Photo: Rex/Fremantle Media
“There’s Eye Candy” said Mum, the way you’d say, “There’s the postman”, or “That’ll be the phone”, late on Friday afternoon when I was pottering about the sink area in front of the kitchen window.
I looked up and there he was – one of the guys who lives on the second floor of the block of flats opposite. We’re on the ground floor, so we literally look up to them.
One of the benefits of living in a no-through road full of flats, is that we can see lots of people from our windows (I’m talking to you, Angelina Jolie), and people-watching is fun. Everyone has to walk past our windows to go anywhere.
Since I’ve been back living at Mum’s place, I have particularly noticed the neighbours mentioned above. Just as we’ve established that jogging is more fun with beer truffles, washing up is much less of a chore with a view of eye-candy neighbours out the kitchen window.
The residents of this apartment across the road are two guys in their late 20s. One is tall and dark, the other is tall and blond. The blond is slightly more tanned than the dark-haired guy. We have officially dubbed them Eye Candy 1 and Eye Candy 2 (shirtless neighbours are better than Bananas in Pyjamas any day), but in reality we just refer to them interchangeably as “Eye Candy”.
They both walk around shirtless, six months of the year. They frequent their balcony, opposite our kitchen window, for barbecuing their dinner, hanging their washing, and just enjoying a drink. All shirtless, all the time, no matter the weather.
“It’s funny that they never wear shirts” Mum said. “Look, you can just see his underwear”, she went on. Yes, we could see the rim of his boxers over the top of his brick balcony wall. And he wears his boxers low, might I add.
“Don’t you just get the urge to wolf-whistle?” Mum went on.
“Yes,” I agreed, noting it was like living across the road from a Levi’s ad circa 1990. Remember the male model who strips off his Levi’s in the laundromat and waits for them to be washed, just wearing his boxers? It’s a bit like that. Except without the laundromat. And without the jeans, obvs.
I did a little practice wolf-whistle, just quietly, as I stood by the open kitchen window.
“Careful!” Mum hissed, “He might hear you!”
He didn’t hear me though. The two 20-something women who happened to be walking past at the time, heard me. They looked at me through the window. I looked away.
The Eye Candies have a female flatmate. She is always dressed in exercise gear. I don’t understand why she often looks cranky. She lives with the Eye Candies and she exercises – you’d think she’d smile more. I’ve seen her arrive home from somewhere at 10 or 11am on a weekday, carrying a sports bag or a backpack, often in an athletic-looking track-suit (as opposed to a slack-looking track, which is what any track-suit I wear looks like, which is why I never wear them) and often with wet hair. Is she in training for swimming events? Is she eating enough carbs?
Who are Eye Candy 1 and Eye Candy 2 (and cranky female flatmate). Are they three friends? Just flatmates? Is it a couple and their best friend?
What do they do for work? Sometimes I see the dark-haired one in a suit, but rarely. Maybe he wears it to job interviews. Are they uni students? They are often around during the day. Maybe they’re shift workers. The lights in their flat are usually out by 9.30pm. I think I recall seeing the blond one in a dark blue uniform once – maybe he’s a paramedic, or a police rescue guy. They would certainly look right at home on any police or medical TV drama.
Once or twice I’ve seen one or both of the guys out of context at the local shops, and in that first instant, my heart skips a beat and there’s the recognition of “Oh, I know him! Is he on TV?” Before I realise it’s the eye-candy neighbour/s I’ve never spoken to.
I peer out of the windows like a bizarro Gladys Kravitz (the nosey neighbour) from Bewitched. Is this what I’ve become? Well at least I’m not as bad as Mrs Mangel from Neighbours. Eye Candies have just put up a full-length female nudie pic on their living room wall that I can see quite clearly from my living room all the way across the road.
At first I wondered how to reconcile the right of the Eye Candies to put up a poster in their living room, with my right not to have to explain a nudie pic to just-turned six-year-old Spider Boy. But I decided to get a grip. It’s not that bad – it’s a stylised illustration, the kind that were popular in the 80s. And besides, Spider Boy’s really too short to see out the window. Unless he’s climbing something.
Sometimes the universe likes to have a little laugh. On Saturday night when I was burning the midnight oil on Pinterest, I heard music coming from someone’s apartment. Hot Chocolate’s You Sexy Thing. Great, so now my street has its own soundtrack. I went to the window and the Eye Candies’ apartment’s lights were all out (of course, it was way after 9.30pm).
My aunt came over yesterday. Eye Candy 1 (the dark-haired one) made an appearance on the balcony – shirtless of course. “Ohhhh, there’s Eye Candy” said Mum, predictably. What is it with mum and her eye candy? It’s not like she’s a sexagenarian anymore – she’s just turned 70 – but she still knows good eye candy when she sees it.
I raced over to get a better look. I then told my aunt the story of Eye Candy 1 and Eye Candy 2. “Allie I think it’s time you got onto Be Harmony or whatever it is they call it,” she said, referring to an internet dating site.
Mum later told me that as she walked my aunt to her car, they looked up to yet another apartment block to see yet another eye candy walking around shirtless in his apartment. “There’s more eye candy!” exclaimed my aunt, who is older than my mother. This particular eye candy heard her, looked down at the pair of septuagenarians and beamed at them, apparently.
So to my neighbours I’ve never spoken to… Thank you for making the washing up just that little bit sweeter.
Do you ever watch your neighbours? Do you speak to them? Have your neighbours become good friends?
The Alexcellent Life 
Alex, I had a neigbour a couple years ago who was an eye candy as well! I met him the first time when he tried to steal my beer glasses I had left in the lobby of the building for about 2 minutes. So it was an awkward conversation that started with “hey, these are my glasses…”. Two weeks later, I got pretty sick witht the flu and on the third day of “not washing, not brushing hair, xtra large t-shirt and baggy pants”, there came my neighbour to ask me if I was in the mood for a drink. I was mortified! I politely said no and went back to bed, wondering why life was so cruel to me. Cute neighbour would never come knocking on my door ever again.
I was wrong. He came back about a month later… I was in the middle of cleaning my appartment. Again, baggy pants, glasses, my hair was a disaster, clothes and stuff all over the floor, sweaty from all the moving around… He looked as uncomfortable as I was when he saw my appartment (I believe everything I own was on the floor, waiting to be put back in closets). He probably thought I was a hoarder or something. I politely declined his invitation to join him and some friends for a drink, and avoided him for the rest of the year I lived there. Pretty funny when I think about it. He never came back. I moved out. And that’s my story about eye candy neighbour!
PS: Loved your eye candy story! Let us know if you ever meet them!
Thank you for sharing that story about your eye-candy neighbour! I know we can’t always be in glamorous cocktail dresses when people come knocking on the door unexpectedly, but it does seem that the more unglamorous the task and attire, the more likely that someone will come a callin’! I think I probably would’ve done the same thing as you – ie avoided him for the rest of the time I lived there too. It is funny though. I will keep you posted about the eye candies. Just looking across at their apartment now. No sign of life there. The balcony door is shut and the bedroom curtains are drawn. In fact, now that I think about it, I don’t think I’ve seen them since I posted the story! Spooky…
All good. Eye candies are back.