Hello everyone, it is gratifying to find this forum. I would be grateful for some advice please.
I have an next door neighbour who I and the wife have been friends with for over 10 years. He is in his 40s now and has always lived on his own. We chat 'over the garden fence' you could say, and we will sometimes have a brief chat if we bump into each other at the shops, but we have never gone into each other's houses, and even though I have invited him down to the local pub or to attend a community event he has politely declined every time. Over the years we have exchanged small gifts at Christmas and on birthdays (nothing much, a bottle of whisky or a practical household item/utensil for example). He is a very private person and we respect that. We are not the dreaded 'nosy neighbour' types at all, and most of our interactions with our neighbour have been limited to happenchance encounters at the shops, out in the back garden or the more regular once-a-year Xmas and birthday exchanges of small gifts.
My wife bumped into his sister once, who at the time was also leaving off a birthday present for my neighbour. It was his 40th at the time and my wife asked the sister if the family were intending to throw him a party? The sister just shrugged and said 'no - he has ASD'. We were concerned enough to search on the internet to find out more about ASD - and to be quite honest we got a bit lost/confused with all the information available. It is a wide spectrum! But we said nothing to my neighbour about what his sister had told me and carried on as before.
Recently we hadn't seen my neighbour for some time and I was concerned about him. I knocked on his door and he answered it eventually. He said he was OK and he seemed all right. I explained that I wouldn't have bothered him, but I hadn't seen him for a while and I was concerned as a friend.
I'm afraid he then had a bit of a go at me on the doorstep for calling him a 'friend'. I had never seen him like that before. He had no friends he told me - only people he knows. I apologised for upsetting him and left surprised and confused. The following day in my doorway I found that he left a box of some of the little gadgets we had bought him over time, with a note telling me that we were not to give him anything again, and that he didn't want to talk to us anymore. I have seen him at the local shops since then and he simply walks past me without even a 'hello'. This has gone on for over six months now.
I am totally confused about this situation. We value him as a friend and he could be quite chatty and friendly - albeit in just the short exchanges we have had over the years. I don't understand how the use of the word 'friend' could prompt such an adverse response from him, to the point that he will not talk to either of us anymore.
I just wonder if anyone in this community had any advice as to how we might try to get things back on an even keel with my neighbour? I would like to just get back to the 'arms-length' friendship we had before (which seemed to work for him). Or have I done something that has been perceived as 'unforgivable' by my neighbour and we should just now live with the situation as it now is?
Any advice from the community would be greatly appreciated.
Thank you for taking the time to read this.
