Some people don’t mind the mundane making small talk from time to time. But Janet D’Amico certainly does mind: This 27-year-old woman missed her flight entirely, because she was waiting until her neighbors were completely out of the hallway before exiting her building!
“I kind of fear small talk with people I don’t know well,” said Janet. “I was rushing to get out the door so I could catch my flight when I heard my neighbors chatting right outside. I knew that if I left right then I’d have to talk to them about the weather, and my job and did I notice that someone had been throwing loose trash into our dumpster out back. My flight was leaving in two hours. It just wasn’t worth it.”
Janet said that this isn’t the only time her disdain of exchanging pleasantries with her neighbors has caused her to miss important obligations.
“I’ve missed parties, job interviews, first dates, all in the name of not having to talk to my neighbors,” said Janet. “I was even late to my own birthday party once because my neighbor was planting the garden outside and I didn’t want to have to talk about the garden.”
Janet, who has never been friendly with anyone when she didn’t have to be, went on to explain that she has made it a point to barely talk to her neighbors thus far and didn’t want to set any kind of precedent, even if that meant missing a day of her vacation.
“Once people think you’re a casual chatter, they’ll think you’ll always be down for some pointless banter,” said Janet. “So I decided to wait until the people who live in the next apartment left the hallway, so I wouldn’t have to socialize with them. But they took forever, so my plane left without me. Honestly worth it to not have to talk about the weird beep in the basement or people’s kids or whatever.”
“I had to fly to Jamaica the following day without all my friends, but oh well,” Janet added.
Janet’s travel buddies were less than thrilled.
“She’s been living next door to those people for months,” added Leena Dexter, a member of Janet’s travel party. “We’re just really bummed out that she couldn’t muster the strength to say hello and just like, walk by them.”
But Janet is set in her ways.
“I refuse to be in the hallway if it means I might have to greet any of my neighbors,” she said. “If that means I have to pay $2000 to reschedule a flight, then so be it.”
