Do you socialize with you neighbors?

[FroggyinArk]

Originally posted by onecoolmama
Nope I live on a cul de sac and I dont!

ocm is anti social???


We live on a street where until af ew months ago 4 out of 6 houses were elderly retired ppl and the 5th was a drug dealer,, now we have 4 other young couple that are related ,, the y hang together,, w e do go over to my grannys house across street a lot ..lol

 

[DisneyAddict_M]

I live in an apartment complex with 24 apartments in it. I wouldn't know some of my neighbors if I tripped over them in the street. There are a few I know well enough to say hello to, but that's about it. A neighbor upstairs has a daughter who is a few months younger than mine and the 2 girls played together once. I'm rarely home, so I don't have much of a chance to meet anyone.

 

[oogieboogie]

we don't socialize on a normal basis. It's more of the "when I see you I'll talk if not, I'm not going to go to your house just to talk" kinda way.

our kids however play with the neighbor's kids almost every day at our house. The neighbor's kids are new to the area and there aren't any other kids except mine. So they hang around our house primarily, which is fine for us.

 

[buzzlady]

No not any more. Our neighborhood has gone down. We now have a drug dealer next to us and a drug user across the street (both houses were raided in March - so yes, it is fact). The people on the other side of us are never home but we did use to have BBQs with them all the time.

 

[buddy&wooz]

We don't, mostly because our road is rather busy, not "built" for casual, unplanned socializing really, and my immediate neighbors have no kids and have built fences. Sometimes we invite some neighbors we're friendly with to come by after dinner, but it's a planned thing.

I used to be envious of people who live on quieter side streets, who had yards that backed up to other yards and seemed to socialize nightly. Then I talked to a few about it, and the general concensus seems to be that they wish they had more privacy! They can't just sit in their yards with their families without neighbors showing up, often kids that just won't go home . So, given the choice of the privacy I have, or a built-in social life, I'll take the privacy!

 

[snoopy]

We socialize ocassionally with some of our neighbors. The others we don't have anything in common with its more of a wave hello type of relationship.

Having said that, even when you are friendly with your neighbors, you don't always really know them. Our across the street neighbors of 5 years were a good example. We were friendly with them, they had children a little older than ours but we often got together to bar-b-que, etc. I always thought she was a little odd in that she sort of catered to him and seemed a little timid to do anything without him, but other than that she seemed nice. Long story short, one day their daughter came knocking on my door hysterically crying telling me that her Daddy beat her Mommy up again and that this time Mommy was bleeding on the kitchen floor. I grabbed my son who was a baby at the time and ran over there and there she was on the floor and there was blood EVERYWHERE. So scary. DH was a firefighter at the time and came over and straightened everything out and we got her to the hospital. On the way there she told me that he had been doing that to her for 10 YEARS. She ended up divorcing him, thank GOD, and they sold their house, but it was a good lesson that you never really know people as well as you may think you do.

Sorry to get o/t.

 

[WendyWhiner]

No, my neighbors don't like us. They think we whine too much.

 

[totalia]

Nope. I don't have a clue who my neighbors are at all. I don't know whether they all have kids, never mind their names and I don't really care if I do or not.

 

[amid chaos]

We have a great neighborhood with tons of kids. We socialize all the time, usually with kids, sometimes without. I wouldnt give it up for anything.

 

[ez]

I have 4 women best friends on my street and one that moved away and she is still a best friend and visits often. These people are intimate friends that I talk to almost if not every day, about everything, good or bad. I really don't know how I am so blessed, I realize it is a rarity. My husband is best friends with 2 of the husbands and good friends with the others. WE are also friends with everyone else on the street, but just not to that level.( there are 17 houses, street is dead end) We vacation together, have parties and get togethers constantly. It would be incredibly hard to move, as I know there is no way we would ever find a situation like this again.

 

[psupple]

We live in a complex...the street is one big circle with three dead ends shooting off it. We "share" our backyard with 5 neighbors (we all abutt the woods) and all get along really well. We range in age from mid-twenties to almost seventy. Three of the five couples have children that live at home.

Last weekend we all attended one of my neighbor's luau's. We get together to swim (one neighbor), watch football (our house), cookout, etc. My DH and I have lived there for 8 years now, and it's only been the last couple years that we've all been hanging out together. It's really enjoyable.

That said, I think we all enjoy our alone time and rarely get together during the week...and we never do the "pop in"...if you're outside, it's fair game, otherwise, we all know not to bother one another.

