Spending Loads of Time With 'not my friend'

[BigSalad]

I recently moved into a new house and the next door neighbour woman was really friendly. I noticed she spends a lot of time with another neighbour, x. X had remarked when I met him on 'how wonderful it is to live here and we have the best neighbours and also they will be watching what you'. The watching part creeps me out but I ignored it.

I was talking to next door woman (who spends a lot of time with X, as she admitted to going over to his house most days, and I said something along the lines of 'it seems you are good friends with x'. She immediately vehemently said 'He's not my friend!!' Now I do find that this neighbour woman will change her tune depending on what you say from the about ten conversations I have had with her.

I have now started to back off other than saying hello to these people. Woman next door seems miffed by this but I don't want to get friendly with people who are fake?

AIBU it's completely disingenuous to spend time almost every day with someone and then go around saying they're not your friend? Or why would someone do that? I don't understand.

Maybe he's her dad or her brother or something?

Maybe she's having an affair with him and she's pissed off that people are noticing the time she spends with him??

It does seem a bit odd. Is X nice? Maybe you can make friends with him.

She's shagging him and she thought no-one had noticed.

I should have said these people are in their seventies. He never married and she's a widower. Street is older people lived here many many years and a few families with older children.

The idea of them shagging! I'm probably being ageist?

Not X is not a nice person. Another long time resident of the street mentioned that they all 'put up with him'.

I'm probably best off staying out of getting to know any more!

I think you should figure out whether people are nice for yourself and ignore the background noise. I've stupidly been fooled by lies people said about others to help their own agenda. As I've got older I get to know people and make my own decisions.

Maybe they believe they’re just being neighbourly with each other and she’s maybe took what you said as a suggestion that they are ‘friends’ if she’s a widower then she may have taken offence. They will almost certainly be discussing everyone else so best just keep yourself to yourself and just be polite.