In the US most people in suburbs only ever walk from their door to their car (which is itself often inside the garage) and then they sit in their steel and glass box to the minimal possible distance from their desk, then do the reverse on the way home.
I have not seen of a single new development in the US without sidewalks in the last 20 years+. It must be the law in 99% of cities to build a sidewalk anytime a property is developed.
Not usually, or if they do, they're merely 'decorative' in that they're not a viable option for pedestrians to get from A to B. They just end without signals or crosswalks. Someone in a wheelchair would literally have to drive in the street in many areas of the south.
Idk. I live in a suburb and my little neighborhood is pretty friendly to the point where someone can post to our private Facebook group and ask someone to hold a package or to check out their house while they're on vacation. Really depends on what kind of community you have
What I'm describing is unrelated to friendliness. Our built environment is the number one determinant of encounters with our neighbors. You can be perfectly friendly with people who you rarely see and could never make a routine of greeting (because you rarely see them without prior planning).
I live in the suburbs but these are homes built in the 1950s and a lot of my neighbors are older. My neighbor and I have ¾ acre backyards that are just divided by a chain link fence. We both have dogs and like to do yard work. He's retired and I work from home. We talk across the fence a few times a week. He'll put surplus items from his vegetable garden on our fence, give our dog treats, and I'll exchange with bread I've baked. We shoot the shit about everything - his childhood growing up in the neighborhood, health, things going on, projects we might want to tackle together...
It's definitely possible with the right neighbor, you just have to be intentional and friendly.
I dunno, I live in Redmond, WA and see my neighbors regularly. Greeted at least three people on the trail on my run this morning, greeted a few more on the dog walk. I'll probably wave at the neighbor across the street at some point when we're mutually outside. People walk by the house all day long. I don't know how much more suburban you're going to get than Redmond (you have to cross water to even get to the city).
Now, I'll qualify that by saying that Redmond in general is a lot more pedestrian-friendly than a lot of suburbs I've experienced. And in the last twenty years or so, it's also quite wealthy. And seeing your neighbors also entails getting outside. ;-)
It sounds more to do with correlation vs causation people who are more likely to greet others could have a variety of different factors in their lives making them feel less isolated. One of them unironically states that it helps with the Career Wellbeing of an individual which is indicative that it doesn't really do that.
> As part of the Gallup National Health and Well-Being Index, saying hello to more than 1 neighbor was shown to correlate with greater self-perception of well-being.
So this wasn't a study. As far as I can tell, the results can just as easily be summarized as "people who report higher well-being are more likely to greet neighbours."
This is probably just the article to blame, the quotes they pick use words like "correlation."
I find the five vs. six distinction rather interesting though. What's up with that?
> Averaged across five dimensions that included career, communal, physical, financial, and social well-being, the increase which greeting a neighbor had led to around a 2-point increase on a scale of 0-100 up until the sixth neighbor, at which point further greetings had no measured impact.
> I find the five vs. six distinction rather interesting though. What's up with that?
There's no reasonable mechanism in which greeting people causes well-being. So asking why it caps out at 6 makes no sense, unless you implicitly want to call out their bullshit. It's just another vague correlation in a overinterpreted study of noisy data.
You're still making so many assumptions, all of which are unproven and causally unlinked. And how does socializing lead to social, community, career and physical well-being? Why would those peak at 6 but financial well-being at 11? In your hand-waiving explanation, it should keep rising. And even then, the effect wouldn't be caused by greeting, but by socializing. Greeting more people wouldn't help if you wouldn't socialize.
You're also excluding the reverse causality: you can only greet 6 people per day if e.g. you're healthy. On a sickbed, it's much harder to do.
Socialization is causally linked to well-being. I assume you know enough about the subject that this isn't up for debate.
Per sociologist Cornelia Mayr, "Greeting is one of the basic functions of socialization and the first step in connecting to people at a more personal level."
Where's the assumptions there? I simply connected two established facts. Socialization increases well-being and greeting is socializing, therefore...
