How well do you know your neighbors?

Post Reply New Topic

thinking about it more, when i was a kid we all knew our neighbors. we lived in a suburban area on the edges of a large city. in a lot of cases, the fathers worked in the same factories (or, at least, very nearby) and were all pretty much in about the same social class. since the moms were "stay at home" (this was a long time ago), they'd chat over the fences a lot. all us kids went to the same school. and we did play together outside a lot when school was over. half of the families were members of the same church, the other half was mostly from another with a few jewish folks thrown in as well. although they kept to themselves.

i couldn't do anything without somebody's mother phoning my mother before i got home to tell her what i'd been up to.

my daughter's life is very different. we live at the fringes of large city. we have nothing in common with our neighbors other than that we live in the same complex. my daughter was bused across town to a magnet school when she was in school and has never met, except in passing on the sidewalk, any of the other kids who live here (they also move in and out a lot, so just when you know who lives where, they are gone). the other kids either went to the local school, private schools, or were bused elsewhere, too. moms and dads all work now, so the kids go to after-school/summer daycare somewhere else. the place is usually deserted until after 6pm during the work week. there's a lot of immigrant people in our complex as well - seems to be a lot of eastern europeans. they seem to stick together. some middle-easterns as well. we've got some somali refugees, too. but i've never met them. a few retired people, i think, as well. and an elderly english lady. but the only thing we have in common is living in the same complex. social class, educational level, religion, ethnic background... nothing cohesive in any of it.

different world than i had as a child.

same for me. The current ones are disputing the boundary. It's like 3 inches they're disputing and we live on small acreages, so it's just a stoopid power game. They have absolutely no use for the 3 inches. Unfortunately I am legally obliged to play with them in this power game.

I can take upto 20 or more years to get to know someone in my block since I moved here in 1989 I never talked to anyone then because the area I live in has been intensely Aspiphobe in the past and I will not talk to a stranger that has recently moved just in case he or she is an aspiphobe. Where I live at the moment I have had some horrendous aspiphobic abuse in 1994-1996 which may have been due to a compulsive lying neurotypical. This aspiphobia I had over this area including from neighbours has also been endorsed in 1994 by the local borough council that owns the block of flats (now the council condemns it) where I live I keep my self to myself because of aspiphobia. Not only that I have nothing in common with them. Most of the aspiphobic a***holes have moved out new people have moved in and now strangers live next door I will not speak as they could be aspiphobic and nothing in common as well their experiences have been alien to mine. A lot of people in my neighbourhood use marijuana and/or drink alcohol daily and some don't. I do neither so there is nothing in common there so they have nothing to speak about that I want to hear anyway

Last edited by Aspiewordsmith on 06 Jan 2009, 4:29 pm, edited 1 time in total.

I keep them at arm's length... besides I have nothing in common with any of mine.

yes, but how do people keep neighbours at arms length when they're aggresively social. Like in my last 2 homes both times, I've had neighbours foist vegetables on me (they grow their own) as an icebreaker, I also get asked for drinks, I know you can say you don't drink but then they say well you don't have to drink alcohol. so....

It's like they HAVE to incorporate you into their clan and accord you a rank in the pecking order (low) and if you reject their pseudo friendship they become enemies. ugh. It's compounded by being on your own, I mean if people see you have a social circle or clan of your own, they tend to leave you alone.

I don't know anyone who lives in my neighborhood, let alone my immediate neighbors.
I've never really spoken to any of them. The only reason I know anything about them (with one exception) is because the people who lived in this house previously told me so.

There is one nice family across from us who brings the whole street cookies on x-mas. I wave to them if I see them while I am working in the front yard. That's the extent of the knowing there.
Other than that, our neighbor to one side is a elderly shut-in. The neighbor behind us is an eccentric and reclusive widower. The exception I mentioned is the neighbor to the other side. There is a very angry and disgusting man, his abuse-taking wife/girlfriend? and their out-of-control young daughter. They make a lot of violent noise, and living next to them is not very pleasant.

The sad thing is, we live a very good neighborhood. And I don't mean in terms of wealth. It is a older, middle-class, semi-urban neighborhood. But it has tremendous character and positive energy. The properties around here are usually well-taken care of. The land is good, with hills and lakes. The people are generally friendly. And there is a "happy feeling" about the place that is intangible and hard to describe. No ghosts... put it that way. In the middle of it all, we just got a bad neighbor. Oh well. I still like living here.

If the neighbors harass you uncontrollably like that, they need to be reported. Simple as that.

As I said above, you don't say hello and you don't make eye contact. Also, you look bored and boring, stressed, short-fuse and in a hurry. And you start from day one. Basically, you have to do all the opposite of what they teach you about how to make friends.

I know one neighbours name, but the others I only know by their face. Some others I can't even recognise.

I move pretty often and it seems people around me move pretty often so I don't even bother to try to know my neighbors any more.

Currently I'm living in an apartment complex and I know my neighbors on the left like to party on the weekends and play their music loud, and my neighbors that live behind us are quiet. We're on the end so we don't have a neighbor to our right and the buildings are single story so no neighbors over or under us.

I never had too many problems with neighbours when I was renting, partly because I always lived in flats (apartments)and you're out of sight in those. I was also working then so I was out during the day and I had a bit of a social life.

