What Neighbors Say: Learning to Live Without Conflict

What are you complaining about?
More often than not, complaints about neighbors boil down to one of these three points.

1. Too much noise or noise at the wrong time: it can be frolicking children, barking dogs, clattering heels, loud music, renovations, noise at night, etc.
2. Too many visitors: guests walk back and forth under the windows or near the elevator: more noise, smoking, garbage.
3. Different values: For example, you think you can put a garbage bag out the door, and your neighbor is annoyed. Or a neighbor smokes on the stairs and is absolutely not going to reckon with the law, your requests, reasons and arguments.

In all such episodes, we can safely say that you consider your boundaries violated, and interests infringed. How can you calm yourself down and try to solve this problem?

• Take four inhalations and four exhalations, but the exhalation is twice as long as the inhalation. In other words, breathe in normally and exhale much more slowly. Count the number of breaths to yourself.
• Make contact with water: you can wash your hands, rinse the cup, just turn on the running water from the tap or drink a glass of water.
• Name the emotion that overwhelms you aloud – for example, “I’m just angry. I’m furious, I’m just shaking all over with evil. ” Sometimes verbalizing an emotion helps to reduce its intensity.
• Imagine yourself and your neighbor in the form of a caricature or a comic: a disgusting old man crumpled on the floor, and you, in a Batman costume about two meters tall, solemnly raise your hands in the pose of a victorious one (or something like that, equally life-affirming).

You may well allow yourself to be in emotion for a while and even seem to enjoy it. The main thing is to distract from the impulsive desire to run at this moment to the neighbor. And after you have coped with the initial influx of negative feelings, it is time to move on to the analysis.

Unpleasant conversation within the bounds of decency
1. Determine your position: what do you want specifically. Formulate your problem as simply as possible. “I want my neighbor not to do this or that,” is the wrong wording. You have no right to control other people. Correct example: “I want to sleep in silence” or “I do not want to breathe smoke.”

2. Evaluate how your desire can be supported or governed by any rules. Even if there is nothing on this topic in the laws, there are always some common norms. Remember: a clearly formulated rule is your trump card and lifebuoy.

3. Think about the compromises you are willing to make. It is very likely that your neighbor will not agree to immediately and irrevocably correct his behavior, because if he is doing this now, most likely he has his own reasons.

Of course, he may simply not understand what makes someone uncomfortable. But it may turn out that he simply cannot do anything. For example, a neighbor knows that his dog is constantly barking when he just walks out the door. But how to wean her from this – she has no idea.

4. Remember that you personally, Ivan Ivanovich, have no complaints against the possibly good man Pyotr Petrovich, your neighbor. In other circumstances, you might have become friends. But at the moment, all you want to do is share your desires with him and ask him to meet you halfway. This is not a conflict. It’s just protecting your borders and constructively trying to share a common space.

5. If the conversation still takes an aggressive character, remember about the “trump card and lifebuoy.” Ignore any emotional arguments from your neighbor and repeat your rule over and over again: “I understand your circumstances, but there are rules …”, “Despite this, there is still a rule that …”

Don’t be afraid to look stupid: on the contrary, this tactic will allow you to “not get turned on” in response to the emotions of your neighbor. He will not be able to take you away from the conversation, or “surrender” under pressure. A rule is a rule, you can’t argue with it whether you like it or not.