As you point out, there's a lot more nuance to it, but to claim there's "no reasonable mechanism" is absurd. Greeting someone is a type of socialization, and socialization increases well-being.
In our last house we knew 90% of the people on our street and regularly interacted with them. We have been in our new house for just over 2 years and only know our neighbors on one side of our house. The neighbor in the other house moved in just a week after we did. In those 2 years we have seen him only once, they day he moved in when he pulled up in his car, got out (without looking our way), opened the garage door, drove in, and closed the door. We literally have not seen him a single time since. The only way we know anyone still lives there is the garbage cans going out and coming back in each week (though, nobody has ever seen him putting out or retrieving his cans). Anyway, it’s hard to get to know a neighbor who doesn’t seem to exist.
In our previous house, we lived about halfway down a dead end street, so anyone from one end walking by would come past our house. Also, there was a neighborhood garden which brought people together. In our new house, there is no community gathering space and we leave in a culdesac at the end of a road. The result is we don’t get to know our neighbors.
My street was full of older folks that we got to know over the years. Some moved to assisted living, some are getting there, and some passed away from unexpected diagnoses.
We have new Gen Z neighbours for the last two years who seem to exist in their bubble, shutting out the immediate world and interacting only with their social circle. Barely an acknowledgement even if we’re out in the yard, shovelling snow or cutting grass.
I don’t expect much, but maybe small talk once every couple of months to get a sense they’re alright, and not gone off the deep end and bottling their urine in mason jars.
At some point, you start to fill in the blanks by noticing little things like what’s on TV through the window (hockey 24/7) when you drive by, who does the yard work (she does) or the decorations they put up on the outside.
I am wondering if this is some generational divide at play where some slice of the population had been conditioned that the only valid interactions are those that happen online.
It’s also possible that we seem intimidating or unsocial — but our interactions with other neighbours don’t seem to give this vibe.
> I am wondering if this is some generational divide at play where some slice of the population had been conditioned that the only valid interactions are those that happen online.
I think it's likely some of that is at play, yeah. A less confrontational way to phrase this could be: perhaps people who were raised with the Internet feel they find sufficient socialization through talking with their friends online, and don't go looking for it elsewhere.
In any case, I wouldn't read too much into it, or take it personally. I'm 35 and have lived in my house for 10 years and have only really met three of my neighbors beyond "hi". If we were neighbors, maybe you would think I think you're intimidating or unsocial, but that's not the case, I'm just shy and have a hard time being around new people. Talking with strangers is a major event for me, and I'm usually not up to the task without a lot of mental prep work. I wish I was more social, but well, I've tried, and I'm just not comfortable with it. It is what it is.
I'm not quite so shy, but on that same side of the spectrum for sure. The deal with me these days is that I've got a couple kids; one thing that comes along with that is quite a bit of social interaction with people you're not 100 percent at ease with. So, that energy - the same type id use to do some small talking with the neighbors - is almost always on E for me.
I definitely see a pattern regarding younger folks.
I got some Gen-Z co-workers, and most of them immigrated here alone. A lot of them don't interact much with other co-workers, don't join parties, activities or happy hours, don't speak the language of the country, and report spending all weekend alone at their single-room apartments.
I also ask them to not work overtime but they just mute Slack and continue working after 6pm and lie on their monthly timesheets (yep we got those now because of this). They haven't learned how to change git timestamps yet, though.
Most will go back to their country sometime after claiming they couldn't adapt to the "cold culture" here. At least that's what happened for the last few years.
I wonder about this, and not in the sense that this person is being extra cautious still. In my case, I moved into my house a few months before the pandemic struck. When I moved in, the couple across the street came by to introduce themselves when I was moving in. We had a short friendly chat and exchanged numbers.
Once the pandemic hit, everyone sort of disappeared, and I hadn't even talked to the neighbors on one side of the house. During that period, I got more introverted and sort of started avoiding social interactions with people, and not because of a fear of catching COVID. I just became more withdrawn since I wasn't socializing in general.
