What will the neighbours say?
When I was a girl my Mum was always nagging me to open my bedroom curtains, muttering 'What will the neighbours think?' I was confused, not least because in other areas of life Mum frequently said 'Don't you worry, it doesn't matter what other people think'. I wonder what put the fear of disapproving neighbours into a different category of her brain.
Bizarrely, as an adult with my own house, my own neighbours, and my own curtains, I find myself fretting about the same issue. I leave the house when it's still dark, and it's dark when I return. At what point do I open the curtains? If I leave them shut (frankly the far more convenient option) what will the neighbours think?
Do I care that they are imagining me sitting on the sofa all day watching Trisha in my pyjamas with the curtains drawn to avoid glare on the telly? Do they look at my shrouded bedroom window and wonder if I'm engaged in an illicit affair with the man from number 54? Or are they not giving me a second thought?
Such is my childhood conditioning that whenever I see drawn curtains in the daytime I tut to myself, and wonder what awful kind of sloth must reside within. Then I remind myself that they have probably just gone to work in the dark, and anyway, what do they care what I think? It's a constant battle in my head. Sometimes it's hard being me.
Bizarrely, as an adult with my own house, my own neighbours, and my own curtains, I find myself fretting about the same issue. I leave the house when it's still dark, and it's dark when I return. At what point do I open the curtains? If I leave them shut (frankly the far more convenient option) what will the neighbours think?
Do I care that they are imagining me sitting on the sofa all day watching Trisha in my pyjamas with the curtains drawn to avoid glare on the telly? Do they look at my shrouded bedroom window and wonder if I'm engaged in an illicit affair with the man from number 54? Or are they not giving me a second thought?
Such is my childhood conditioning that whenever I see drawn curtains in the daytime I tut to myself, and wonder what awful kind of sloth must reside within. Then I remind myself that they have probably just gone to work in the dark, and anyway, what do they care what I think? It's a constant battle in my head. Sometimes it's hard being me.
posted by Rach at 09:07
3 Comments:
WHAT, YOU AND TONY ARE HAVING AN AFFAIR???? ??????
I think you'll find Tony lives at number 56. I don't know the man who lives at number 54, which will make my illicit affair all the more exciting...
I have exactly the same dilemma. When I am sitting on the sofa watching Trisha, Jeremy Kyle and Dr Phil, or, heaven forbid "Judge Judy" I have to draw the curtains so that nobody knows what I am doing. If anyone comes to the house I quickly switch of the TV and grab a duster!!!! What should I care ...I am a 43 year old woman who can do what the hell she likes...but I do care. Such is my conditioning that I have to switch off the TV if my Dad 'phones when I'm watching Coronation Street in case he should guess what I'm doing and tell me off for watching that "rubbish"!!!
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