distant next door neighbors

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I was wondering...what prevents you from talking to them? The reason I have trouble is because I have very little faith in other people and mentally talk myself out of it, thinking it is pointless, it will just be the same crap all over again and I should spare myself the drama and the trouble. I have a fear of the unknown. That is, knowing too much about someone else. I have had relationships with difficult people in the past and eventually they became strained because I had so much anxiety.

So, even when I think I should try, I end up not.
Another thing I find myself doing is fantasizing about running away and making my way from the ground up, being a street person and so down and out that I qualify for everything, especially help getting a job and just pay dues and get it over with. When I start thinking this way I worry and think about all the others who try this and fail or end up miserable.

It could be worse. They could knock on your door every day and feel sorry for you and bring you things and mow your lawn and you have absolutely nothing of value to give back to them...

The teenage boy next door could have a crush on you, or worse, ask you to buy him cigarettes! He could come sit on your sofa, then tell you he was diagnosed with a methicillin-resistant staph infection.

And you could be too bewildered to know what to do about any of these bizarrities so you just freeze and let them do what they do, until the next time they knock, when you hide, but badly, because your lights are on and your car is there.

Try "opening your door" a little. If you can bake, make a cake or some bread (breadmakers are wonderful) and take it over in a basket (that you don't care if you get back or not) to one of your neighbors.

Opening line: (hand basket over) "Hey, I made some bread, and thought I would share some of it." (Smile, if they don't say anything within a couple seconds say: "Well, hope you enjoy it, have a nice day".) (and walk back home.)

You made your move, then it's time for them to make one. If they bring back the basket and tell you how wonderful your bread was or just thank you, then great. If they keep your basket and don't thank you, then I would just move on to a different neighbor.

Thats what I like about it!

Well Detren dear, funny seeing you here but not really I guess lol!

Yes the same Bunni from GW

We too have the neighbor issue. We have been here for three years. The neighbors on each side and us are friendly but distant. Another child living two doors away, same age as my daughter, goes to the same school, and no contact past the first few months of being here.

I did the cookie thing last Christmas. Almost everywhere we have lived, I've sent my kids to deliver cookies I baked at Christmas to the closest neighbors. We did it here last year, and got thank yous, but past that nothing, no involvement. They all do their own thing and we do ours. I'll never understand it I guess.

Hope all is well with you Detren, miss ya

Hugs!

It seems that we Apies by nature can sense that our neighbors are "distant." I think that is one of the reasons we are living on the Wrong Planet.

Maybe that and the vibe given off like that we don't care to interact. Or in my case my anxiety and panic is visible and when in the company of others and without a safeperson I can be somewhat of a disaster.

My parents are quite hospitable and we had alot of company at home both family and friends. They go out alot with their friends and stop by and just visit.

I havn't managed well with our neighbors, bcause some were reasonably friendly and others not. Now I don't bother to look up usually. Dh waves to everyone so I suppose it's good in a way that we are both different.

Rather than going on ambitious friend-making tours of the neighbourhood, I settle for not trying to be perceived as too weird.

Not that I come across as weird.
But I'm an unattached, good-looking guy, which always leads people to presume you're either : -
- Gay
- I must have some sort of psychiatric abnormality - since obviously, no-one wants to go out with me (when in fact, it's nothing of the sort)
- You have some sort of genital deformity that robs you of the confidence to have a relationship.
- Gay

Why do people always assume that good-looking guys are gay ?
REALLY gets on my tits.

The trouble I sometimes get is husbands being antipathetic towards me because their wives fancy me - thereby precluding a normal neighbourly relationship.

I dont know any of my neighbors, infact I dont even know what they look like. My parents dont really know the neighbors either. Its really not a big deal. I dont think its uncommon for people to not know their neighbors.

Heck I didnt even know my neighbors in my dorm even though one of the girls was friends with one of close friends. I find that bad.

I was sitting at home, all alone with my dog, while my parents and brother are out at their friends, having the time of the millenium.

Yeah, but would you really have enjoyed it ?

They NEEDED to go out and do it, to relieve an inner (social) urge.

You didn't have that urge, ergo you didn't socialise.

I think the stigma of being alone on occasions when 99% of the population is expected to be socialising is way harder to deal with that not satisfying a non-existent urge.

Jees, I LOVE getting the house alone to myself.