Neighborliness

[dharmagirl]

TemeculaGuy, if you’re reading this, I loved your “j” story!

I’ve moved around the U.S. about 7 times in 10 years (or something like that). This problem is NOT restricted to Southern CA. I’ve lived in communities on the east coast where many people did not speak English as a first language…culturally it was not cool to say ‘hi’ to strangers. Many people are also afraid – the world is scary these days and you never quite know who is a sociopath/serial killer – they often seem like nice, normal people.

A major study came about about 3 years ago that concluded that “social isolation” is on the rise. Many people do not know how to relate to others anymore…they are used to texting, IM’ing, online forums….the concept of knocking on your neighbor’s door with a bottle of wine, or a cake is almost ALIEN.

I’ve also lived in other countries, and one of the things that always struck me is that in other cultures the family is everything. People are less transient and tend to stay close to their roots. That does not happen in this country. Many Americans are on the move, and we often have to “create” a family wherever it is that we land.

After we bought a home in Temecula last year, we decided to take the bull by the horns. We had a party and invited our neighbors. We had booze, appetizers, cheese, desserts, etc. We had done a lot of renovations to the place, and neighbors were curious/nosey.

It broke the ice. Neighbors now call to invite me to lunch, coffee, movies, ring my doorbell when I’ve left my car lights on, or forget to bring in the trash cans, etc.

Sometimes, you just need to make the first move.

I know this can be awkward when you’re single – it’s often easier as a couple to reach out.

I suggest that you pick a date and organize a Wine Social. Pick up some cubes o’cheese and crackers from Costco, a few bottles of wine, and voila! If 1-2 people only show up, that’s 1-2 people you didnt know before. Most of our block showed up at our Sunday afternoon soiree and it was a lot of fun. I also invited a few “non-neighbor” friends to lend some moral support (and help liven things up).

Finally, one thing I’ve learned is that people may SEEM unfriendly, but we all tend to take these things waaaay too personally (this includes me). Often times, people have had a crappy day at work, their dog died, their wife just moved out, or they cant pay their bills. Sometimes, you just have to take a stand and say, “this is where I live and I’m going to make it into something I like.”

Good luck!

Dharma Girl
Official Cruise Director for Pigginton 🙂

[Ricechex]

Oh, it is not just neighbors! I have lived in CA since 1987, and in the last 10 years have noticed an “I don’t care” vacuous, indifferent and apathetic approach to people, whether it be corporate stores or the local dog grooming business.

In 2007, my mother was sick and I spent many weeks/months back and forth to Columbus, Ohio. I had to run errands and shop, and I had forgotten how nice people were in Ohio. They actually paid attention, said hello and made brief eye contact. Those small things made a difference in making a difficult time a little less stressful, even though no one knew what was going on in my life. They were just nice. Demographics do make a difference, though Columbus is a big city, there is still a somewhat rural approach to others.

[Ricechex]

Oh, it is not just neighbors! I have lived in CA since 1987, and in the last 10 years have noticed an “I don’t care” vacuous, indifferent and apathetic approach to people, whether it be corporate stores or the local dog grooming business.

In 2007, my mother was sick and I spent many weeks/months back and forth to Columbus, Ohio. I had to run errands and shop, and I had forgotten how nice people were in Ohio. They actually paid attention, said hello and made brief eye contact. Those small things made a difference in making a difficult time a little less stressful, even though no one knew what was going on in my life. They were just nice. Demographics do make a difference, though Columbus is a big city, there is still a somewhat rural approach to others.

[Ricechex]

Oh, it is not just neighbors! I have lived in CA since 1987, and in the last 10 years have noticed an “I don’t care” vacuous, indifferent and apathetic approach to people, whether it be corporate stores or the local dog grooming business.

In 2007, my mother was sick and I spent many weeks/months back and forth to Columbus, Ohio. I had to run errands and shop, and I had forgotten how nice people were in Ohio. They actually paid attention, said hello and made brief eye contact. Those small things made a difference in making a difficult time a little less stressful, even though no one knew what was going on in my life. They were just nice. Demographics do make a difference, though Columbus is a big city, there is still a somewhat rural approach to others.

[Ricechex]

Oh, it is not just neighbors! I have lived in CA since 1987, and in the last 10 years have noticed an “I don’t care” vacuous, indifferent and apathetic approach to people, whether it be corporate stores or the local dog grooming business.