Anyway, after it got safer and more people were getting out, I now felt awkward seeing the people who introduced themselves on that first day since so much time has elapsed without conversation. (That's on me and my social anxiety, though.) I think it'll require me getting over my introversion to chat with them now.
On the other hand, I have been over to a neighbor on one side of my house a couple of times, but that was them going out of their way to include me.
I think what I'm saying is the pandemic created this weird empty period where people who had just moved in to neighborhoods didn't necessarily build connections with their neighbors and now it'll take some effort to bridge those gaps. On top of that, I think there was some social practice that many of us were out of, which made it even more difficult to just chat up strangers, but I feel like for me this is finally starting to go away.
I also have an experience where the design of the neighborhood heavily affects interaction with my neighbours. I live in a street whose entrance is too narrow for cars. Except for the occasional motorcycle, the soundscape makes it possible to chat every time I exit my house and there’s no barrier between the houses affecting visibility. Hanging out in front of the house is enjoyable because the backyards are tiny. We have a great relationship with all our neighbours and they form a sort of extended family. In the beginning, one thing that surprised me was the social dynamics reminding me of school, but it still beats anonymity. There are great demonstrations of support with the elders, the parents, or the alcoholics of the street when they can’t open their door at night. We are quite different from each other but physical proximity overcomes it.
Did you move into an affluent & predominantly white neighborhood? I will probably get shit for this, but this has been the norm in those from my experience.
After I got into tech I lived in a couple of them for five years then just gave up and moved back to the underdeveloped part of the city I grew up in, where people are willing to acknowledge each other.
here’s your counter-point. now the sample size is two.
lived in a diverse, affluent, tech/corpo neighborhood, most neighbors ignored or were passive aggressive - the kind where you know you aren’t being ignored because the behavior is too egregious to not be aware of the impact. you aren’t being ignored, you aren’t worth ignoring.
lived in an older, affluent neighborhood. four neighbors that would likely be described as caucasian regardless of their names or backgrounds were nothing but kind, offering to help the first time we interacted.
lived in an older, rural, poor neighborhood. most folks would stop and talk if you were outside, see how stuff is going. place was shit. some of the folks were gold.
the issue isn’t the skin color, the wallet fullness, the religion, or the race. you can look any which way and be an asshole on the inside. you can have a lot or a lot of nothing, and be an asshole.
affluence just let’s the asshole shine through a bit more. after all, the asshole deserves a lot, and the money is proof.
larger cities develop these little bubbles of halfluence - starter mcmansions for the white collar “elite,” close to their cubicle farms or at least a fat internet pipe and a starbucks within uber. the environment is shit - these aren’t actually elites - so the individuals tend to act up in their burbclaves.
established vs gentrified might be a better distinction. established doesn’t always mean affluent, but it does have a different sort of wealth.
Yes I was using those as lazy shorthands to avoid litigating the exact definitions or having to account for all of the nuance elided by them. They're affiliations and trends, not geo-destiny. Historical immigrant enclaves specifically tend to be really interesting counterexamples, one way or another.
> established vs gentrified might be a better distinction. established doesn’t always mean affluent, but it does have a different sort of wealth.
long term residents vs. new blood. different motivations and world view, and playing different games.
i'm in a well off 'burb next to a university, no one talks. lots of community leagues, posters about clubs, etc. but none of the neighbors interact. lots of renters, med students, et al, and they'll be gone in 3 years.
previous neighborhood was a poorer downtown apartment neighborhood owned by old italian ladies. they didn't do management companies or automated rent transfers, they made a point to come around every month, both to collect, but also to check in. they genuinely cared about knowing people, and wanted us to talk to each other -- helped prevent things like break-ins and accidental fires, etc.
Not the person you responded to, but I'll bite. I live in an affluent nearly all-white suburban neighborhood. I know everyone within two houses in any direction, and a few that are even farther than that. We have one recluse and one Karen, but everyone else is super laid back. It's delightful.
I've lived in a range of neighborhoods over my life, and I haven't really seen a pattern. My gut instinct is that attitude is contagious, and friendly neighborhoods have (or had) someone who spreads the love. People reflect the way they are treated.
