Why am I always the first to wave at people?

[BuenoQueHacemohAhora]

You seem to have neighbors who are jerks, don't care to wave, or maybe you intimidate them, who knows. Their ethnic background is probably just coincidental. (on a side note, they are Hispanic, not Spanish). I would even speculate that they may have moved from a big city where acknowledging others is not common, and in some places can get you in trouble.

My neighborhood is somewhat mixed, and everybody smiles, waves or at least nods your way. Even the UCF students that rent one house started waving back after a few weeks. The only guy that does not wave happens to be white, but I don't think that has anything to do with it. He waved for a while when he purchased a big cruiser motorcycle (I owned one at the time for a few years). He quit waving when I traded my big cruiser for a scooter. My wife and I found that hilarious. I just keep waving, he is my neighbor, and he may decide to wave back some day, I don't care.

[ameebamee]

My husband and I are from Massachusetts and have lived here for 5 years now. He's a waver...he'll say hi when we're going for walks with the dogs, and wave when we're in the car. I'll say hi to the neighbors on one side of us, and wave to another guy on our street, but that's it- they're basically the only people that I know, anyway (I don't know the one guy well, but our neighbors do, so I like him by association!). I don't like the neighbors on the other side, so I ignore them (they're loud anyway, but I've caught the little boy feeding my dogs before (candy and whatnot), and his family didn't even care, which made me so mad. So I don't like them, but my husband always says hi and waves.

For me, I don't like to talk with strangers, unless it's the cashier at the grocery store! I don't live in a horrble part of Orlando, but there has been a rise in crime since we've moved in (our neighbor jokingly likes to mention!).

I mean, my neighbors and the other guy on my street are the only ones who wave (besides my husband), anyway...

Part of it could be that so many people have recently moved to Orlando that a lot of us just don't know each other and don't feel all that comfortable with each other.

[Pete C]

We were at the Lake Eola farmers market on Sunday, and people were stopping left and right to pet our dogs and ask us about them. There is certainly no shortage of friendliness downtown. In fact, all I could think about the whole time is just how wrong people are about generalizing Orlando. I guess it is true that where you live or hang out in this city can make all the difference.