In 2007, my mother was sick and I spent many weeks/months back and forth to Columbus, Ohio. I had to run errands and shop, and I had forgotten how nice people were in Ohio. They actually paid attention, said hello and made brief eye contact. Those small things made a difference in making a difficult time a little less stressful, even though no one knew what was going on in my life. They were just nice. Demographics do make a difference, though Columbus is a big city, there is still a somewhat rural approach to others.

[Ricechex]

Oh, it is not just neighbors! I have lived in CA since 1987, and in the last 10 years have noticed an “I don’t care” vacuous, indifferent and apathetic approach to people, whether it be corporate stores or the local dog grooming business.

In 2007, my mother was sick and I spent many weeks/months back and forth to Columbus, Ohio. I had to run errands and shop, and I had forgotten how nice people were in Ohio. They actually paid attention, said hello and made brief eye contact. Those small things made a difference in making a difficult time a little less stressful, even though no one knew what was going on in my life. They were just nice. Demographics do make a difference, though Columbus is a big city, there is still a somewhat rural approach to others.

[CardiffBaseball]

[quote=Ricechex]

In 2007, my mother was sick and I spent many weeks/months back and forth to Columbus, Ohio. I had to run errands and shop, and I had forgotten how nice people were in Ohio. They actually paid attention, said hello and made brief eye contact. Those small things made a difference in making a difficult time a little less stressful, even though no one knew what was going on in my life. They were just nice. Demographics do make a difference, though Columbus is a big city, there is still a somewhat rural approach to others.[/quote]

How true. We went back to Ohio over Christmas, and several of our old friends basically dropped whatever they were doing, and threw a big party where everyone got shitfaced. The key poing being we didn’t call ahead and get on their “schedule”. They figured out some time that everyone could get together and partayyy, and have a great time. I lived in that community for 5-5.5 years? (Not quite my hometown, a few miles away).

I’ve been here now for 3.5 and my wife said you know if we moved away from Encinitas and came back to visit I can’t think of a single person who’d make time to hang out. Well that’s not true, I can think of one or two individual guys who’d meet me at a bar, but I am talking about whole families who do things together. When we first moved here my little guy was in 3rd grade and the teacher asked the kids about what family activities they liked best. Since he’d only been here a month all of his memories were of back in Ohio and he promptly said “Margarita night at the smiths”. Of course the teacher was shocked, but to the kids it was fun, we all had 1-2 kids around the same age and generally once a month during soccer or baseball there would be a big cook-out/drink-out somewhere.

We do the exact same things here that we did back there in terms of being heavily involved in youth sports, and other activities where you meet a lot of people. The difference is here most show up to the required events and that’s all you see of them. Jr. has his other 85 activities to get to, such as study classes for SATs in 8th grade, scouts, personal trainers, etc. People don’t really slow down and talk all that much. I don’t really relate to the parent types who’s child “must get to Stanford, Berkley or UCLA, or they are failures”, but they are all around us here. I am a blue collar mindset guy living in a white-collar world with a white-collar job, but not relating well to the intense pressure kids are under here. I think that is why people don’t have time to hang out. You can’t fart around on Sunday when little sally who is 8 has foreign-language school.

I’m hoping this year is a little different, but we’ll see (as LL is kicking off).

[CardiffBaseball]

[quote=Ricechex]

In 2007, my mother was sick and I spent many weeks/months back and forth to Columbus, Ohio. I had to run errands and shop, and I had forgotten how nice people were in Ohio. They actually paid attention, said hello and made brief eye contact. Those small things made a difference in making a difficult time a little less stressful, even though no one knew what was going on in my life. They were just nice. Demographics do make a difference, though Columbus is a big city, there is still a somewhat rural approach to others.[/quote]

How true. We went back to Ohio over Christmas, and several of our old friends basically dropped whatever they were doing, and threw a big party where everyone got shitfaced. The key poing being we didn’t call ahead and get on their “schedule”. They figured out some time that everyone could get together and partayyy, and have a great time. I lived in that community for 5-5.5 years? (Not quite my hometown, a few miles away).

