Fodor's Travel Talk Forums - Do you socialize with your neighbors

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When I was a kid in the Bronx, we socialized with EVERY other family in our building and even a bunch who lived up the street. As long as the families had kids! There was a "gang" of about 15 or 20 of us! We'd travel around in a pack, tough little 5-year-olds, terrorizing the 'hood ;) When we moved out of the city (1 hour north) we socialized on a daily basis with all the families in the neighborhood, except for a few older childless hermit-types. Many years later, after everyone moved away, we all still keep in touch and travel long distances to visit each other. Moving to Manhattan as an adult, I met just a few neighbors (over the course of 10 years and 5 apartments) but amazingly never ran into each of them more than a few times. I was rarely home...they were rarely home (you just don't spend much time at home when you live in a shoebox). I moved to Brooklyn 2 years ago, and am friendly with a few of my neighbors. The atmosphere over here is MUCH friendlier than Manhattan...we say "hi" to everyone we see in the hallway, elevator, street, laundry room. But socialize with them? No. When you come home after 8 or 9 each night, that's tough to do. Plus, my building consists of almost all couples, none with kids. I'm sure if people here had kids, things would be very different (first of all, they wouldn't work so darned late!). But, since my building is almost all 1-bedroom apartments, I expect most people will move out when they have kids.

We have lived in a middle class neighborhood for over 30 years. We are on good terms with those around us, they are all reasonably quiet, but we don't socialize as they are mostly much younger. We live on the type of block where you can chat with a couple almost every week for 30 years, watch their child grow up and have them put the wedding on almost in front of you and not invite you. But we still talk to neighbors, just less.

We just moved into a fairly new development < 3years old in a suberb or Philadelphia (Montgomery County) and the neighborhood is very social, we can't get over it. There are 160 homes in the development and we have a ladies night out once a month, a book club, there is a block party every September and a progressive dinner party every fall, they are planning a New Year's eve bash as well. Every holiday is some event and most people go to all of them. The neighbors are very friendly, we came from a townhome community and I would have thought that would have been more friendly because people live closer together, but we hardly knew our neighbors. We've been here since October and I feel like I've known these people forever. I was afraid the neighborhood would be stuck up because the homes are on the high end, but everyone is very down to earth and have really made us feel welcome here. It is nice to see that there are still neighborhoods like this, I hope it never changes!!!

My neighbors should thank their stars every day that I don't bulldoze them and their house.

Last time I invited my neighbors over, they proceeded to describe in detail their fertility problems. Needless to say, in the past 16 months, we have not invited them back.

We live on acreage property, and I think that most people must purchase it to keep the neighbors at bay. I walked down the road to say hello to a neighbor when we first moved in, only to have him smile at me and tell me that the reason they loved this area so much was because the neighbors left them alone. No problem buddy, sayonara. Don't think that stops HIM from coming over when he wants my husband to help him lift something heavy though. Then there's the family on the other side, the stay-at-home mom and two little boys. She invited me over for lemonade one day and the conversation focused strictly on the diapers and bottle type stuff. Since I have no kids, I listened for quite a long while, then tried to bring up other subjects, only to be stared at incredulously and have the conversation steered right back to diapers and bottles. Plenty of not-so-subtle hints that she needed a babysitter too. (Sorry, but if I wanted kids, I would have had them.) Once she figured out that I wasn't going to serve her needs she dropped any further friendly attempts. We like to have our own friends over, the people we CHOOSE. Can't choose your neighbors, unfortunately.

You bet I socialize with my neighbors. He is a music producer to some big names in the business. We have met J. Lo, Jacko the Wacko, Britney, Alanis, Christina thanks to him.

What a great posting. Fodors at its best. I enjoyed the general feeling that the yuppie's in places like Washington Dc was the least friendly.

Lucky Couple: that would be enough to make me move AWAY from that neighbor, not consider myself lucky.

Lol,Ann,I agree! The best neighbor that I can think of these days is the one that you can just glimpse his house through the trees,if you have really good eyesight. With the problems we have with ours,I would be happy in Montana right now-in the middle of my own 1,000 acres.

I am a true Chicagoan and that I don't want to be a neighbor nor do I want to know my neighbors...it has worked out well so far...

LOL, Ann. We were invited for a cookout tonight. The guys from 98 Degrees are there right now. My husband is working late, so I didn't want to go alone and look like an old lady (33 years old) looking for some young studs!!! Can't wait to see if they take their shirts off to get into the pool!!

I lived in Minnesota in an upscale neighborhood for 10 years. Oh, the neighbors were friendly alright. Turned out they were "very nosey". Wanted to see our furniture, decorating, anything they could take away as more gossip with the "native" neighbors. Everytime we had company, one of the nosey neighbors would call and want to know who visited. First thing most of them wanted to know was what church we attended (geeez). The only people we wanted as friends were other transplants. We couldn't wait to get the hell out of that place. We are now living in CA and know all our neighbors out of about 22 homes. We socialize frequently, but they also know when to respect privacy.