much in common with him and aside from being nice neighbors, we have no reason at all to be social with him.
Our province recently went into further lockdown – so no outdoor gatherings are permitted by people who don’t live together, etc.
Here we go again…
Today he came over and began talking about how people in the neighborhood need to take care of each other, and how when people (in general) are walking by, they’re often “casing places out” based on his experience living in California (because that’s directly related to a small Canadian town, somehow).
He then told me we needed to exchange phone numbers.
I let him know that I would definitely wave him down outside if I ever saw anything that seemed weird, but that my wife and I like to sort of keep to ourselves.
He then repeated that we needed to trade phone numbers, so that if one of us saw something at 2:30am, we could call each other.
Did I stutter…?
I thanked him for keeping an eye out in the area and being a caring neighbor, but once again said we like to keep to ourselves and don’t share our numbers with many people.
I stayed really polite, thanking him repeatedly.
At this point, he started having a fit.
He started repeating (very loudly) “I get the message”, putting his hand up, and stomping away (while still repeating “I get it, I get the message”).
Okay…
I tried thanking him again for wanting to keep an eye out and he just kept stomping away, pretty obviously upset.
I normally do just about anything I can to avoid conflict, but really didn’t feel comfortable giving my number to someone who already hasn’t demonstrated a whole lot in the way of boundaries.
AITA?”
Here’s what folks had to say.
This person said he’s NTA.
Another individual shared their thoughts.
Another Reddit user didn’t hold back.
This reader made a good point.
I’m with him on this one.
You’re not obligated to share your number just because people live near you.
If you liked that post, check out this story about a guy who was forced to sleep on the couch at his wife’s family’s house, so he went to a hotel instead.