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?
We use discord
Threatening them and their barking dog at 2am.
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 just say hi and then maybe talk about their dog, my dog, or something else surface level.(“How about those ‘Sports Team Name’?”, “You see that awesome new movie/show?”, “Hey, did you hear about ‘Local Event’?”). I stop to chitchat when I have time and I usually get to know my neighbors. We keep an eye on each others places/cars/etc., have taken care of their dogs while out of town and vice-versa and one of them is an emergency contact for my kids. Its way better to make friends than just be living close to a bunch of strangers. Not everyone is super social, but I still know pretty much all their names and they know me.
I saw them outside, invited them over for a BBQ a few weeks away. We also dropped off a Diwali present, and they dropped off an Xmas one. 3 interactions a year other than saying “hi” when we see each other out front is the exact level want.