Since I moved into home ownership I've lived in houses with yards and it's a whole nother world when the neighbours can see you. The previous lot actually chopped down all the screening shrubs along the fence line (they were on their side) presumably to get a better view! It's weird what people do when they can put their eyes on you. Plus home owners are lot more territorial so there's kinda more problems. It's almost worth working just to keep yourself unavailable to the neighbours.

i have one "next door" neighbour. my house backs onto bushland and one side faces a mainly disused oval.

there are no houses across the street. my neighbour on the west side looks about 80 and he is very private which suits me very well.

just 100 meters up the street though, there is a normal density of houses and sometimes the residents stroll down the street to the oval, and they do not like me and are suspicious of me in a way.

i avoid contact with them strenuously.
when there are rare soccer matches on saturdays at the oval, lots of nearby residents all hang around and have barbecues etc.
one day i got home and could not get into my driveway because a woman with a pram was talking to another woman and i blew my horn for them to get out of the way.

when i drove down the driveway and got out of my car, they were looking at me with unfriendly expressions. i ignored them and went inside.

after a while, i started playing "empire earth" which is a computer game with lots of loud artillery explosion sounds, and screaming citizens and soldiers getting wounded etc. i have the sound play through a large sound system that is very realistic.

then i noticed that a man was standing in the driveway (my computer is at a desk at a window that overlooks the driveway) and he had a worried(?) look on his face. my front door was open as i always have it during the day when no one is around (which is nearly always).

i went out and asked him what he wanted. he said "you right in there mate?"
i said i was and asked why he thought i was not?
he said "yeah..just heard some weird sounds comin' from in there mate"
i became annoyed and said if he was suspicious to ring the police.

he nodded his head slowly as if to digest that he was talking to a very strange type of character. i am sure he did not think i was doing anything serious or he would have called the police, but he rubbed the back of his neck and said "you're f**kin' mad".
i said "off you go".

i thought about that for a while and i conclude that he thought i was sick in the head because i am alone inside "watching explosion movies" on a bright sunny saturday when all normal people are "soakin' up the sun with their mates".

they may not normally care, but i am living in their neighbourhood, so they want to "check me out" and i will not give them a chance because i am not interested in meeting them.

this makes them a bit suspicious of who i am, because up the street, everyone knows everyone else and walks to each others homes and they have lunch and socialize, and my place is always very still and lifeless as seen from the street.

another time, some man came in while i was in the front yard, and suggested i mow the lawn.
the grass was not long (about 2"), but there were dandelions growing.
in the afternoon, the dandelion flowers close up and they look very weed like and ugly. but in the morning, they open up and they are bright yellow and attract all sorts of insects like bees and butterflies and little moth kind of things.
these attract small birds and there is much happy frolicking life in my sunny front lawn with the dandelions open. i like to watch it.

this man said " hey mate don't you think it's about time to cut your lawn"?
i told him that the grass was not long enough to be cut, and therefore i would only be cutting the dandelions. he said that they were weeds, and he became more irate as if he owned the neighbourhood and had some authority over my property. my lawn was not overgrown or unkempt. it just did not appeal to his sense of the neighbourhood spirit.
i told him that i was finished talking to him, and i told him to go.

no doubt he took an exaggerated story of his encounter with me back to his family who probably passed it on to other people.

i am not paranoid, but sometimes when people walk past my place, they stop and peer as if to guage what "diabolical things may be happening within those walls".

few people want to live near a "mysterious" person. they like to be aware of all the people in their street to know they are safe.
i understand that, but i live so differently than others, that when i do encounter them for a small while, they walk away with a far worse impression of me.

like that fellow who queried me about the sound must have told his friends and family who were curious, that i was obviously not all there.

i blew my horn because they were deep in conversation. otherwise i would have had to wait to get into my own driveway.

anyway sorry i got carried away.
no i do not know any of my neighbours.

That's a pretty good picture of how it is. They want to know you because of the 'who is that stranger' thing but even if they did know you they'd find some excuse to gang up on you or use you as a 'fall guy'. you're damned if you do and damned if you don't. It's a bit like Edward Scissorhands when the locals get curious and try to incorporate him into their world. ugh. it doesn't work.

I like that 'If you're concerned about it you'd better call the police' reply, that was pretty wise really.

no it does not work. i am not interested in civic things. i am not interested in communities or my place in them.
that alone makes people very worried because they can not fathom how i am not interested in civic issues.
i am not interested in children and i have no interest in talking with people about either their childrens or their own lives.

i guess i am not interested in precariously happy people much because they do not need me to look at their lives, and i do not want to either.

i always come to loggerheads with people who espouse some idea fervently that i do not agree with, and i have not the personality to see it through, so i seem very disruptive and unfriendly and not very productive.

i am better to let them speculate with their simple imaginations how i may be, rather than instill spine tingling mystery into them by meeting them.
simple people mistrust abnormality. like little crabs all run to their holes at the slightest breeze.

ewwwwwww.

I am good friends with my neighbor on the left. I do not know the people who live next door to the right. Until a few months ago, a family lived there and the dad seemed like he'd be an as*hole, plus I do not care for kids and I doubt we'd have anything in common. Since they moved out of the house, an older couple moved in, but I never see them, although they seem to be nice the few times I encountered them.

This is the first place I've lived where I knew (or wanted to know) my neighbors. I go to college and the last two places I lived were inhabited by nothing but college students. People around my age group and generation, more often than not, are spoiled dumbass brats with an entitlement complex, so I really don't get along with people my age group. Maybe it helps that the neighborhood I live in now has mostly older people and people with families.