No shade but I'd like to hear from one of the non-white neighbors about how delightful it is? I do generally assume the white people living in all-white places are having a good time with it.
I'm non-white. My friendliest and kindest neighbor is white, an old timer who has been in the same house for over 50 years. His wife bakes cakes for us and they share produce from their vegetable patch. The only other neighbor who talks to me regularly is also white. He is also from an "older" generation with grown up kids who have moved away.
The rest of the neighbors are a younger and more diverse crowd who have moved here within the last decade. A few of them will wave hi occasionally. More commonly they will avoid eye contact.
I've never felt quite that comfortable that I'd ask. Our token black family is a pair of lawyers who seem plenty affluent and comfortable, and they certainly socialize with the rest of the neighborhood as much as anyone else. Are they consciously aware of their minority status? I imagine so. I feel the same way when I'm the only white person in a black neighborhood. It's a pretty laid back neighborhood, and I've seen zero indication that anyone here is racist.
But this is the PNW, and while our history is far from crystal clean, we mostly don't have anything like the tension that is normal in areas of the country farther south.
I'm not sure race or affluence has anything to do with it so much as how the place you're living is designed. There needs to be a reason for people to walk - like going to some shops, the train, nice parks, etc. When you have that then people see each other often and recognize each other and say hi and stop and chat for a few minutes. And some of those relationships grow as you find out you have certain shared interests (kids, hobbies, etc) and someone gets the courage to invite the others over for a BBQ with some others and it's nice. And it becomes contagious as people begin to blend and the next thing you know the entire block you live on, most everyone knows most everyone else.
But if you live in a place where there's nothing walkable and walking isn't even encouraged (no sidewalks, etc) then people don't really leave their back yards. Everyone is isolated. And to be sure this is what a good deal of people want. But if you want community and getting to know each other then you need to live in a place that encourages walking around.
I'm sure you're right but I've never lived in a suburb. Even in the dense urban neighborhoods of my experience there is a big difference. Car ownership & use may play a role though. The wealthier neighborhoods are more walkable & bikeable and closer to transit but still have more people with cars, more space taken up by garages.
I live in a predominantly white extremely rich neighborhood in Portland. We even have a private club that costs thousands to belong to ( one of these fancy social clubs... We do not belong to it).
Anyway... No this is not the norm. My neighborhood is extremely social and has constant get togethers.
I agree with the comments on 'half fluence'. I have some friends who've moved in to newer developments. Those neighborhoods are much less social. Ours is more established.
"In our new house, there is no community gathering space and we leave in a culdesac at the end of a road. The result is we don’t get to know our neighbors. "
Yeah I had a similar experience at my last place. I actually attribute it at least in part to what kind of weather your area has. My last house was in a very temperate place, and I and my neighbors were very often outside where spontaneous conversation could manifest.
I’m currently in Phoenix, AZ, and given regular temperatures over 105* F, there just typically aren’t many people out and about, save for a few hours in the morning. And that’s usually before sun up.
I have noticed a general decline in my spirits not shooting the breeze with my neighbors from time to time.
I'm a fairly introverted, reclusive person. Much like your one neighbour. I keep to myself.
I do know my neighbours. The couple on one side is delightful and the woman on the other side is a "Karen" who I prefer not associate with. She is an outdoor person and only "talks" to me when she has a problem with how I keep my yard. Ironically I would probably use my yard more (and thus tend to it more) if she were not always outside in her yard being loud.
We have alley parking and garages in the rear, and I have workshop in my garage so I met a lot of my neighbours on the other side of the alley when working on projects... they came and introduced themselves and asked me what I was working on. They are delightful, but they also interrupted me which is annoying.
My wife and I are easy to get along with and go out of our way to be friendly, but would honestly rather not know that our neighbours exist. Car doors, the sound of people talking, dogs barking, kids being loud, lack of privacy in our back yard are all things that really bother us. On the flip-side, when the tree in our front yard shed a branch so large that it was practically a small tree, the delightful couple next door helped us clean it up. I felt a sense of community that day and I started to get what others find enjoyable about it. Still, we often talk of going "going rural" and not having neighbours at all.
