Other than work/family, would anyone notice if you were gone?

[Cruithne]

I think there are a number of issues at work here:
1) Proximity to neighbours.
As I mentioned in my last post I am due to move house imminently. I'm moving to an affluent area - to some extent it has lots of big houses sitting on large plots of land, but also has a mix of smaller houses much closer together. I would not choose to live in one of those big houses. I far, far prefer to live in a smaller house with neighbours in very close proximity. Back home I was used to people doing exactly as you said - people dropping round for a cup of tea unannounced or people ringing you up and asking you to pop over the their house. I love that. I'm very happy with my own company most of the time but I do like the company of others. Living in one of those 'McMansions' is my idea of a living hell.
Also I think neighbours are important because while you can make friends and acquaintances at work, in my experience they don't tend (on the whole) to be the people you make lifelong friends with. They tend to remain 'colleagues'.
2) Physical environment. Again referring to where I am from - I lived near the beach and a great downtown area where it was easy to find somewhere to meet up that you could walk to. It was no effort. I think if people have to make an effort to do something, its harder to organise a 'meet up'.
3) Work / Education / Aspirations. I've generally found in life that the more educated or career focussed a person is, the more likely they are to move around, often great distances. Its not a hard and fast rule obviously, more a generalisation. If you befriend people with such aspirations, its quite likely at some point they will get promoted or find a better job or situation and move on. I've found this particularly true of Americans so far, but I've only lived here six months so I may well have this completely wrong!
4) I think often you have to be the one to put in the effort to make friends initially. It may be that you have to cast your net wide, only to end up with one or two really good friends and personally that is good enough for me. A couple of people to share your intimate stories with over a glass of wine, for me is one of the great pleasures in life.

[Dayton Sux]

No, i have a small footprint in the world.

[WagePeace]

I've thought about this before. I live alone and no one would notice for some time if I were gone. My landlord might wonder why he doesn't see me. My bank would send another rent check at the end of the month, so he wouldn't mind much -- until an odor started coming from my room! That might take a while.

Sometimes my parents are surprised if they leave a message and I don't return the call the same day. But if I'm busy, I don't, so it wouldn't be that unusual. They'd get frantic after a few days, but, from 3,000 miles away, they'd have no idea what to do about it.

Actually, right now, there is someone who would notice -- my lawyer. I'm involved in a lawsuit, and I'm in regular contact with him. If I didn't return a call or e-mail promptly, he could be in a pickle without my input on whatever was up at that time. Hopefully that case will be over soon, and then there will be no one to notice or care if I'm not immediately available.

About a year ago, my father went blind. It was spontaneous. He just woke up one morning and couldn't see! What a horror! Fortunately, he has a second wife, whose children live nearby, and he has a loving family all around him. I've thought about what it would be like for me. I would be completely lost. I suppose my landlord would help me make a phone call to some agency that would send someone to help me arrange for whatever we do with blind people around here.

I have some young friends, and I know they would come around they would feel terrible for me. But no one is going to take care of me. Aside from going blind, If I get sick before I die, life will turn very harsh.

My contact with my young friends is sporadic, and if I disappeared, there might be a call or text in a week or two from one or two of them. Eventually they'd start asking each other about me. They know I care a great deal about them, and if I stopped responding, they would probably be the ones who would come around and get someone to open my door. Maybe before I made the place start to smell!

I used to have two good friends. One of them died last year, and the other moved back East for a big position and our contact has dwindled to almost nil.

Oh, there's an activist group that I'm involved in online. We have a conference call once a week, and they'd notice if I wasn't there. Most of them don't even know my real name, but the head of it does, and he'd be worried if I stopped responding. But again, I don't think he'd have any way of knowing how else to check up on me.

As Paul McCartney wrote in 1966, "All the lonely people, where do they all come from? All the lonely people, where do they all belong?" Father Mackenzie, died in his sleep in the night when there's nobody there. What does he care? "Ah, look at all the lonely people! Na na, na na, na na, na na, nah."