Her Neighbor Keeps Inviting Herself Over, But She’s Afraid Standing Up To Her Could Backfire
Shutterstock
Imagine living next to a neighbor who constantly seems to drop by, let herself in, and stay awhile. Would you be okay with that, or would you be really annoyed?
In this story, one woman is in this situation, and she’s pretty annoyed with the neighbor. However, she also seems really bad at saying “no.” In fact, she says “yes” when she means “no.”
Now, she’s wondering if she shouldn’t be so hard on this neighbor, or if she should actually insist on sticking to some boundaries.
Keep reading for all the details.
WIBTA for cutting off a neighborhood friend due to boundary issues?
So I have this neighbor we’ll call Lisa. She is a nice person but very flaky with no boundaries.
Her daughter Lisa junior (LJ) is 4 and plays with my 4 -year-old daughter Lee.
My issue with Lisa is that she’ll invite herself into our house a lot. LJ will come in my front door because she see’s Lee playing in the yard with my husband, and then in walks Lisa saying she needs to use the bathroom, and there you go, she’s hanging out with me now.
My husband is a very mi casa su casa type and lets this happen. I’m more private and need my space.
But it’s not like OP hangs out at Lisa’s house.
I should also add that she doesn’t really reciprocate.
She once invited us and another neighbor to breakfast and failed to show up, texting later in the day that she had changed her mind.
This other neighbor has stopped contacting Lisa now.
This brings us to last night.
It started as just a walk.
Lisa sees us on our family walk and says she’s joining us, LJ is already running over.
Fine, its just a walk.
Then when we get to my house LJ asks “Can we come over for dinner?!”
To which I reply, “maybe you could come in for a few minutes but I don’t have enough food and we already have a friend coming over.”
Lisa should know better than to invite herself over.
Then Lisa chimes in, “Can we just come over for dinner though? I won’t eat much and I could use the company.”
This is where I’m probably the jerk. I agreed because I felt pressured, but then was really angry about it afterwards.
She started talking crap about the neighbor that doesn’t contact her anymore and I muttered, ‘maybe she’s just a private person’.
After that I didn’t really talk to her, only talked to our other dinner guest, and hoped she would get the hint, which she eventually did and left.
She feels conflicted about what to do.
She looked really sad throughout dinner and I felt bad but it just felt so weird having her there.
Afterwards my husband and friend said they understood, but that I should maybe be more open and welcoming, that they didn’t mind her coming over and its good to foster community. Also she’s kind of a mess and lonely so its mean to disinvite her.
I like community too, but this person thinks community is taking what she wants when she wants it, so I kind of want to cut her off. It would be hard though, she lives right by us, so putting up boundaries might make me TA in the neighborhood and cause bad blood.
WIBTA for cutting off a neighborhood friend due to boundary issues?
Never Miss a StorySign up to get our BEST stories of the week straight to your inbox.
OP needs to establish some boundaries and stick to them. This dropping by whenever thing isn’t okay with her, and it’s okay to admit that to herself. She seems to like Lisa okay if Lisa would back off.
A petty thing to do would be to start giving Lisa a taste of her own medicine and start inviting herself over to Lisa’s house. She could show up with her daughter and just say, “Lee wanted to come over to play. Can you get the coffee ready?” or something like that and see how Lisa reacts.
Let’s see how Reddit responded.
This person thinks OP needs to start saying “no.”
This is a good idea and a good point.
Another person understands how OP feels.
This is true.
If she doesn’t want to completely cut Lisa off, she could establish boundaries, like certain times of day when it’s okay to drop by and start locking her door when she doesn’t want Lisa to barge in.
Lisa seems to really want to have friends who live next door, and that could be awesome. However, if she’s too pushy, and she’s currently too pushy, she’s going to push everyone away.
Enjoyed this story?
Sign up to get our BEST stories of the week straight to your inbox.
