Bitten in the posterior by an abstraction

My New Years Resolutions are always stealthy buggers. They lie in hiding for a while, generally until late-January, and then BAM! They up and bite me in the posterior.

Here’s one: I’ve been living next door to these people for about two years now, and barely made contact. We’ve said hi a couple of times, and a few weeks back I went to the gym without my key, so they loaned me their mobile phone so that I could wake Karen up to let me in, and then yesterday they took delivery of a parcel for us.

Earlier this evening, the fella brought it round to drop it off, and I said hi, and I assured him that I was the person with the name on the parcel, and he said that his name was Steve. I already knew this… ish. Two years ago, we invited them round to our housewarming party. They politely declined, but we briefly had their names. Forgotten them since, it seems.

But for some crazy reason, while he was stood at my door, I didn’t really make much in the way of charming conversation. It would have been a fine time to say “Got any exciting plans for tonight? Fancy a beer sometime?” but I didn’t. No idea why not. I could come up with a million possible reasons, but I anticipate that a contributing factor is that Steve and his significant other (whose name I probably once knew, but have forgotten) are not particularly forthcoming either, which gives me little to bounce off of. I am also a much more lazy conversationalist than I used to be, as I have mentioned before.

Either way, we have a resolution. I resolve to make contact with Steve this year – to actually find out who the hell he is. It would be daft not to.