I’ve been here now for 3.5 and my wife said you know if we moved away from Encinitas and came back to visit I can’t think of a single person who’d make time to hang out. Well that’s not true, I can think of one or two individual guys who’d meet me at a bar, but I am talking about whole families who do things together. When we first moved here my little guy was in 3rd grade and the teacher asked the kids about what family activities they liked best. Since he’d only been here a month all of his memories were of back in Ohio and he promptly said “Margarita night at the smiths”. Of course the teacher was shocked, but to the kids it was fun, we all had 1-2 kids around the same age and generally once a month during soccer or baseball there would be a big cook-out/drink-out somewhere.

We do the exact same things here that we did back there in terms of being heavily involved in youth sports, and other activities where you meet a lot of people. The difference is here most show up to the required events and that’s all you see of them. Jr. has his other 85 activities to get to, such as study classes for SATs in 8th grade, scouts, personal trainers, etc. People don’t really slow down and talk all that much. I don’t really relate to the parent types who’s child “must get to Stanford, Berkley or UCLA, or they are failures”, but they are all around us here. I am a blue collar mindset guy living in a white-collar world with a white-collar job, but not relating well to the intense pressure kids are under here. I think that is why people don’t have time to hang out. You can’t fart around on Sunday when little sally who is 8 has foreign-language school.

I’m hoping this year is a little different, but we’ll see (as LL is kicking off).

[CardiffBaseball]

[quote=Ricechex]

In 2007, my mother was sick and I spent many weeks/months back and forth to Columbus, Ohio. I had to run errands and shop, and I had forgotten how nice people were in Ohio. They actually paid attention, said hello and made brief eye contact. Those small things made a difference in making a difficult time a little less stressful, even though no one knew what was going on in my life. They were just nice. Demographics do make a difference, though Columbus is a big city, there is still a somewhat rural approach to others.[/quote]

How true. We went back to Ohio over Christmas, and several of our old friends basically dropped whatever they were doing, and threw a big party where everyone got shitfaced. The key poing being we didn’t call ahead and get on their “schedule”. They figured out some time that everyone could get together and partayyy, and have a great time. I lived in that community for 5-5.5 years? (Not quite my hometown, a few miles away).

I’ve been here now for 3.5 and my wife said you know if we moved away from Encinitas and came back to visit I can’t think of a single person who’d make time to hang out. Well that’s not true, I can think of one or two individual guys who’d meet me at a bar, but I am talking about whole families who do things together. When we first moved here my little guy was in 3rd grade and the teacher asked the kids about what family activities they liked best. Since he’d only been here a month all of his memories were of back in Ohio and he promptly said “Margarita night at the smiths”. Of course the teacher was shocked, but to the kids it was fun, we all had 1-2 kids around the same age and generally once a month during soccer or baseball there would be a big cook-out/drink-out somewhere.

We do the exact same things here that we did back there in terms of being heavily involved in youth sports, and other activities where you meet a lot of people. The difference is here most show up to the required events and that’s all you see of them. Jr. has his other 85 activities to get to, such as study classes for SATs in 8th grade, scouts, personal trainers, etc. People don’t really slow down and talk all that much. I don’t really relate to the parent types who’s child “must get to Stanford, Berkley or UCLA, or they are failures”, but they are all around us here. I am a blue collar mindset guy living in a white-collar world with a white-collar job, but not relating well to the intense pressure kids are under here. I think that is why people don’t have time to hang out. You can’t fart around on Sunday when little sally who is 8 has foreign-language school.

I’m hoping this year is a little different, but we’ll see (as LL is kicking off).

[CardiffBaseball]

[quote=Ricechex]

In 2007, my mother was sick and I spent many weeks/months back and forth to Columbus, Ohio. I had to run errands and shop, and I had forgotten how nice people were in Ohio. They actually paid attention, said hello and made brief eye contact. Those small things made a difference in making a difficult time a little less stressful, even though no one knew what was going on in my life. They were just nice. Demographics do make a difference, though Columbus is a big city, there is still a somewhat rural approach to others.[/quote]

How true. We went back to Ohio over Christmas, and several of our old friends basically dropped whatever they were doing, and threw a big party where everyone got shitfaced. The key poing being we didn’t call ahead and get on their “schedule”. They figured out some time that everyone could get together and partayyy, and have a great time. I lived in that community for 5-5.5 years? (Not quite my hometown, a few miles away).

