@jake

Says the guy commenting on an article on the internet... :-D

Neighbours? Really?

My neighbours on one side want to have a drunken row at the top of their voices every other night (and when someone yells "I don't love you any more, I'm leaving" - for the fiftieth time - and the whole neighbourhood thinks "Thank feck for that", you know it's true love), and regularly flood the downstairs flat resulting in screaming arguments about taps at 3am, accompanied by fire engines arriving to assess the structural stability (fortunately, they are detached). The only other thing I hear is them constantly yelling the daughter's name into the garden for ten or more minutes for her to come to dinner (rather than going and GETTING her, for instance, or punishing her when she doesn't come, or even better actually teach your 8-year-old child that they get two calls and then they go hungry). Other than that, we don't see them / hear them, even the child.

My neighbours on the other side just moved in and don't give a nod to me. Their predecessors did the same. Hell, even when they moved in and had their whole family there giving them a hand, they didn't even acknowledge my existence until I'd nearly parked on one of them with my car. We get a "Morning" if we're lucky.

My "neighbours" upstairs are nice enough but religious (my gf is a geneticist and I'm of a scientific mind, so we don't really have that much in common), and at least talk when they have the opportunity - the guy works nights for a delivery company and the woman is possibly the most ignorant woman ever (sends her kids to answer the door if anyone rings, who then relay the message to her back and forth etc., and I've never even known her to be supervising the kids when he's not there). I have seen her precisely once. And apart from their Sunday morning tramp down the stairs with their kids, or them taking in a parcel for us, we never really hear from them. I have not ever entered any of their properties, even for a cup of tea, let alone got to make friends with them.

This baffles my Italian girlfriend and her family because they come from a small village and expect everyone to know everyone and they try to greet these people and make friends and are offended when they get completely ignored (and/or never get past good morning).

My previous residence with my ex? Same sort of thing. The only time I saw the neighbours was when one ran round to tell us our garden was on fire (actually, we were only having a barbecue), and she was from across the street, not next door.

The previous residence before that? Two nice enough neighbours but similar amounts of contact. We hired a helium bottle off one because she was a wedding planner who knew where to get them cheap, that was about all the contact we had and she was reluctant to go even that far for us.

There are areas where you can get to know your neighbours (my previous neighbour to all of those actually drives about 20 miles each week to come and see my parents), but the chances of you actually getting *on* with your neighbours (beyond "Good Morning") seem to be remarkably slim nowadays.

When you don't even know their names (and those you do, only by overhearing screaming arguments), let alone their jobs, it's a sign that they don't really care about making friends, even if you have tried (surely their name is the first thing you would find out if they spoke to you?). And it's not at all uncommon in densely populated areas to not know your neighbours at all.

Compared to that, I think I'll stick with the Internet and non-neighbouring friends I've had for years, who care, who know about me, who tell me about themselves and don't cause firemen to be discussing brickwork outside my bedroom window at 3am.

Real people can suck in comparison. :-)