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Isn’t being friends with your neighbors a far more obvious answer to this? I thought that’s where this was going. > Sometime during the pandemic lockdowns, I b
by nonethewiser 4y ago
Isn’t being friends with your neighbors a far more obvious answer to this? I thought that’s where this was going.
> Sometime during the pandemic lockdowns, I began to nurture a fantasy,” Adrienne Matei writes. “What if I were neighbors with all of my friends? Every day, as I took long walks through North Vancouver that were still nowhere near long enough to land me at a single pal’s doorstep, I would reflect on the potential joys of a physically closer network.
My family was close friends with our neighbors, because they were neighbors. Many of my friends were close with their neighbors. I imagine it was far more true in the 50s and 60s. It certainly was based off personal anecdotes I’ve heard from the let friends and relatives.
It was a city block in a small/medium sized city. Neighborhood picnics, barbecues, kids running around. Perhaps this breaks down with more urbanization.
- nice_byte 4y ago> Isn’t being friends with your neighbors a far more obvious answer to this? you don't get to choose your neighbors...
- nonethewiser 4y agoDo you find yourself not having much in common with your neighbors, not liking them, etc? A large part of friendship is some circumstance that puts you in the same time and place (school, work, sports, etc.). There must be some pretty big barrier if you can’t make friends with most of your neighbors.
- bradlys 4y agoI don't know my current neighbors at all (I live in an apartment building with 150+ units) and I'm fine with that. However, when I was in a house... I met some. They were often the worst kind of people. The most NIMBY neolib white-flight our-neighborhood-is-going-to-hell 60+ year old assholes you could imagine. The one we thought was nice apparently would beat one of his kids and make him sleep outside the house. That was the nice one! I can't say I know many good stories about neighbors. Look at movies - conflict with neighbors is a constant theme.
- switchbak 4y agoDamn, maybe you live in a crappy town?
- bradlys 4y agoIt's a lot like that in all of SV tbh.
- vel0city 4y agoConflict with neighbors is a common theme. But also friendship with neighbors. Wilson Wilson Jr in Home Improvement. Lawrence in Office Space. All the guys in King of the Hill. Even in some which start off with frustrations about neighbors sometimes shows strong bonds between them later like Grand Torino or Family Matters or even The Simpsons. I think a lot of TV shows and movies show a lot of different perspectives of neighbors, and I'm not convinced it's mostly negative. Lots show some amount of strife with neighbors, but even a romance movie will often show some amount of conflict between the protagonists.
- whydoineedaname 4y agoStatistically, five to six out of ten of my neighbors think my marriage shouldn't be allowed, so yeah, I'd say there's a pretty big barrier with the neighbors of happenstance. The ones who will deign to talk to us politely discourage us from attending the BBQs, "Oh you know, it'll be mainly families so it won't be of much interest to you."
- bluefirebrand 4y ago> Do you find yourself not having much in common with your neighbors, not liking them, etc Many of my neighbors are older and have lived in the homes since they were built. Mostly they just gripe that I don't behave the same way as the last guy. Others are parents around my age who I don't have much common ground with because their kids are their whole lives basically, and I don't have kids and don't want them. I think there's more to friendship than just proximity.
- JumpCrisscross 4y ago> being friends with your neighbors a far more obvious answer to this Being friends with neighbours prioritises the home by making social interactions subservient to it. Being neighbours with your friends prioritises those people by deprecating where you live to it. There isn't a single answer. But speaking as someone with many acquaintances, including very good ones, but a handful of close friends (and maybe a dozen or two, at most, friend friends), it's easier to change where you live than whom you love.
- nine_k 4y agoI'd say "a dozen or two" is a very high number. Enjoy and value your luck!
- david-gpu 4y agoPresumably this person has prioritized their social life over the years. Having friends isn't a random accident.
- toomuchtodo 4y agoIf you’re not intentional in cultivating relationships, they don’t last. Find good people and hold on to them.
- EntrePrescott 4y agoreminds me of this saying, in different variations, attributed to Aristotle: "He who has many friends has no friends".
