Is this what it is like to live in New York? In a tower, scant feet from other people … and no one talks to anybody? An almost aggressive “keep away from me” vibe?

We know people in this building … but we know them from the newspaper. By coincidence, or more probably word of month, no fewer than five National staffers live within one floor of each other, in this building.

But everybody else?

No clue.

The two immediate neighbors are mysteries.

On one side is a fitness fanatic, perhaps upper 30s, certainly an American, who may be from New York and may be a trainer or PE teacher. She is one perpetual scowl.

Whenever I walk past her, I find myself thinking, “Did we do anything to her?” Maybe she professionally offended by my clearly-not-really-fit state.

If a person can be aggressive while ignoring someone, she has perfected it.

I have only one excuse for her aloofness: The door to this floor’s trash room is directly across the hall from her front door, and the trash chute makes lots of noise, and the door to the chute, as well as the door to the door to the chute, pretty much slam if you don’t make them settle just so.

Maybe she’s mad about that. (Would it help if she knew I actively allow the doors to shut quietly?)

Maybe she is from NYC (actually, I think she is) and this behavior is how it’s done in the big city.

On the other side are what I take to be a husband and wife, early 50s, and I have no idea from where.

I have seen the wife. A few weeks ago, she was headed out just as I was, and I was going up to the gym and she was going down. I said to her, “going down?” — to make sure she pressed the “down” button.

After a beat, she said: “Doing the exercise?” Like that. Some English, but not fluent. I said, “Well, I’m going to try.”

And that’s the extent of our conversation with the next door over. If I have ever seen the husband, I did not notice it.

I hear him all the time, though, as he and the wife (and the occasional visitor) chat on the balcony.

We have spent most of a year trying to figure out what language they speak. It’s something that sounds a bit harsh, to the English-speaker’s ear. Pretty sure it’s not Arabic, because we hear that all the time. Unless it’s Arabic with a very non-local accent. (I’m told Moroccans and Gulf Arabs can barely understand each other.)

Could be eastern European.

Also, and this is a rule of thumb developed over the years, whenever you find people who might be westerners, and you can’t figure out their language, which is a little rough … it’s almost always Portuguese.

So, we hear them talking … and coughing.

The husband is a smoker. A heavy smoker. If we leave the door open, during the pleasant months, that cigarette stench will invade our balcony and then the living room.

He really ought to give it up. The smoking.

His morning routine calls for going out on the balcony just after the call to prayer (which generally is about an hour ahead of daylight), and lighting up as he coughs up a lung. But not always in that order.

At that point, I have to shut the windows, or deal with second-hand smoke. So I shut the windows.

So, the opaque window between his balcony and ours is shared. But we don’t see each other, and we certainly never talk, and that’s just how it is, apparently.

I have never lived in a tower for more than a few months at a time. Maybe this is typical. Maybe it makes sense. Never know who might become a pest if you are friendly. Never know who is crazy or dangerous. So you walk around with a perpetual “don’t even think about talking to me” expression.

Certainly is how we do things here in Abu Dhabi.