HN is a social community too. So are other online forums, discord chat groups, mailing lists, gaming communities, open source communities, etc. People are driven to social interaction, whether virtual or in-person. I don't know what is the big deal in acknowledging that.
That may be technically true, but is really just an implementation detail. If HN quietly replaced all the accounts with suitably capable LLM bots, it wouldn't make any difference. What this type of service really has on offer is solitary activity: Writing for one's own enjoyment, differing from a private journal only in that the software here provides some colour back to spark additional thoughts in order avoid writer's block.
I'm not sure the same is true in 'real' communities.
"It wouldn't make a difference" - To whom? And how do you know? Even if a bot passes the Turing test, a community where there isn't any creativity or new information will die out. LLM is not the be all and end all of the human experience.
To take it further. even if we were all in the matrix, the statement "it wouldn't make a difference" is not true - philosophically speaking.
Also, humans have a circular reference with society at-large. Humans shape society, and society shapes humans. So something completely different might shape future societies, but I'd rather discuss the situation as it exists today, rather than an imagined future.
I guess except for rare exceptions, allmost no one really wants to be alone by default. But I know that I am rather alone, than in bad company.. and I met quite some people, who lived in misery, because they were too scared of being on their own for some time.
I always wonder about those statistics, I could imagine an extrovert is going to have a much tougher time being alone than an introvert. To apply it across the whole population seems dubious.
Falls are a fairly common cause of death. If you are elderly and fall and no one is around to help, that is in many cases a death sentence. Consider also the parent's comment about heart attacks, which you seem to have glossed over. Seems this factor alone can explain the data.
Why would an introvert be more likely to have a heart attack from being alone? People stress me out so much. I imagine less stress would lead to fewer heart attacks.
Seriously? I'm going to copy the parent's comment in full:
> "Loners are probably much more likely to die of say, having a heart attack and not receiving help promptly."
On the other hand, loners won't get a heart attack caused by other people ..
You die anyway at some point. Not sure what this obsession about maximizing lifetime is about. I rather live like I prefer to and when I die I won't care anymore anyway.
No we aren’t social animals, certainly not in rural areas. Give me a good book and a quiet afternoon in the shade of a tree with no neighbours any day.
You maybe not. But having lived in very rural areas you quickly realize that your neighbors are your safety net far more than the authorities and that in a pinch you all need to be able to rely on each other. A good book isn't going to get your car out of a ditch or help locate your kid or pet when it has gone missing.
> I’ve never need to rely on anyone, other than of course normal economic transactions.
That's funny. You are relying on thousands of other people every day, all day long. you just don't realize it. And not all of those are economic transactions there is plenty of goodwill involved. For instance, you rely on other people not to kill you when you are driving. Every time a stranger saves your bacon when you make a mistake, for instance. They don't have to! But if that's your worldview I don't think I'll be able to change it.
> Why would I park my car in a ditch?
I don't think anybody who ever parked their car in a ditch asked that question prior to it happening and afterwards they probably still didn't know. But in areas where there is snow it isn't rare at all to have vehicles do stuff that wasn't quite in the plan. My neighbor in Canada managed to do this with a tractor. Fortunately for him I had a bigger tractor and was able to pull his out of the ditch. And when it was my turn someone kindly brought over an excavator...
Society is a fabric, and no man is an island, not even you. You may have the illusion that you are but from the cradle to the grave you are 100% dependent on other people. Unless you live in the boonies and grow your own food and hunt, but if that were the case you wouldn't be writing here. Speaking of which: right now you rely on me to converse with you.
Those are normal expectation of living in society. Talking you your neighbour is not.
I’m sure it was decades ago in the curtain twitching world where people stayed living int he same street for decades, but not today in a highly movable world. Certainly not for me any my peers. any interactions I make are slot my own choosing, that I happen to live near someone is of no consequence.
