After a few years of living on your street, you may feel it’s time to get to know the neighbors, those ghost-like entities who seem to inhabit nearby residences and with whom you share unobtrusive half glances from time to time when you are unfortunate enough to pass each other in the shared hallway or on the sidewalk.
While it might seem easy to eventually strike up a conversation and after a few years ask for each other’s first names—assuming both parties signal consent for such intimacies with explicit verbal permission and/or written agreement forms—in practice, it can be quite difficult. How might you conjure up a reason to justify a conversation? Which topics are you allowed to speak about? How much personal information may you give without appearing socially promiscuous?
Luckily, there’s a fool-proof strategy for getting to know your neighbors, one they will never forget and can be a fundamental reference rock on which an acquaintanceship can be built: a fire, or a pretend one, at least.
Fires are scary and dangerous, and nothing brings neighbors in an apartment building together physically or emotionally, more than seeing smoke billow out of a window. If you live in an apartment, neighbors will suddenly scream and shout for everyone to run outside, and once there, they will huddle in a group, talk to each other candidly, touch each other’s arms, and make sincere offers to help one another. When the smoke disappears and the threat has been declared gone, people might even invite each other for coffee or drinks. The next time you see your neighbors in the hallway or street after having experienced a frightening, frenzied fifteen minutes together, saying hello won’t seem like a big deal.
The same goes for a house fire. Even the coldest and most antisocial neighbor will run to your house and pound on your door if he or she sees smoke coming out. They’ll forget all about their anxieties and dozens of grievances against you and the world and, for several minutes, show real concern for you and, just maybe, even hug you and cry when they see that you have made it outside safely.
It’s important to note that starting a real fire is as dangerous as it is foolish, and you don’t want to get the fire department called. That’s why you could consider lighting and smoking 20 cigars at the same time. Or, you might want to invest in a good fog machine, the sort used in shady dance clubs where all the drinks are watered down and the toilet stalls are missing doors. Or, you could throw a bag of popcorn in the microwave, but instead of zapping it for three minutes, zap it for 13. In all these cases, just make sure to leave one window open so people can see the smoke.