- JumpCrisscross 4y agoMy entire point is that, despite having a large social circle I have only ever made “a handful of close friends.” Adjusting my life to be closer to them, instead of trying to replace them to compromise on other aspects, was one of my smartest moves ever.
- 4y ago
- catchnear4321 4y agosounds like a product of both the place and time. and most importantly, the people. you can try to make friends with neighbors, but you can’t make neighbors be friends. it isn’t always such a positive combination. but sometimes it is.
- NikolaNovak 4y agoIn addition to what other have said, the definition of "friends" may change with time and context. Like yourself, my family was super "close" to our neighbours when I was growing up. But they weren't even remotely "friends" in the sense that I might use the word today - there were zero common interests; significantly different backgrounds, world perspectives, priorities, lifestyles; they had little to talk about other than the prosaic; less superficially and more importantly, they would not be particularly honest or open or intimate with each other within the parameters of social norms. But what they were was utterly dependable to each other - both households knew that they'd support each other - through the winter and power outages and minor and major inconveniences that comes in life. There's certainly huge value in that and I think it's certainly possibly to establish such relationships with neighbours today, though it's hugely luck of the draw; but will that satisfy the need we (or at least some of us) have for close friends with open, honest and sharing relationships, partaking of interesting discussion and activities, and relationships surviving through geographical & lifestyle changes?
- nonethewiser 4y ago> Like yourself, my family was super "close" to our neighbours when I was growing up. But they weren't even remotely "friends" in the sense that I might use the word today - there were zero common interests; significantly different backgrounds, world perspectives, priorities, lifestyles; they had little to talk about other than the prosaic; less superficially and more importantly, they would not be particularly honest or open or intimate with each other within the parameters of social norms. But what they were was utterly dependable to each other - both households knew that they'd support each other - through the winter and power outages and minor and major inconveniences that comes in life. That’s a valid distinction. But if they had that level of care for each other, I would argue the major reason they didn’t share dinner together, play lawn games, or watch football on sundays was because they didn’t want to. But the author of the article does cite that interest.
- kortilla 4y ago> less superficially and more importantly, they would not be particularly honest or open or intimate with each other within the parameters of social norms This is more of a product of the time. My parents weren’t that open with close friends either back in the 70s when I was growing up. Fast forward to today and my friends are all quite open about personal things. And the one I know who is friends with his neighbor is just as open with the neighbor. Back then it was just socially unacceptable to talk about lots of mental health stuff or anything near it.
- fnordpiglet 4y agoIf I were meant to have friends god wouldn’t have made me a programmer.
- clipsy 4y agoFor what it's worth, as the rare suburbanite HNer, I fondly recall my family having the same sort of relationships with neighbors in the late 80's and 90's; unfortunately the same just doesn't seem to happen even in socioeconomically comparable suburbs today. Even just attempts to strike up small talk with a neighbor when we both happen to be outside at the same time are usually rebuffed, and the idea that anyone would invite neighbors to (eg) a barbecue seems frankly impossible. Even when neighborhood kids play together the dynamic is usually their parents keeping minimal contact with each other and not trusting each other to keep an eye on the kids. I wish I had more insight to offer into why things are like this nowadays, but it's frankly just baffling and depressing.
- maxerickson 4y agorare suburbanite HNer I bet that's pretty wrong.
- clipsy 4y agoYou could very well be right; I was just putting together a gut feeling about the HN community and anecdotal knowledge of where my coworkers in the industry live.
- kortilla 4y agoMost of the people who work for large tech companies in the Bay Area live in the suburbs.
- clipsy 4y agoI've been working remotely since long before the pandemic; perhaps my experience at remote-friendly companies has skewed my experience, as only a minority of my coworkers are in the bay area. I'd say the mode for my coworkers is living in a smaller/cheaper (non-SF, non-NY) urban center. Could just be a fluke, though; it's not as though the sample size is particularly large.