If I did park my car in a ditch there a plethora of recovery services that will retrieve it, whether I’m a mile from home of 200 miles from home. I have no need or desire to know anything about the recovery driver, or the pilot who flew the plane I was last on, or the guy who delivers my mail, nor the plumber who replaced my boiler last year.
> Those are normal expectation of living in society. Talking you your neighbour is not.
Given how our language has a word, "neighborly", to describe friendly, helpful behavior, I think the burden is on you here for explaining why talking to your neighbor isn't a thing one can normally expect. I don't think you've done that yet.
> I’m sure it was decades ago in the curtain twitching world where people stayed living int he same street for decades, but not today in a highly movable world. Certainly not for me any my peers.
How old are you? I'm in my mid 30s and this describes none of my peers, including the younger ones in their late 20s. I can imagine younger folks wanting this. I certainly remember having friends who talked about wanting to move around to different cities/countries all the time in college and shortly after, but their priorities shifted over time. I have friends who love to travel, but I don't know anyone who wouldn't love either a house or an apartment they didn't have to worry about losing each year due to the landlord jacking up the rent or the building being sold to someone who wants to convert the building to condos.
> any interactions I make are slot my own choosing, that I happen to live near someone is of no consequence.
I'm not sure what this means. I can't imagine it's literally true as you can't really control if someone else approaches you, unless you just flatly refuse to acknowledge their presence.
> If I did park my car in a ditch there a plethora of recovery services that will retrieve it, whether I’m a mile from home of 200 miles from home.
I've had to wait a long time on a tow truck before when the weather was pleasant. When there's a snowstorm emergency services get slammed and delays increase. My neighbor has a truck and a snow plow, and I wouldn't hesitate to ask him if he could help unstick my car if it sank into the mud a bit. Also, he plows my driveway when the snow is heavy. We do neighborly things for them as well, like helping out when a tree falls in their yard.
I don't have kids yet, but from our experiences helping our neighbors out and having grown up with neighbors we knew well, they're invaluable for raising kids. "It takes a village to raise a child" is quite real!
I'm not sure if age has much to do with people's feelings on the importance of "neighborliness", but since you think it matters - I am in my 40s.
I live happily alone. I have never owned a house and I have no desire to ever own one. I don't greet my neighbors and never have. And yet, somehow, I am still able to function in society. In my current place, I have spoken to my neighbors once or twice, when a problem was affecting the building, or the floor, or just our section of the floor. We communicated well enough to contact the landlord and decide who would stay home when the workman came. We have collaborated to solve shared problems, as any human in society does. I don't know their names or anything about their private lives, though. It's not relevant. They're not my friends, they are just part of my community.
From my perspective the idea that only friends are capable of helping one another out is a really pessimistic view of the world that - when applied broadly - results in corruption and injustice. I place a greater importance on civil society then on friendship, and I am grateful to live amongst neighbors who apparently feel the same.
> I'm not sure if age has much to do with people's feelings on the importance of "neighborliness", but since you think it matters - I am in my 40s.
I think someone's experience of major life events probably plays into this. I don't think it fully determines someone's position obviously, but I'd be pretty surprised if it didn't correlate somewhat. There are always going to be outliers though.
> I don't greet my neighbors and never have. And yet, somehow, I am still able to function in society.
I don't doubt that's true, and I didn't say you couldn't function in society either. When I lived in apartments I didn't say hi to my neighbors much either, as in that case the landlord fulfills a lot of the same type of role, and neighbors come and go much faster.
> From my perspective the idea that only friends are capable of helping one another out is a really pessimistic view of the world that - when applied broadly - results in corruption and injustice.
I agree. That would indeed be a very pessimistic view of the world. For what it's worth I don't think I said anything of the sort. I do think people are more likely to help out people they know and like though. I don't know if that's good or not, but I think it's true. Regardless, I don't know how you'd reach out to someone you didn't have contact info for, and knowing someone's routine surely helps as well.
