Moved here a couple years ago, initially met the neighbors and know their names, but haven’t had more than a handful of couple sentence interactions since then.
On the one hand, I do want a little distance: I’m not trying to hang out all the time or necessarily make new best friends. But still seems like the neighborly thing to know each other a little bit more, to have someone to call in case of emergency, or hey your dog got out, hey the global order has collapsed let’s band together to keep out the raiders, etc.
So interested to know, if you do interact with your neighbors, how did you get started? What is the extent of your interaction?
I’m “that guy” in my neighborhood. Burgers ,beer and football are generally at my house. I invite neighbors to dinner all the time. Just this evening one of them texted a half dozen of us because their shredded cheese was moldy and they had a different set of friends coming for dinner. A neighbor i introduced to this newish neighbor walked a bag of cheese over to them.
Best part is that when everyone gets drunk, nobody has to drive. Or if I’m at a party at their house and need to poop, I can walk an extra 200 feet and use my own bathroom. I have keys to at least 4 of their houses.
Neighbor friends are the best.
I just moved into my first home and I hope to meet a guy like you in my neighborhood. I’d love to just chill and meet some neighbors
I had a bit of an epiphany a decade or two back that I wished the same wish, and realized that if nobody else was going to be “that guy” that I’d have to do it. My neighbors hardly even knock on my door, but just walk right in now. They also know that I may or may not have beer in the fridge, and they’ve realized that they can find their own cups/plates/spoons etc. Its low stress at my house. Not always clean and neat, but that’s on them… if you want a spotless, perfectly planned party, they’re welcome to invite me to theirs lol. So far, nobody’s complained :)
Note that my immediate next door neighbor is polite but has never come to dinner. Half of my neighbor friends are 2-3-4 or a dozen doors down.
Go on walks and just introduce yourself.
I was coming upstairs, as they were struggling to carry a fake dead body downstairs. His back was to me, with his arms hooked under the dummy’s armpits. His buddy was carrying the legs and saw me first. He jokingly went “oh we’re filming a-… Uhh… Porno?”
I responded with something along the lines of “I’m not even gonna worry about it until I start hearing farm animals.”
They laughed. I laughed. We haven’t spoken since (because I haven’t heard any farm animals yet.)
Barely spoke a word with any of them for several years. Got a kid. Now i know almost all of them.
EXTREMELY effective method, but has a few caveats.
This was it for us, kids do not give a fuck about protocol and formalities
My wife is quite sensitive to noises and my neighbor was often playing bass-heavy music in the evening but rarely late, until one night he played until 3 AM (stopped quickly after we ourselves got to bed so I didn’t go and complain that night.) Next day, I knock on his door asking if he’s the one playing music at 3 AM.
To my surprise, the man apologizes, says he was baked and didn’t realize how loud he was. Adds that if he ever is disturbing us in the future, to come and tell him right away.
Now, we’re surprisingly more tolerant of his musical habits just knowing how polite and apologetic he was about it. So what could have been a rocky start ended up with us being cool.
I have neighbors on 3 sides of me. Neighbor to my left isn’t talkative. We wave when we see each other. Neighbor behind me is a nice older lady. She felt bad for me push mowing my lawn so she let’s me use her riding mower for free. I maintain it and do some odd jobs for her. We talk when we see each other. Neighbor on my right is a nice guy. He isn’t home a lot since he drive a semi. We stop and talk every few weeks or so. He has a German Shepard that is a good dog.
One of my neighbors was super cool, from the moment I met him. He told me he was throwing a party in a week and I should come. So I did, and then from that point forward we were always inviting each other to things, and planning collaborative BBQs in the front yard.
The neighbors on the other side of my house were friendly, but never beyond a “hello” point for 3 years! Lol. Then their neighborhood buddies moved away and they started talking to us more. Eventually we invited them over for the 4th of July. Then they invited us over to a party, then a dinner, and it’s gone from there. It turns out we have a ton in common, but never knew it because we hadn’t talked much.
That’s often all it takes, inviting each other over for dinner, or a game night, or a party, or whatever. So pick a neighbor and invite them over. Heck, invite all your neighbors and have a big BBQ. Call it a block party.
I saw them outside, invited them over for a BBQ a few weeks away. We also dropped off a Diwali present, and they dropped off an Xmas one. 3 interactions a year other than saying “hi” when we see each other out front is the exact level want.
Don’t know much about my current neighbors and don’t want.
The people we used to live next door to were great. L came over as me and my BIL were handing out candy, and any adults got a shot if they wanted.
After the kids went to bed L came over to our place and we got ridiculously drunk. L passed out in the kitchen and we let him sleep some of it off before helping him back next-door when we met M, his wife.
Probably my favorite story is when M texted L and said she thought there was a snake in the backyard, and being drunk we went to investigate immediately. Not the expected reaction, so when I knocked on the back door (it was late-ish) I’m greeted with a double barrel shotgun. M apologizes and says its not loaded, at which point I drunkenly admonished her that if she’s gonna point a gun at someone unknown, it should be loaded in case she really needed it.
We got to be really great friends with that family, and then they moved for work. Still miss them years later.
I moved in like three months before we went into lockdown for the pandemic, so it took me a while lol. Mostly I just started saying hello while we were all out doing yardwork. It’s nice to feel like I belong here and I’m part of the community. But I absolutely would not rely on these muppets in an apocalypse, god bless them lol
Threatening them and their barking dog at 2am.
This. Same with me. 4.5 years in my house and we don’t even say hello to each others. We are incompatible. Always mean comments in the mailbox regarding “how we cut plants wrong” (plants that separate the 2 properties), etc. Well not anymore, just ignore.
One of my neighbors threw a neighborhood BBQ. Free invite with burgers and dogs, BYOD. Seemed to draw quite a few people
I heavily rely on my partner for the social interactions, I’m not as social and outgoing :)
She went round to give muffins when we first moved in and got to know most of the residents.
Since then new people have moved in here and there. The newer neighbors keep to themselves, so we don’t really know them.I was walking to my car and she barked “are you always going to be parked there” (right outside my house) to which i replied “I live here”.
Introduced myself the first time I saw them out on their porch. That’s what people do in my neighborhood, they sit on their porch to be sociable.
I greet my neighbors by name every day, and they me. We discuss the weather, their family, local goings-on.
My interaction with my neighbors is just to the extent of saying “hi” when we bump into each other and that’s it. They have a friendly dog and I love dogs, so I did offer them that I could dog sit for them if they ever needed it, but they never took up the offer. I’ve spoken way more to their dog than I ever did to them.
Oh well. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
I believe the era of “love thy neighbour as thyself” is long gone. Back in the day there were many reasons to interact with your neighbors, such as for keeping up with the local news and gossip, borrowing rations when you’ve run out of stuff, or keeping an eye out on your place when you’re away etc. But these days, in the era of the Internet, home deliveries and security cameras, there’s very little need to interact with your neighbors. Which is a bit sad, but I guess that’s the way the world works now.
Back in the day there were many reasons to interact with your neighbors, such as for keeping up with the local news and gossip, borrowing rations when you’ve run out of stuff, or keeping an eye out on your place when you’re away etc.
Lots of people still do all of these things. My wife and I are friends with all of the neighbors around our house and I’ve even given milk to one of them when they were cooking and discovered they were out. We do all the things that you mentioned, plus have little neighborhood parties.