 

[monarchsfan16]

Our neighborhood is pretty much in the forest, most of the houses are set way back from the road, in the woods. But it still used to be a really social place, where all the kids just wandered from sunrise to sunset between the houses. We played in the woods all day long, dug "holes to China" in each of the dirt driveways, etc. Most of the houses had at least one adult home during the day, and we had set boundries that probably gave us over a half mile to just play and roam. Birthdays, holidays, and just random times were turned into big celebrations, complete with giant pool parties, barbeques, and rented tents. If we were out taking a walk and someone drove by that knew us they'd pull over and we'd talk for half an hour. The parents were just as close as the kids.
Sometime around the time my parents split up 9 years ago, the neighbors became less social in general. All the parents still look out for each other's kids, and do whatever they can to help whenever someone goes into the hospital or is going through some tough times, but it's not even close to the same. There are adults that won't talk to each other, and as a result all of our friendships have changed. I haven't hung out with my neighbor friends outside of school in years because things are just different now. It really stinks. The adults really ruined it for everyone.
That being said, there's a little road off of my road, about 30 seconds up the street from my house. We've gotten to know many of those people, but it's just not anything like what our neighborhood used to be.

 

[minniepumpernickel]

One of my neighbors spies on me. She is a really strange elderly lady. I was away for a weekend and she called me as soon as I came home, and told me that she thought she saw someone lurking around in my back yard. She scared me to death, and I called my prison Captain friend over to check out the yard. He found nothing amiss, and no signs that anyone was there.

I think this neighbor lady is senile, she always says all kinds of strange things.

 

[aprincessmom]

I'm friendly with them but I don't consider neighborly chatting truly socializing. We are on a cul de sac as well and at night and on weekends, especially now that it's summer, the kids are all out playing and the parents are out as well. We stand out there and chat while the kids play around us.

We also have a neighborhood summer block party, a Halloween party and a holiday party.

Some of our neighbors are very close and do what I consider socializing -- go out to dinner together, vacation together, shop together, spend holidays together, etc. I don't do that with them but I am friendly and enjoy the nighttime/weekend chats.

 

[WeirdEyes]

I was thinking about posting this very same thread this morning. We live on a cul-de-sac also, but we really don't socialize with our neighbors. It is not on purpose though. We are friendly with them and speak and talk a little when we happen to be outside at the same time. Our next door neighbor does have a Christmas party every year and we do attend it. It is very fun and we always enjoy it. Our town has a lot of Air Force families and a good many of our neighbors are officers. They tend to move in and out very often. We've only lived in our house 4 years and we were the first ones on our street. We only have a handful of houses on our street now. We also have a HUGE family that live VERY close...one mile... and we are always socializing with them. I sometimes feel out of place on our street because all of the houses around us are a lot larger than ours. I wouldn't be oppose to spending more time with the neighbors, but it just doesn't happen. I have mentioned to DH that we need to have a block party. We had a HUGE Halloween party and invited all of the neighbors and none of them came. We built a cemetary with the Disney sayings on the tombstones and they all came over and brought their kids to trick or treat, but none wanted to stay and eat. I tried. We had a new family move in this week and I plan on baking them something and taking it to them tomorrow and introduce myself. They are also an Air Force family so they might need a friendly face.

 

[epcotfan]

Nope. Couldn't even tell you what they look like.

 

[Kallison]

Our houses are too far apart. The neighbor and his DD will come over at night to see our dog, out kids go over there to play and catch snakes for money (a long story), they go swimming at the other neighbor's house because their pool is smaller and warmer , the neighbor behind us has grandkids that come over and swim whenever they visit, they play basketball at the retired couple next door. We don't all hang out, but I know I could count on my neighbors for anything, in fact most of them have a key to my house. They take care of my velcro dog when we go away. I love my neighbors.

 

[Talking Hands]

We don't but some of our neighbors do sit out on their porches in the evening. We have a screend porch in the back and prefer to sit out there if it is nice. Right now it is so hot I just stay inside as much as I can.

 

[The Mystery Machine]

Yep, I am on a cul-de-sac. We go out to dinner, vacation and in Sept. we are camping together.
We also stay up late and Karoke...

 

[rhanditresmom]

We are friendly with the guys who live across the street from us and the family next to them, as well as the family on one side of our house. The family on the other side is...well...reclusive to say the least. They are not too popular in our neighborhood, what with the unmowed yard and the dead car in the driveway. It takes the city a while to get around to all of the complaints I guess....oh, well. We do have a pretty nice neighborhood for the most part.