Some of us have to work to offend; for others it’s as easy as a brief “hello”:

When the landlady of my Toronto apartment building said an outraged neighbour had filed a complaint about me over an apparently inappropriate hallway interaction with his wife, my mind raced through the countless conversations I’ve had with fellow tenants, none of which seemed a possible source of offence.

It turns out, it wasn’t a salacious transaction that had caused the complaint, but rather a neighbourly and — to me — entirely forgettable greeting, little more than a brief “good morning” as I passed my neighbours on the way to work.

Still, it was enough of an affront for the man — once a doctor somewhere in the Middle East, my landlady clarified — to feel I had broken a cultural taboo. The incident started an awkward feud which has involved warnings not to repeat my indiscretion and one face-to-face shouting match, which included allusions to my impending death.

I expect the battle will wage on, as we appear to be stuck at an impasse.

His Muslim upbringing has ingrained in him a sense of entitlement to demand I not speak directly to his wife; and my prairie upbringing has ingrained in me a duty to strive for polite cohesion with my neighbours.

This is a rather disgusting example of a person being treated like a piece of property – something that does not belong in a civilised nation.