(TikTok screencap)
This post is a great example of why we lost America. And what is spreading across the world right now.
Hold a goddamn yard sale and talk to your neighbors people, get to know them, PRETEND you care, at least enough so you can exchange phone numbers and watch each other’s places when you take trips or recognize each others lost dogs.
I promise, it not only gets easier, it becomes a source of pride and comfort knowing the people around you. We have spurned community because it’s more tempting to hide inside and feel miserable and lonely. Losing community was how we lost civics and representation and basic human empathy.
“whaa but my neighbors are all assholes”
I don’t care. You should still know their names.
Speak for yourself. I am not hiding inside so I can be miserable and lonely; I just find social interactions to be energy draining, so I need a lot of time in solitude to recharge.
Me too but it didn’t stop me from actually working on that and viewing it as what it is, not an identity quirk but an obstacle towards progress for myself and my community.
I agree so much. Sadly it’s hard to reach out with how entire neighborhoods are designed. They’re designed like solitary domiciles that only exist because employees need a place to be stored when not in use.
Ours is designed where cars just disappear into garages and only people walking dogs and delivery drivers (or solicitors) use the front door. So everyone hides behind those stupid ring cameras.
“whaa but my neighbors are all assholes”
I’ll admit: Not all of them!
Peoples’ average temperament indeed seems set on being the “leave me alone miserable and lonely” default though.
… Or they’re psychos. I live in a particularly transient city though, people move all the time, most rent, and you barely can tell there’s completely different people next door one day.
I deleted all the details to avoid a wall of text, but we’ve lived through a couple neighborhoods where everyone knew each other, and now it’s barred windows and cameras that shout “YOU’RE BEING FILMED” when you’re 50 feet away.
I notice a common toxicity factor seems to be those “Muh property” NIMBYs that see a house as a “real estate investment” instead of a home. The ones who sic the HOA on people they’ve never met and are mad about everything. (They’re probably also on Nextdoor posting about answering their door “with Smith & Wesson.” Trolls.)
I randomly met a really cool neighbor on a bike ride though. He happened to have his garage open! Sadly we don’t text a whole ton but he’s pretty cool.
People tend to be pretty alright if you encounter them in the wild but nobody’s opening their door to say hi anymore, and I also find that we’re under so much immense pressure that just stopping for a chat feels like it eats a chunk out of a day. This is also not healthy…
I want community, and local friends and all that. But I dunno, I think everybody is just burned out and vulnerability is especially scary these days, especially with the violent polarization of our politics of late.
But I agree, people would be much less likely to vote to harm and oppress their neighbors if they knew more of them personally…
I work IT a fortune 500 company with like 60k-100k employees. Moved in last month and what do ya know, two houses down is a manager for an application I support. What’re the chances.
Gonna suck when he comes knocking or giving me evil eyes for issues I didn’t cause.
Guy obviously having an affair, wine mom, right wing boomer #42, right wing boomer #43…
I know the names of all their dogs.
I don’t even know what my neighbours look like.
Tractor man, stupid dogs, horse people, fast truck, guy who waves, people across the way.
Yeah, I’m rural
I have yet to meet “gorilla-looking dude who yells at his step-son and his lawnmower in public” who lives across the street, or even made eye contact with him. And no, this is not some variant of racism on my part – gorilla-looking dude is white but looks much more like a gorilla than any black dude I’ve ever seen.
Jan 6er has a for sale sign up up and Carehome’s been rather quiet.
Her neighbor is going to see this and be like “oh It looks like “judgemental bitch” made a meme.”
I hope my neighbors know me as the slut across the street.
Thanks ThotDragon, to me you’re now the slut from across the fediverse. 🩵
Poggers!
Life goals.
“Sugar”
Because we were working in the garage and she came over. Dressed in tight, revealing clothing with her breasts pushed up, she asks us a few times if we want to buy any sugar. We were certain she wasn’t talking about baking, but we weren’t sure if she was a sex worker or offering booger sugar. So henceforth, she became Sugar. We’re pretty gay, but not sure if she read that. So maybe it was the latter?
Have you tried being gayer?
I have
Johnny Derp - looks like as if Depp was a recovering meth-head
Thicc Ass - the girl that always lets her poodle out in the back yard to shit
Karen - close enough to her real name but sure acts like it
London bros - they are hicks with no etiquette of living in a community. Also they are actually from Guelph, I think…
Frenchman - he’s actually from France and works at a Fromagerie
The Thief - old dude who picks the berries and tomatoes in the alley
I’d like to meet thick ass
There’s rabbit girl, who is this anorexic as fuck lady who runs about 20 miles a day, looks just like a sinewy, starved rabbit hop hop hopping along
Do you live in Media, PA by any chance? This sounds like the exact description of a woman that runs through my neighborhood and has to be in her 70s at least. It’s not even running, it’s more of this asymmetrical skip-hopping motion. I’ve never seen anyone or anything look less healthy.
I can’t remember all my neighbours names (thou I often greet them), but I know their dogs name :-)
This is me too. All my neighbors names are “Sunny’s Mom” or “Legolas and Gimli’s Dad”
Also, Gimli is a Corgi and I love their owners so much for this.
Also, Gimli is a Corgi and I love their owners so much for this.
We all love their owners, now. That is delightful.
I have helped my neighbor across the halls kid with his gaming PC.
Couldn’t tell ya her name, but the dog below me with a heart problem is named Sophie, the neighbors down the hall have cats named Mink and Stink, and a few buildings down there’s a lady with two huskies one named Pogs and the other Skips (Skips has 3 legs)
Yep. We call some of our neighbors:
- Boy-next-door (he’s actually a dude in his 50s)
- Stilgar (because he kinda resembles Javier Bardem’s Stilgar)
- Boom boom house (because they have those obnoxious subwoofers in their car and you can hear them coming from a mile away)
- Barn house (because the paint color of their house makes it look like a barn)
- Young couple (they look like our age and have no kids, although I think we’re pretty much older than them)
- Karen (no explanation needed. We all have the neighborhood Karen. Thankfully she’s several streets away and we only feel her presence in the neighborhood group chat)
Yes. Most of them are “fentanyl zombie” followed by a number.
So do you reuse the number or keep counting up
Number keeps going up
Use their house number for accuracy. You don’t want to be spreading gossip about the wrong fentanyl zombie.
They’re mostly interchangeable
