The One Where HannahGrace Fights With Her Neighbors

For a year and a half my upstairs neighbor has been fighting with her boyfriend, usually around 5pm.

I’m not exaggerating. I wish I was. A year and a half is a long time. And all this time I have been wondering: Why haven’t they broken up already?

Some things about their relationship are really predictable. I know this because I can hear every word they are saying, all the time.  They always fight about his friends and how much time he spends with them, “roaming the streets” (her words). Something always breaks and then she takes a bath. And someone always hammers. I think the guy must be building bird houses, or maybe a meth lab, to deal with his anger.

In all this predictability, however, some things are really unpredictable. It has been more than once that their fighting has escalated into domestic violence and I have called the police, who have never arrived in time to catch anything. As I have listened to these fights I have realized, it is her that is beating/hitting/attacking him. I know that spousal abuse can go both ways, but before them I had never had any experience with a woman as the one creating an atmosphere of violence.

When I researched the subject online, I found a divorce support site that had this comment:

“This supposed ‘abuse’ – of men by women – is really a right-wing, anti-feminist distraction from what should be our main goal of eliminating domestic violence which in 99% of cases is men abusing women. Too many women fear to speak out against abuse from their partners as it stands. The promotion of this contrived ‘violence on men inflicted by women’ is only going to exacerbate that problem.”

What? Anti-feminist to talk an issue that affects women? I’m sorry, I don’t follow.

While it may be true that more men engage in violent behaviors in relationships than women, I have proof that it does happen. And according to the Center for Disease Control and Prevention (yes, it’s really based in Atlanta, The Walking Dead got it right), 24% of women and 13% of men experience intimate partner violence during their lifetime. Those numbers breakdown further to translate into 1 in 4 women, 1 in 7 men, proving that it’s happening to both sexes and it’s happening often. If it’s never discussed, for fear of taking away from the “real issue,” it will never be understood.

I wish I could have talked to my neighbor and found out more. I wish I could have understood the issue from her perspective, rather than just looking at numbers. I have to be really honest – I messed up, and ended up being the biggest anti-feminist involved in the situation.

When they started fighting last Thursday, I had already woken up on the wrong side of the bed. I thought coffee would fix my woes, but burnt my finger badly in the process of making it. So when they started fighting just outside my apartment door, I lost my mind. I flung open the door, hair wild, mascara running, my injured finger held aloft and covered with aloe, and yelled, “Do you ever shut the f up?” Only I didn’t say f. I said the real deal, along with a bunch of other terrible words, until she came toward me and I got scared and slammed the door shut.

I have been fully ashamed and a little afraid to leave my apartment for the past week. What’s worse, if I can hear them fighting, I know they can hear me too. They have to know there is some girl downstairs listening to Kate Nash and The Dresden Dolls and yelling “Vote Democrat!” randomly throughout the day. They probably hear me talking about women’s issues with my friends, and I am pretty sure they were home the night I watched The Vagina Monologues on VHS. Come to think of it, they probably think I am a feminist.

But I can guarantee you that whether or not she thinks I am a feminist, she will never come to me for help or advice. I called her a “redneck” and a “slut.” I think I might have called her a “redneck slut.” I am ashamed, but I was literally blinded with rage in that moment. I didn’t know what I was saying and my sub-conscious spoke for me.  And I am really embarrassed at what it came up with.

The noises from upstairs might sound like an episode of the Jersey Shore gone wrong, but that is no excuse for me to behave in a completely un-neighborly, un-feminist way. I can’t really fix the situation now, but I still wanted to share what I learned from it. After all, feminists make mistakes, and sometimes all we can do is use the opportunity to grow.

And apartment hunt. I am definitely apartment hunting.