>In 2021, 8.4% of Americans lived in a different residence than they did a year ago, per the Census Bureau's annual Current Population survey. This was not only a decline from 9.8% in 2019 and 9.3% in 2020, but the lowest "mover rate" since at least 1948 — the earliest data period measured. Back then, the mover rate was roughly 20%, and it's been on a steady decline since the 1980's.
It's a bit odd to make such a blanket statement for people living in rural areas all over the world. These are "my peeps" and we're not any of those things.
It's not about you or "your peeps" but rather about the repressive laws (and predominant culture which gives rise to such laws) in these places.
I was specifically talking about rural areas in the US, since HN is predominantly a US-centric website, but my argument applies to other countries as well.
I've lived in rural areas and while there was some messed up stuff, your blanket statement wasn't entirely my experience.
I would suggest that, while you might find less cosmopolitan people in rural areas, they're also more willing to overlook aspects of you that they dislike. You can't really afford to be too picky about your friendships when there's not much to choose from.
The flip side of this is that -if you’re rather unlucky- being so codependent on the community can get ugly, quite fast; especially in such a remote environment. All it takes is one crazy neighbor to start turn the village against you for no particularly compelling reason.
If you lower your standards, sure. "Just fine" is survivable, but unless one derives enjoyment out of solitude and playing "is it wet or is it cold" all the time, I don't think you'll win many people over to such viewpoints.
(I've done solo trips and hiked the AT; it's a great experience, but definitely not for everyone.)
Ah well, that is possible too. I feel that if the housing crisis is bad now, sparse off-grid housing sounds like a far worse way to solve it. And that's besides the wilderness-ruining prospects it has unless one is to build without heavy machinery (access also sounds expensive in environmental and financial costs). And with wildfires becoming more prevalent…location becomes way more important.
So again, not a solution for many in my mind (even if they want it).
Try living in a block of flats. The fact that even though you have hundreds of people living super close to you an yet you have benefits of complete anonimity is a pure bliss.
I'm one of those neighbors who doesn't seem to exist. I don't dislike my neighbors and would like to interact with them more often, unfortunately I don't often have time for it.
One thing my wife and I noticed during COVID (I live in suburban NJ):
6pm-6:30pm seems to be a prime time for people in general and families specifically to go for a walk. If you are outside with kids playing on the front lawn, this leads to a lot of organic conversation since no one is in a rush.
If you happen to be preparing and eating dinner inside during this time (like we used to), you can miss out on a lot of opportunities to get to know your neighbors (assuming they are friendly).
It’s funny, I’ve always known my neighbors and talk to everyone on the block, but then I realized that most of them don’t talk to each other. Strange way to live because we are increasingly living in a world where you’re going to need help sooner or later and who else can you seek help from in emergencies other than your neighbors?
We had a mom who had recently moved in, screaming in hysterics on the block one day because she thought her toddler ran away when she stepped out for a moment to throw out trash. My neighbor (who also talks to everyone) and I came out, and along with the mailman and a couple of construction guys around the corner, immediately did a search on the neighborhood blocks. She eventually found him hiding in the house, and was relieved, but then just walked away without so much as a thank you to anyone. Such a strange way to live.
In the novel I’m currently reading, Popco (which I think the HN crowd would totally dig), there’s a section where there’s a seminar in network theory talking about the reason things like 6 degrees of Kevin Bacon, or any network of connected nodes, manage to have connections with so few hops is because there end up being superconnectors which are connected to a large number of other nodes. I realized I had that role in my circle of friends in my 20s after I moved away and then came back for a visit a few months later and discovered that few of them had seen each other in the intervening months. You likely play that role on your block. Remember, with great power comes great responsibility.
Yep, in the last place I lived we had a really kind and friendly neighbor who is also a handyman of sorts and helps people on the block with whatever random small problems they have in their houses. He knows everyone and regularly introduces people to each other. I'd be standing on the sidewalk talking with him and someone else would walk by. He'd say "oh have you met Such-and-such?" and call the person over. He single-handedly makes that block like an order of magnitude more neighborly and sociable than it otherwise would be.