I’ve been here now for 3.5 and my wife said you know if we moved away from Encinitas and came back to visit I can’t think of a single person who’d make time to hang out. Well that’s not true, I can think of one or two individual guys who’d meet me at a bar, but I am talking about whole families who do things together. When we first moved here my little guy was in 3rd grade and the teacher asked the kids about what family activities they liked best. Since he’d only been here a month all of his memories were of back in Ohio and he promptly said “Margarita night at the smiths”. Of course the teacher was shocked, but to the kids it was fun, we all had 1-2 kids around the same age and generally once a month during soccer or baseball there would be a big cook-out/drink-out somewhere.

We do the exact same things here that we did back there in terms of being heavily involved in youth sports, and other activities where you meet a lot of people. The difference is here most show up to the required events and that’s all you see of them. Jr. has his other 85 activities to get to, such as study classes for SATs in 8th grade, scouts, personal trainers, etc. People don’t really slow down and talk all that much. I don’t really relate to the parent types who’s child “must get to Stanford, Berkley or UCLA, or they are failures”, but they are all around us here. I am a blue collar mindset guy living in a white-collar world with a white-collar job, but not relating well to the intense pressure kids are under here. I think that is why people don’t have time to hang out. You can’t fart around on Sunday when little sally who is 8 has foreign-language school.

I’m hoping this year is a little different, but we’ll see (as LL is kicking off).

[CardiffBaseball]

[quote=Ricechex]

In 2007, my mother was sick and I spent many weeks/months back and forth to Columbus, Ohio. I had to run errands and shop, and I had forgotten how nice people were in Ohio. They actually paid attention, said hello and made brief eye contact. Those small things made a difference in making a difficult time a little less stressful, even though no one knew what was going on in my life. They were just nice. Demographics do make a difference, though Columbus is a big city, there is still a somewhat rural approach to others.[/quote]

How true. We went back to Ohio over Christmas, and several of our old friends basically dropped whatever they were doing, and threw a big party where everyone got shitfaced. The key poing being we didn’t call ahead and get on their “schedule”. They figured out some time that everyone could get together and partayyy, and have a great time. I lived in that community for 5-5.5 years? (Not quite my hometown, a few miles away).

I’ve been here now for 3.5 and my wife said you know if we moved away from Encinitas and came back to visit I can’t think of a single person who’d make time to hang out. Well that’s not true, I can think of one or two individual guys who’d meet me at a bar, but I am talking about whole families who do things together. When we first moved here my little guy was in 3rd grade and the teacher asked the kids about what family activities they liked best. Since he’d only been here a month all of his memories were of back in Ohio and he promptly said “Margarita night at the smiths”. Of course the teacher was shocked, but to the kids it was fun, we all had 1-2 kids around the same age and generally once a month during soccer or baseball there would be a big cook-out/drink-out somewhere.

We do the exact same things here that we did back there in terms of being heavily involved in youth sports, and other activities where you meet a lot of people. The difference is here most show up to the required events and that’s all you see of them. Jr. has his other 85 activities to get to, such as study classes for SATs in 8th grade, scouts, personal trainers, etc. People don’t really slow down and talk all that much. I don’t really relate to the parent types who’s child “must get to Stanford, Berkley or UCLA, or they are failures”, but they are all around us here. I am a blue collar mindset guy living in a white-collar world with a white-collar job, but not relating well to the intense pressure kids are under here. I think that is why people don’t have time to hang out. You can’t fart around on Sunday when little sally who is 8 has foreign-language school.

I’m hoping this year is a little different, but we’ll see (as LL is kicking off).

[jpinpb]

I was giving this some thought. Do you think some of this tendency to keep to oneself is b/c people are more self-conscious and don’t want to be misjudged or talked about or gossipped about or ridiculed or mocked?

[jpinpb]

I was giving this some thought. Do you think some of this tendency to keep to oneself is b/c people are more self-conscious and don’t want to be misjudged or talked about or gossipped about or ridiculed or mocked?

[jpinpb]

I was giving this some thought. Do you think some of this tendency to keep to oneself is b/c people are more self-conscious and don’t want to be misjudged or talked about or gossipped about or ridiculed or mocked?

[jpinpb]

I was giving this some thought. Do you think some of this tendency to keep to oneself is b/c people are more self-conscious and don’t want to be misjudged or talked about or gossipped about or ridiculed or mocked?

[Author]

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