- nonethewiser 4y ago
- AlbertCory 4y agoSince getting a cute, friendly dog and walking him twice a day, my friendship count in the neighborhood has gone up by at least 10x. Of course, for a lot of them, I only know their dog's name, not the person's. /s No, it's not enough, but it's sure better than not knowing the neighbors at all.
- Lapsa 4y agowell maintained local parks can be great for socializing even without cute doggos. folks are much less in a rush around there
- 2muchcoffeeman 4y agoI stopped being friends with my neighbours when I moved into an apartment. When I was a kid I was friends with my neighbours because we’d be out doing things and you had to run into them. Now I can literally see movers move people into the apartment next to me. And a couple years later see them move them out and I’ll never have bumped into them.
- irrational 4y agoIf your neighbors will allow you to be friends. Our next door neighbor moved in 2 years ago. We happened to be outside when they first arrived. A man for out of the car to open the garage door while a woman stayed in the car staring straight ahead. We tried to engage, but he ignored us, drove into the garage, and shut the door. Since then we have never spoken to them since. Sometimes we will see the man in the middle of the night walk to his mailbox. Occasionally we see the man coming and going in the car. But they (we are assuming there is a they, we’ve never seen the woman since that first day) never come outside during the day or evening hours. They never have any lights on inside the home (and we can see all of their windows from our house), ever. One time a tree on their property blew over into the street. We knocked and knocked on their door and waited a few days. Eventually we and another neighbor cut up the tree and left all the branches and logs on the side of the road. Little by little they’ve been disappearing in their yard debris bins (they do put out and take back in their garbage, recycling, and yard debris bins - though nobody has ever seen them do so). The main way we know they live there is seeing white vapor rising from their utility vents in the winter. Our current guesses are traffickers or witness protection program.
- myzreal2 4y agoI live in a small town in Poland and when I was a kid, my whole street was a community. My parents were friends with all the neighbours (some less than others, but still). My mom used to host "coffee time" every other day around noon were women from the neighbourhood would gather for an hour or so to gossip around coffee - of course me, as a kid, just lingered around them. All the kids on the street hang out together, playing games, kicking some soccer ball, going to the woods, etc. People on the street were so close together that it was possible to organize "cleaning the street" events from time to time where everyone would gather up with their gardening tools etc and we would just go through the whole street, cleaning up overgrowing grass, cutting out weeds on the forest border, etc. I must say, looking back, this was a wonderful time and a GREAT environment to be raised in. I think that being a part of a small community like that is really important for mental wellbeing. Unfortunately, all of that pretty much died along with my mother and grandmother. Other elderly people on the street died as well, the community loosened up, new people moved in and I rarely see them or know their names, they are not interested in random chatter on the street (at the rare occassion you ever meet them outside the house) and I don't have the courage to pick up my mother's wonderful idea of "coffee time". A bit of a shame, but I'm still trying to get to know the people around my place. The way things are going here in Poland, I might need to pick up Duolingo and launch some Ukrainian course though :) Anyway, just venting
- ubermonkey 4y agoOnly once in my entire life have I actually been FRIENDS with a neighbor. Fortunately, it's right now.
- technothrasher 4y ago> Isn’t being friends with your neighbors a far more obvious answer to this? It's great when it turns out your neighbors are good people. I live in a rural area, on a 1/4 mile driveway up a wooded hill, and I'm very lucky that the other two families living up on the hill with us are great folks. We all hang out together, celebrate holidays together, share each other's properties like it is one big compound, and raised each other's kids. We've basically become one big family. It was a huge benefit in fighting off loneliness during covid to be able to be one big 'pod'. But the last place I lived, the neighbors were kind of jerks, and after trying to be friendly with them for a while I just gave up. As they were the only neighbors around, I was kind of stuck until I moved.
- kjkjadksj 4y agoBack in the 50s generations were more in sync. A new neighborhood will be built and mostly GI families move in, so most kids have friends around their age. Fast forward to my experience growing up in those same neighborhoods in the 1990s, and most of my neighbors were elderly, part of that first wave and still there until they eventually pass. The whole neighborhood ends up desynchronized. Schools have closed because there aren’t nearly as many kids as in the 1950s to educate.