The Man In The Window
Playing 'Rear Window' with my neighbor. Plus, Valentine's-themed recommendations.
Every night, the upstairs window of a house behind mine is illuminated. Inside the window sits a man, his face aglow in the blue light of a screen. He is the mirror image of me, as I sit on my laptop framed by my window. Our windows are directly across from each other, separated by the backyards of each of our houses. There is nothing obscuring my face, his is barricaded by his computer monitor, surrounded by trailing plants hung from his curtain rod. Every few minutes, he looks up and out the window, his face pointed right at mine. But he is just a little too far for me to see the details of his face: the shape of his lips, the shadow of his nose, the pupils of his eyes, and most importantly, whether they are looking at me. I think of the common rule-of-thumb, “if I can see you, you can see me.”
I go to bed later than him. Most nights, his apartment goes dark at midnight. Sometimes, usually weekends or occasionally for a week straight, he stays up later. Is he working or scrolling or watching porn? Behind his desk I can make out the bottom half of his bed, always piled high with clothes. I wonder what the rest of this man’s life looks like outside the one window I have into these specific hours of his day. Through the same window he can see me cook, watch TV, dash from the bedroom to the bathroom naked before I hop in the shower. Does he wonder about my life the same way I wonder about his?
How long have we been in this voyeuristic relationship? Three months? Six months? A year? When a relationship is static, the days blend into one. Every night, it’s the same script—him on his computer, me on mine. Occasional eye(-less face) contact. Communication via fantasization.
A telephone pole hugged by a tangle of branches blocks my view of the window into the ground floor of the same house the man lives in. But I can see it from my bathroom window. Sometimes, I linger on the toilet, curiously observing life in that first floor window. A large television overlooks a low-slung mahogany coffee table. Behind it is the kitchen. There’s always movement, usually an older child chasing a big fluffy dog in circles around the coffee table. The living room connects to the obscured patio, from which I occasionally see steam rising. One night, I see a middle-aged woman dash from the patio door to the source of the steam in a bathing suit, confirming my guess that they have a hot tub. After a large dumping of snow, the kid transforms their patio into a mini-snowboard run.
Watching life downstairs makes me feel lonely—the intimacy of family is so foreign, it reminds me of all I lack. Watching life upstairs, however, I feel less lonely. The solitude of a man mirroring my own actions makes me feel like we’re alone together.
Then, something changed. Last week, there was no man in the window. There was no man at all. The apartment remained still, barely illuminated by a single dim light. Maybe he went on vacation, I thought. Oddly, I liked his absence. Without the usual mirror forcing an awareness of my behavior, I felt free to do whatever I wanted.
And then one night this week he returned to the window. But this time, a woman in black was behind him, moving around the space. Suddenly the painting that had always remained static was moving, changing shape before my eyes. Then she disappeared. I went to the bathroom and gazed out to the ground floor of the house, and spotted her—the same woman in black who I had just seen upstairs. What I had thought were two separate apartments, was in fact, one united house.
Suddenly, the entire fantasy I had constructed disintegrated. He must be the husband, she must be the wife, and that must be their child, I surmised. So why then, had I never spotted him downstairs or her upstairs? While my previous narrative had been turned upside down, what remained true was the contrasting energies I witnessed upstairs vs. downstairs. The separation of bodies didn’t change the fact that downstairs was a warmly lit picture of a buzzing family, and upstairs was a blue light-lit picture of still solitude.
And then it occurred to me—maybe the father is lonely. And by extension, maybe his separation upstairs means the wife and child are lonely too.
All this time, I had a kinship with someone I presumed lived alone like me, and a distance from the family life that felt so foreign. Now, I was reminded of what I’ve always known but tend to forget—people can be lonely in relationships too.
What we see on the surface is rarely the whole story. A window into someone’s life is just that—a window.
Best,
Anna
Reading ❤️
💞 Can you optimize love?
✍️ Why young people are embracing prenups.
🛍️ A woman’s secret love for department stores.
👬 A beautiful modern love tale of a father coming out in his 60s.
👸 Bridgerton tackles the orgasm gap.
😭 Dating is hard these days.
Watching ❤️
While everyone will be talking about the new season of Love Is Blind coming out this week, I’ll be devouring the latest season of Single’s Inferno. I loved the first season and then didn’t finish the subsequent ones, but this season is addictive, I think because there’s more plot twists. The addition of two Koreans who have lived in the U.S. adds a new element, and the panel of commentators keeps getting funnier.
Listening ❤️
Last weekend I think I finally reached my last straw with dating people off Hinge. So I devoured this conversation between Anne Helen Petersen’s conversation with Vox reporter Jonquilyn Hill on the current dating landscape. They unpack how dating has changed so dramatically in the last decade, and dig deep into app dating. I particularly loved the term “informational intimacy” to explain how we know someone before we’ve dated them because so much of our lives is online.
Snacking ❤️
The highlight of my week was a lunar carnaval evening with Find Me Now. The fashion brand honored the Korean Brazilian mother-daughter founders with mandu-making and a beautiful display of brigadeiro and other Brazilian desserts. On the note of Korean food, I’m excited to dig into Koreaworld, a cookbook that traces Koreatowns across America via stories, recipes, and interviews. I was reminded of the cookbook upon chatting with the co-author, Matt Rodbard (also the founder of TASTE), this week.
If you’re serially single like me, consider treating yourself. This week I learned of the all-natural Japanese-inspired Italian fragrance brand WA:IT in a scent-infused meditation session. I personally have been wearing the Brazilian brand Granado’s Apotecário on dates. I also default to my Bonbonwhims earrings whenever I go out (use code ANNAH18 for a discount). At home this week, I will be satisfying my sweet tooth with Tate’s Valentines cookies and UNREAL dark chocolate peanut butter cups.
