Everyone has different expectations for social interaction, but some can be more demanding than others.

After a brief encounter with his talkative neighbor, one introverted young man found himself facing an unexpected demand for an apology that made him question the balance between keeping the peace and sticking to your principles.

You’ll want to read on for this one.

AITA for refusing to apologize to my neighbor after I ignored her while out for a walk?

I (20M) like to go on walks around my neighborhood almost every day.

I like to put in earbuds and listen to music while walking too.

I’m an introvert, so I don’t like stopping to talk to my neighbors if they’re also out for a walk. I’ll either wave or say a quick “hello” and continue on my walk.

But not everyone is okay with his brevity.

Now I have this neighbor, let’s call her “Rita,” up the street who is a bit of a problem. She’s an older woman (possibly mid to late 70s), and she has a bit of main character syndrome.

Rita is one of those old-fashioned people who feels like they’re entitled to a full conversation with people while they’re out walking—meaning a quick “hello” is unacceptable to her.

So he tries to get out of the conversation altogether.

I did not feel like stopping to talk to her, especially since I had other things to do after my walk and did not want to be out there longer than necessary.

I just walked right by Rita’s house with my earbuds in and pretended I didn’t notice her sitting on her front porch.

But Rita wasn’t going to let this slide.

I got past her house and I heard the sound of someone yelling.

I took one of my earbuds out while continuing to walk, and I heard Rita yelling, “You hear me, young man? I’m telling your mother about this!”

I thought she was just being dramatic and continued on my walk.

Turns out, this wasn’t the end of it.

When I got home, my mom was in the kitchen and stopped me.

She told me that Rita called her and complained about me.

She told me she isn’t mad at me because she knows Rita is entitled and mean as well.

His mother had a troubling suggestion.

However, she thought I should go over to Rita’s house and apologize to her anyways because our neighborhood is pretty small and everybody knows everybody, and she doesn’t want Rita to badmouth us to anyone and make us look bad.

I wasn’t surprised because there’s nothing my mother cares about more than her image.

But he’s not comfortable doing this.

I told my mom I wasn’t going to apologize because Rita needs to learn that she is not entitled to anyone’s time.

Plus, most of our neighbors don’t like Rita anyway, so there’s nothing she could say to ruin our family’s reputation.

My mom still thinks I should apologize to “keep the peace.”

So AITA?

There’s nothing worse than an entitled neighbor.

What did Reddit have to say?

One way or another, Rita needs to be shown that she can’t always get her way.

For people who won’t take a hint otherwise, sometimes you just have to be rude.

Keeping the peace? Forget that!

Surely even Rita knows how headphones work?

Sometimes you just have to protect your peace.

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