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The story
A poster on 5ch’s Nnews VIP board shared a story about an elderly male neighbor who seems to avoid using the apartment building’s bike parking area only when the poster happens to be there, instead pacing around nearby. The poster read the behavior as “suspicious” and “creepy,” but plenty of other commenters pushed back, suggesting he might simply be avoiding overlap and waiting his turn like anyone else would — splitting the thread right down the middle between those who called the behavior “unnatural” and those who called it “normal.” The debate gradually spiraled into an endless argument over who even gets to decide what counts as “natural” behavior in the first place.
What people said
→ For example, when I'm pumping air into my bike tires at the lot and the old man comes home, he mysteriously walks right past the bike lot and loiters around the area instead.
Once I leave, he goes and parks his bike.
That's already confirmed not to be the case, obviously.
Pretty combative, huh.
Bet that's how you went and threatened the old man — go on, say it.
Yeah, but still?
→ His balcony's a mess
・Goes out or comes home at bizarre hours like 3am
・Slams the door loudly
In the bike lot example, loitering around the area looks suspicious no matter how you slice it.
Re: #5 is basically saying something feels off about the guy's character.
An elevator and a bike lot are totally different sizes.
That's not really a fair comparison.
By the way, I'd feel a bit uncomfortable, but I'd still get in.
He's avoiding it, so he's just waiting nearby until it's free.
Calling that "unnatural" makes you way too much of a self-appointed natural-behavior judge.
And what makes you think I'm a stalker?
If he's really avoiding you, it'd be more natural for him to move far enough away that he could come back in like 5-10 minutes.
"Coming back in 5-10 minutes is more natural" is way too convenient for your argument. He's just waiting on the spot for it to free up. You're basically giving the old man stage directions — that's creepy.
Is that really the level of your "risk-management skills"?
You sure love the phrase "risk-management skills" — what are you, a certified crime-prevention officer? The old man's just waiting for it to free up. You're the one branding him a suspicious person.
Skip the lecture.
Try actually rebutting the first half of Re: #23, lol.
Mr. Judge, lol.
"Stage directions," huh… lol
If it's not "stage directions," then stop grading everyone's behavior on a natural/unnatural scale, Mr. Grader. Nobody out there moves according to your personal rulebook.
You're only picking a fight over the phrase "risk-management skills" and not rebutting anything else — or rather, the fact that you can't says it all.
It's not just the phrase — playing pretend crime-prevention officer is what's cringe here. The old man's just waiting, and you're the self-appointed natural-behavior grader. That's my whole rebuttal.
There's no "first half" to argue — the old man's just waiting his turn in plain sight without getting close. If you want to control other people with the rules in your head, go put up a sign at the bike lot.
First you say "waiting his turn,"
then you say "avoiding him" — you're totally flip-flopping, lol.
This isn't going anywhere, lol.
He's waiting his turn specifically in order to avoid you — what are you, some ace detective hunting for contradictions? If anything isn't making sense, it's your Japanese.
I'm just saying that's unnatural, is all?
If you were in the old man's shoes and were avoiding me, I seriously doubt you'd be able to just loiter around the bike lot, lol.
He's avoiding you, so he just waits nearby without approaching. Playing pretend "loitering judge" is way more unnatural than that.
So, could YOU loiter around the bike lot if you were in the old man's position?
Are you just a word collector who wants to say "risk-management skills"? What has zero persuasive power is the way you're running the whole world on your own "unnatural" scoring system.
Yeah yeah, so in your head I'm a word collector, lol. Even if I were a word collector, that doesn't change the fact that you have zero persuasive power, lol.
The word "persuasive" has no persuasive power coming from you — the moment you start collecting phrases like "risk-management skills" and "unnatural" to play pretend persuasiveness-grader, you've already lost.
The fact that you're even talking in terms of winning and losing says it all, lol.
If you really don't want to be told you have zero persuasive power or no risk-management skills,
how about giving even ONE piece of evidence that the old man's behavior is natural? Hm? Lol.
judging from Re: #44's reply, it seems like I lost?
Which means, since I lost, I don't have to leave, right?!
"Already confirmed" just means you stamped your own approval on yourself. Sounds like you'd also grade yourself "safe" on whether you threatened him.
It's hard to explain in words, but—
When I'm heading out and go to the bike lot, the old man happens to be coming home and heading there too
↓
For some reason he avoids it and starts loitering around
↓
There was someone else at the bike lot who was also about to head out
That's literally all that happened — I never threatened anyone, lol.
It bugs me because it's not normal behavior. If he were a normal person, it wouldn't bother me at all.
It bugs me exactly because he's a random stranger — next-door is close, after all. The fact that you can stay totally indifferent no matter what a stranger does is honestly impressive, in a bad way.
Background and Key Points of the Debate
Encounters in shared spaces like an apartment building’s bike parking area tend to turn into unverifiable he-said-she-said disputes, since there’s no camera footage or witness testimony — and this thread was a textbook example. The poster branded the neighbor suspicious based on fragmentary observations like “he avoids the lot when people are around” and “he comes and goes at odd hours of the night,” but commenters pushing back reinterpreted those same facts as “he’s just avoiding overlap and waiting his turn” — neither side ever got past speculation. As the argument dragged on, the focus drifted away from the core question of whether the neighbor is actually scary and toward nitpicking the poster’s word choices (like “risk-management skills” and “already confirmed”) — a pattern common to online arguments that wander from the original point. What readers should keep in mind is that neither theory in the thread comes with any objective evidence; this article is simply a recap of an exchange on an anonymous message board.
※This article is excerpted and summarized from the 5ch (Nnews VIP) thread “My neighbor, an old man, seems socially awkward and it scares me.”
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