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So knock on their door and invite them over for coffee or sweet tea. Good grief, everyone sits and waits for someone ELSE to make a move. It ain't gonna happen cuz they are waiting for YOU!
So knock on their door and invite them over for coffee or sweet tea. Good grief, everyone sits and waits for someone ELSE to make a move. It ain't gonna happen cuz they are waiting for YOU!
When we first moved in here a neighbor came over to see our house because the floor had been re-tiled. She also told us "just so you know we aren't the come over for a cup of coffee type crowd"....LOL.
She was only interested in seeing the new floor, not being friendly.
Welcome to the neighborhood!!!! LOL.
People just keep to themselves. The only time you will hear from a neighbor here is if there is a power outage and they will call to see if your power is out as well.
We did extend ourselves but after three years it is pretty obvious people prefer to be left alone.
We have lived in different parts of the country and find people in FL( maybe because it is so transient) really don't want to be bothered.
Again maybe in a retirement village it is a lot different.
Seain D, I`ve had people like that who wanted to just see the inside of my house. We are friendly people too and most(like you said) don`t want to be bothered by anybody. I also have lived in different states and it`s pretty much the same everywhere you go.
So knock on their door and invite them over for coffee or sweet tea. Good grief, everyone sits and waits for someone ELSE to make a move. It ain't gonna happen cuz they are waiting for YOU!
Annie, you seem to be assuming that none of us has been proactive in meeting people. Right after we moved in, I followed a stray dog for several blocks, and when I caught it, the tag on the collar was a house three doors from me. I brought the dog back, got a quick 'thank you', and those people pass me all the time w/o even a wave. I did wave the first few times, but I won't make a fool of myself. I think returning someones dog, after following it for blocks, is at LEAST on par with sweet tea!
New Englanders tend to be taciturn. They act like, if they really needed to know you, they already would.
There's a lot of New Yorkers here in western Mass. They're all big shots, like you should be impressed. Usually they want something, or you get a survey and discover they've encroached over the property line.
We got a little interested in a couple who is around our age where we live. We mentioned to the husband about going out to dinner sometime and he said "do you like sushi?", we said "no, not really".......they would have nothing to do with us after we said "no, not really".
Just last night, we (wife/I) met a lady by the pool. Her teen son was swimming with a couple of friends. She is young enough to be our daughter, but we struck up a conversation with her anyway. While I was in the pool, I looked at my wife and said "perhaps we should ask her if and her son would like to go out on our boat sometime. We could even pull him in our tube." I figured they (mother/son) like water b/c they were in the pool, so they might be interested in some boating fun........WRONG! When I talked to her about them going in our boat, she sort of brushed me off, so I mentioned it to her son.......he wasn't interested at all. His mother later told us that she isn't into boats. Well, so much for that! She is a single mother anyway and we don't really hang out with single people, but to give her teen son some fun, we'd do it.
Well, at least we tried to make some friends.
Seain D, I`ve had people like that who wanted to just see the inside of my house. We are friendly people too and most(like you said) don`t want to be bothered by anybody. I also have lived in different states and it`s pretty much the same everywhere you go.
Seems like a sign of the times.
Yes, imagine moving in and having the next door neighbor come over to see the inside of your new house and than tell you flat out "we don't socialize"...lol.
We're not the types to just show up on someone door's step but I find (at least here) that everyone is just unto themselves.
We got a little interested in a couple who is around our age where we live. We mentioned to the husband about going out to dinner sometime and he said "do you like sushi?", we said "no, not really".......they would have nothing to do with us after we said "no, not really".
Just last night, we (wife/I) met a lady by the pool. Her teen son was swimming with a couple of friends. She is young enough to be our daughter, but we struck up a conversation with her anyway. While I was in the pool, I looked at my wife and said "perhaps we should ask her if and her son would like to go out on our boat sometime. We could even pull him in our tube." I figured they (mother/son) like water b/c they were in the pool, so they might be interested in some boating fun........WRONG! When I talked to her about them going in our boat, she sort of brushed me off, so I mentioned it to her son.......he wasn't interested at all. His mother later told us that she isn't into boats. Well, so much for that! She is a single mother anyway and we don't really hang out with single people, but to give her teen son some fun, we'd do it.
Well, at least we tried to make some friends.
If you'da asked me, I'd be sitting with swimsuit on and my towel just waiting for you to ask. In fact, if ya tell me where y'all are, next time I'm in your neck of the woods, I'll let you know and hope and pray you'll invite me out on your boat - got skis?
I grew up in a small town where good neighbors were existed in abundance, but that was in far different times, and many of the town's residents had lived there for a couple of generations. And in everything you did during the day, you encountered neighbors whom you socialized with: food shopping was not done in massive impersonal caverous buildings, but in stores where there were an abundance of clerks, whom you knew, and where people chatted and visited as they shopped. Everything from buying shoes to filling a prescription meant dealing with someone you knew, and standing around chatting with other members of the community. And people walked....there were sidewalks in residential neighborhoods and people used them, people walked "uptown" to shop, kids walked to school, they walked home from football practice, etc. All these things tied people closer together day by day, every day.
People sat on their front porches, not hiding in backyards with fences around them. You moved back and forth across your town, and you knew your town and the people in a way perhaps not too different from the indigenous Australians with their "songlines."
Now we never walk...we drive, get out of the car, do our thing, and get back in the car and rush away in our private capsule. We see our towns like a tourist would see them, through a car window. We shop in huge impersonal stores, and we buy in quantity so we do not have to go back again soon. For most Americans there are very, very few of these personal contacts that used to fill our lives and reinforce our bonds with our neighbors. And we are always driving, driving, driving even around the corner.
People used to "drop in" on each other, "stop over"....casual, unannounced visits were not at all unusual. Now days these would are considered rude, an intrusion, if not a downright act of aggression. People always "have so much to do" and are on a constant race to get everything done. "I never have enough time!"
People now have to join something to feel like they belong in a community. It's pathetic. You used to get that simply by leaving the house and going "uptown."
That lifestyle, however, is defunct in large parts of the United States....we have created a society which really places more value on things such as convenience, privacy, etc.
I agree with you. In my neighborhood, a lot of people drive vehicles with dark tinted windows, so you don't even know who is behind the glass inside of the private capsule. And on the rare occasion I see somebody walking on my street, they've usually got a cellphone clamped to their ear, and are engaged in an intense conversation which gives them all the more excuse not to acknowledge anyone else.
Location: We_tside PNW (Columbia Gorge) / CO / SA TX / Thailand
34,724 posts, read 58,067,115 times
Reputation: 46190
Quote:
Originally Posted by NYJoe
If you live in a town or city that takes pride in people being friendly and helpful neighbors, please let me know!!
How far will you go for 'friendly?'
WY can be very good for caring for & depending on your neighbor
Rural (prairie) NE, CO, and KS Ag centric locations seem to have always treated me well (as long as you are not in a small town dominated by a single ethnic tribe. (german / cz / dutch)
Now in the PNW (independence to a fault). I need to get to MN, IA, SD, NE, WY, KS, CO often for a good 'hot-dish' supper, to realize people actually talk to each other.
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