I live above a chemist in one of the main town centre streets in Hitchin. There are around 20 or so shops on my street and the easy route could've been for me to just go to all the shops and buy something, as a way of contacting my neighbours. I did go for fish and chips the other night, but to be honest, although they tasted great, it didn't leave me fulfilled in terms of having contact with my neighbours.
As I said in my previous post about the neighbours challenge I was in the process of arranging drinks with my neighbours. I’d sent close to 40 invites for the drinks, and before this challenge, I didn't realise there were that many flats on the street, so already I’d learnt something from this challenge.
So already I surpassed the 30 neighbours that I had to connect with. With high quantity projects like this, I'm all but aware that you won’t get the large quantity of results you want. You’d get a fraction of those.
Out of nearly 40 invites, I got 3 responses before the drinks. I got one from my neighbours below, but I already know them so it didn't count in my book. The 3 responses all said it was a great idea, but they couldn't make it and they would be up for meeting up at another drinks. So already the seed of the idea was a positive one.
Not everyone understood why I organised the drinks. My flatmate laughed when I said what I was doing. She asked if the reason I was organising the drinks was because none of my friends were free for a drink. I explained that wasn't the point, and I just wanted to see who was on our street. There could be some great people on our doorstep that we weren't aware of. Or in Zoolander terms, we couldn't see them because we couldn't turn left.
When Sunday afternoon arrived I started to get nervous. I thought I could go with a neighbour that said would be there, but she couldn't make it after all. Lots of doubt came into my head as to whether it was a good idea at all, whether anybody would show, or whether people would show and laugh at the idea and leave? But as I said to my dad, the bar is 15 seconds from my flat; I’d stay for one drink, read a magazine and then go home if nobody showed. 30 minutes tops would be wasted if the idea failed.
I arrived at the bar and I recognised one of the barman from New Year’s Eve and told him about my idea, which in essence is an experiment. He thought it was a great one, and said he would keep his ears open in case anyone was here for the drinks.
Eventually finding a table, I set up my neighbour sign, armed with an Appletiser and Stylist magazine to read and waited.
5 minutes later (which lasted a lifetime) and 3 women show up asking me if I was Jocelyn. I was unbelievably happy that 3 people believed in my crazy idea. Their names were Andrea, Tori and Lou and they lived together in a flat next to the bar. I was in so much shock that people showed up, I had to ask their names at the end as I didn't hear them the first time round.
A few minutes later an Irish guy showed up and asked if I was Jocelyn and then he sat down with us. His name was Brian and he’d moved into the new flats on my street in November and it turned out he worked on the same road as me.
It was acoustic night at the bar and James Bay’s brother Alex was doing a set, and talking to the barman later he said it was the perfect night to pick, because if conversation had awkward silences then the music filled them.
My neighbours and I talked about work, the flats we lived in and our surroundings. We all had such diverse backgrounds and we were all different ages.
They've got my number as I put it on the invite, so if they want to meet up again, they know how to reach me.
I'm already going to plan another drinks for the people who couldn't make it. There’s at least another 4 people who are up for coming along.
Was I scared going into the drinks? Absolutely, it’s definitely the most nervous I've been about doing a challenge in a long time. And that’s a good thing! To push yourself out of your comfort zone, where’s the negative in doing that? If you've got a crazy idea that you've got a good feeling about, but people laugh or ignore it, go for it anyway. As corny as it sounds, you've got nothing to lose and everything to gain. And on my part, one of the barmen definitely knows my drink order now so I can be one of those people that say I’ll have the usual!
No comments:
Post a Comment