Moved here a couple years ago, initially met the neighbors and know their names, but haven’t had more than a handful of couple sentence interactions since then.
On the one hand, I do want a little distance: I’m not trying to hang out all the time or necessarily make new best friends. But still seems like the neighborly thing to know each other a little bit more, to have someone to call in case of emergency, or hey your dog got out, hey the global order has collapsed let’s band together to keep out the raiders, etc.
So interested to know, if you do interact with your neighbors, how did you get started? What is the extent of your interaction?
I’m “that guy” in my neighborhood. Burgers ,beer and football are generally at my house. I invite neighbors to dinner all the time. Just this evening one of them texted a half dozen of us because their shredded cheese was moldy and they had a different set of friends coming for dinner. A neighbor i introduced to this newish neighbor walked a bag of cheese over to them.
Best part is that when everyone gets drunk, nobody has to drive. Or if I’m at a party at their house and need to poop, I can walk an extra 200 feet and use my own bathroom. I have keys to at least 4 of their houses.
Neighbor friends are the best.
I just moved into my first home and I hope to meet a guy like you in my neighborhood. I’d love to just chill and meet some neighbors
I had a bit of an epiphany a decade or two back that I wished the same wish, and realized that if nobody else was going to be “that guy” that I’d have to do it. My neighbors hardly even knock on my door, but just walk right in now. They also know that I may or may not have beer in the fridge, and they’ve realized that they can find their own cups/plates/spoons etc. Its low stress at my house. Not always clean and neat, but that’s on them… if you want a spotless, perfectly planned party, they’re welcome to invite me to theirs lol. So far, nobody’s complained :)
I was coming upstairs, as they were struggling to carry a fake dead body downstairs. His back was to me, with his arms hooked under the dummy’s armpits. His buddy was carrying the legs and saw me first. He jokingly went “oh we’re filming a-… Uhh… Porno?”
I responded with something along the lines of “I’m not even gonna worry about it until I start hearing farm animals.”
They laughed. I laughed. We haven’t spoken since (because I haven’t heard any farm animals yet.)
My wife is quite sensitive to noises and my neighbor was often playing bass-heavy music in the evening but rarely late, until one night he played until 3 AM (stopped quickly after we ourselves got to bed so I didn’t go and complain that night.) Next day, I knock on his door asking if he’s the one playing music at 3 AM.
To my surprise, the man apologizes, says he was baked and didn’t realize how loud he was. Adds that if he ever is disturbing us in the future, to come and tell him right away.
Now, we’re surprisingly more tolerant of his musical habits just knowing how polite and apologetic he was about it. So what could have been a rocky start ended up with us being cool.
Barely spoke a word with any of them for several years. Got a kid. Now i know almost all of them.
EXTREMELY effective method, but has a few caveats.
I have neighbors on 3 sides of me. Neighbor to my left isn’t talkative. We wave when we see each other. Neighbor behind me is a nice older lady. She felt bad for me push mowing my lawn so she let’s me use her riding mower for free. I maintain it and do some odd jobs for her. We talk when we see each other. Neighbor on my right is a nice guy. He isn’t home a lot since he drive a semi. We stop and talk every few weeks or so. He has a German Shepard that is a good dog.
