It all began with a flash of my underwear.

It was a few nights ago, in the laundry room, when I met Emily. She was all hipster style with bright red hair and boots that are on page twelve of Vogue and tall and really really really really pretty.

"Hey!" I say spinning the dryer dial.
"HI!" She excitedly returns.

Then there was silence and an awkward pause and then, quite literally, we both screamed: "It's good to finally meet someone nice in this building!" OK, so it wasn't all Parent Trap with unison sentencing, but we were both pretty dang excited about the fact that we had gotten to meet.

It's totally true, too. I've lived in this apartment for almost a year and a half and have only met two other people.

#1 Peacoat guy:

I met this guy a year ago. He lives one floor up and we leave pretty much the same time every morning. He, obviously while wearing a pea coat, always has his ipod blaring in his ears. We just nod. I've caught him in the lobby a few times too.

"You live above me I think." I say causally while grabbing my GQ out of my mailbox and while fingers through his envelopes.

"Yup." He says with much less excitement than me.
"I'm Byron." I say pulling out my gloved hand to shake.
"Tim." He says not looking up.
"Well. Have a good one." I say discouraged.
"Yup."

#2 I'm going to die in a tornado girl.

So then there was this cute mid twenties brunette girl that lives right next door to me, right? Cute girl. Punky Brewster, the adult version, sans the whole mis-matching outfit and the avid "Punky Power" slogan. Anyway, it was this last summer on a day where(the first I had ever heard a tornado siren in Chicago) a tornado was promising to whip through the city. Trees were bent in half. Windows were shaking. Lights were flickering. People were going in to the basement in the next door building and I thought it was a good idea... except my backdoor was jammed and I couldn't get to the basement and would have to go outside and around my building to the alley in 70 mile hour winds.

Instead I went to the lobby to at least get closer to the ground. Tornado girl was there.

"Hey... so... this is really scary."
"Yup." The girl turns and looks at me. She reads my face like a scanner. She shows, like, no emotion. No smile. No Hi. Nothing.
"So, I know this is weird... but are you going to the basement?"
"Maybe." She says like a cheerleader scoffing at the nerd.
"Well... my back door is jammed and I can't go in that to get to the basement. Do you think I could go with you out your door... I promise I'm really nice!" I say this just to, well, show her I'm really gay... and not pretending to be in hopes of using this whole "save my life" thing as a booty ploy.

Tornado looks at me then shakes her head and walks away.

So as you can see, I haven't been impressed with meeting the neighbors.

"GOD! No one is friendly here!" Emily says to me pulling her unmentionables in to a small pile. " I mean, I try to be nice. I try to be polite. I even knocked on my neighbors door just to say: Hey! I live next door and if you need anything just let me know. The chick just nodded and slammed the door! I mean! What do you have to do to get a neighbor friend around here? She shakes her head while she is trying to untangle her underwear. She's struggling. Her panties and bras are all over the place.

"Well, seeing you play with your underwear might be a start."

"I'm sorry... this is weird... right?" She says covering her underwear.

"No! No... I'm gay. I could care less."

"Now I feel like that crazy neighbor you're going to tell all your friends about who was 'flaunting her panties like she was flirting'."

I pull a pair of my underwear out of the dryer and flash them at her.

"There. Now I'm that guy, too." I say laughing.

"Holy shit." Emily screams. "You're my new best friend."