And if he’s every in your area doing a talk and a reading, make the effort to see him. Well worth putting up with other people to see him live.
She was back AGAIN today! 10 minutes ago banging on my door and giving me chocolate filled with peanuts (peanuts being on my Forbidden List). I told her this: “Please stop bringing me food. I have a medical problem and can not risk getting ill.” She said nothing but looked PISSSSSSSED.
WTF? What the hell is wrong with this woman? I am happy to have interactions with her of many sorts but she’s boiled it down to either “accept my food or I’m going to be angry with you”. How many times does she need to hear “no”?
I know you have had a lot of suggestions here already, so I’m just going to present what I would do. “Oh, that’s so kind, but I can’t eat this, and there’s no-one else here to eat it” and hand it back to her. If she wanted to argue with me or demand reasons, I would just repeat, “I’m sorry, but I can’t eat it.” She might be just as angry, but you wouldn’t have to try to keep thinking of new ways to say the same thing. She doesn’t really deserve any more explanation than that anyway.
And on the chance that you are just venting and not looking for suggestions, I agree that she is a piece of work and probably mentally ill in some way.
Some people are hopeless. I once had this new roommate and she kept asking me if I liked her hair. I told her I did. She kept asking. Then one day she exploded at me over her goddamn hair, because I hadn’t cut and dyed my hair to match hers. Which proved I didn’t really like her hair—or didn’t like it enough, or something. For real.
This woman also took it very personally that I don’t drink iced tea and juice straight up, I mix it half and half with water. Because she had actually purchased a big bottle of iced tea for the house (about the only time she ever paid for anything,) IIRC. She “caught” me adding water to a glass of the iced tea that SHE had purchased.* This was, of course, a grievous and deep personal insult, my way of saying “you have crappy taste in iced tea and you are a horrible grocery shopper, I hate you. In fact, she called a freaking house meeting to confront me about it. I ended up moving out. Eventually the landlord had to evict her.
*I want to make clear I wasn’t altering the container of tea. I was pouring a half glass of tea, then filling the rest of the glass with tap water.
And it wasn’t like she felt it was “her tea”, she made lots of noise about how she had bought it for everyone. Which was a red flag on its own.
Some people are just crazy. And you can try and try, but they just won’t respond rationally. I bet that right this minute that woman is trying to think of something she can make for you that you won’t reject. She’s gonna keep trying.
Have you tried just not answering the door when she comes? If that doesn’t work, quit being nice to her.
Do you know whether she does this to everyone, or is it just you? Have you talked to your neighbors about her?
Wow, she is a piece of work.
I wonder what would happen if Broomstick suggested a recipe and provided specific ingredients with instructions to not. Add. Anything.
I’m pretty sure the neighbor would make it and. Add. Something. Because she’s crazy.
I am wondering if she is one of those people who thinks “I have a food allergy” means “I don’t like that food” and is truly clueless that it is a genuine medical condition? I keep saying “I have a food allergy” and she keeps hearing “I think your food is shit”?
It still doesn’t explain why months later she’s still trying to foist food on me.
Why would any sane person try to keep giving food to someone who thinks their cooking is shit?
Did you ever explicitly say, “please don’t ever bring me food again?” You’d think she’d have figured that out by now, but…
I’m pretty sure this is a yes…
They wouldn’t. I assume the bearer of food has some psychological issue.
I wasn’t clear. I meant without giving an explanation. Offering the explanation leaves the door open, so to speak.
The chicken and vegetables incident suggests she is trying to accommodate Broom’s dietary needs. She may think that Broomstick will accept the food someday if only she “gets it right.”
In other words, she may be hearing, “I can’t eat this particular food,” rather than “I’m not going to eat any food that you bring me.”
It probably won’t make a difference, but hey
Yes, a couple of visits ago I switched to a blanket “don’t bring me food”. It seems to have had no effect.
At this point I will trust nothing she brings me as someone so disrespectful of my needs and boundaries is not, in my view, trustworthy.
Have you spoken to any of the other neighbors about her? I’m curious to know whether she brings food to everyone or just to you.
I haven’t spoken to many neighbors, but i know she doesn’t bring food to the Italian family (two brothers and their mother) next door to her. There’s another family on the first floor who gets the kitchen stuff she apparently wins at the gambling boats (she tried foisting that on me - “you’ve got a blender? Here, have another one!”. Never mind she complains I have too much stuff!). Apparently giving stuff away is a thing with her, but not necessarily a nice thing if you know what I mean. There’s some passive-aggressive stuff going on I think.
Hmm, what if you print out a little card and tape it on (or next to) your door, saying:
SERIOUS FOOD ALLERGIES
Under Doctor’s orders,
NO outside food may be consumed.
(Please do not feed the wild animals)
The reason I’m curious is I’ve known people for whom being “liked” is defined as “being allowed to break your boundaries.” They will never feel accepted or even comfortable with a person until they are constantly breaking boundaries and getting away with it.
They are, of course, completely toxic, in a passive-aggressive, victim-y sort of way.
I was strolling down memory lane and came across this blast from the past. Just thought I’d add an update.
The downstairs neighbor sent her kitchen on fire. Twice.
Both times I heard her smoke alarm in my apartment, grabbed my fire extinguisher, and called 911 as I ran downstairs. Both times my actions were timely enough to restrict the damage to just her kitchen, which is sort of important to me personally what with living directly above her and all.
The first time she was blackout drunk, took a swing at one of the cops responding to the call along with the firemen, and wound up being hauled away in an ambulance for a few days. She had zero recollection of these events.
The second time she was falling down drunk again, to the point she could stand in an apartment half-filled with toxic, burning-plastic smoke, directly under her screaming smoke alarm, and not have a fucking clue what was going on or what that noise was. I’m standing outside here there’s oxygen yelling at her that her apartment is on fire and she needs to come out. The other neighbors heard me, comprehended, and started bundling up children, pets and elderly parents to evacuation but this dumb, drunk bitch is fucking clueless and bewildered.
One of the guys in the second call remembered her from the first.
Round two she didn’t try to punch a cop. Yay? They did have a problem, once they got her out of the apartment, with her going back in. Repeatedly.
Wasn’t blackout drunk that time. The next morning she even apologized to me. Um… kinda too little late. She’s also pissed off she no longer has a stove or an electric kettle. That’s because the firemen physically removed the burning appliances from the building so, you know, they wouldn’t set fire to anything else.
YAY! SHE CAN’T COOK ANYMORE!!!
She is, of course, pissed about this and demanding to know when management will get her a new stove. She has been informed she won’t be getting another one. She will, however, be getting a new place to live as she is no longer welcome to live there. I wasn’t the only person to call the rental office the next morning to say something about fire.
Some folks are speculating she’s going senile. Nope. She’s an alcoholic. True, her age is not helping but when she is sober she’s got her wits. The problem is that she’s almost never sober anymore.
I’ll be happy to see the last of her.