Did you go over and knock on his door and offer him a tray of brownies or a potted plant or something? I just moved, and that's exactly what happened with us. Nonzero chance we'll be looking after our other neighbors' amazing Bernese within the next 6 months.
Just to toss this out there: the reverse is also true. We get along well with all of our neighbors except one. We say "hi" and invite each other over regularly.
That one bad neighbor is a real problem, and a huge source of stress and unhappiness.
Big time. I have a neighbor about half a block from me that would harass me when I would walk my dogs by his house. Based on his behavior I assume he struggles with some mental issues.
The one positive is I avoid his house completely, so now my standard dog walking route is a block longer, so more exercise for me and the dogs.
We have one particular neighbor who would greet everyone and chat with them. He was always out walking his little dog. Very nice. Next thing you know, someone is freaked out, posting a Ring video of him violently knocking on their front door (that was it, nothing else). It was so strange seeing this unfold on camera. Nearly everyone has talked to this guy and thought he was very nice. The people who's door he was banging on didn't know/recognize him. I'm guessing he has some sort of mental health challenges--though he does own and maintain a nice home on our street. Since the incident he has not been out. I saw him in his yard and noticed he looked a bit agitated. Very sad. I think this country is in serious need of a mental health framework that can actually help people. As it stands now, if this behavior escalates at all he will be faced by the police. Zero help.
Those doorbells should be banned. Numerous times I’ve seen videos posted on local Facebook groups of completely innocuous situations that freaked out some paranoid curtain twitcher. Recently someone posted a video of a kid knocking her door: “Anyone know who this is? I think they’re up to something”.
This is a good point. There seems to be a lot of untreated mental illness nowadays. Or maybe we're just encountering it more because everything is filmed and sites like r/PublicFreakout exist. Or maybe the pandemic really screwed some people up. Who knows?
I had an Amazon package mistakenly delivered to my house. I recognized the address of one of my (unknown) neighbors a few doors down, and I had time, so I walked it down to their door.. Maybe I'll finally meet this unknown family. I knocked on their door, holding the package, and let me just explain something that's important: I'm a slightly overweight nerd that spends too much time in his office chair. I'm about as threatening looking as a Best Buy worker in his khakis. Well, through the window next to the front door, I saw one of the home's occupants (a young lady probably early 20s) just standing there looking at me through the window, apparently not knowing what to do. I knocked on the door again and gestured towards the Amazon box in my hand. Well the woman let out a shriek from the bowels of hell and damnation, like terrified. Picture Donald Sutherland in Invasion Of The Body Snatchers. I'm just standing there trying to hand a package to a neighbor and she is screaming over and over and over and looking at me like I'm a serial killer. I put the box down on the front porch and backed away. I heard the screaming long after I got down the driveway to the road.
I don't know what's wrong with people. Maybe this person has some kind of traumatic past and can't bear to even see other people. I don't know. This didn't seem like even remotely a thing 10 or 20 years ago.
In the past year three close neighbors who I was friendly with moved out and the couples that moved in have been so rude and shitty. It's been such a massive quality of life decline, and just feels like terrible luck.
Yeah, it's amazing how much difference this factor can make in quality of life, yet it's mostly left up to luck.
When moving and choosing a place, you can try to get some idea of the vibe and whether it seems neighborly at all, but it's very hard to get more than a cursory sense. I'd take a modest house surrounded by friendly/awesome people compared to a much nicer house surrounded by rude/stuck-up people any day.
My new neighbors have a german shepard. As I write this at 2:50am, it has been barking since around 11pm. I've never heard a dog bark so consistently for so long. I'm blasting rain noise on my laptop but this is driving me crazy.
That blows, I bet that's loud as hell. I'd file a nuisance complaint with your city's 3-1-1 service to get the ball rolling. Some people just don't care enough to hire a professional to help them with dog behavior issues and it's just not acceptable.
Having neighbors you don't mind and will say hi is probably good for your wellbeing. Bad neighbors is a nightmare. Not having a place where you feel like you can safely retreat to and relax or confidently get a full night of sleep is a bad feeling.
>Men were more likely to greet neighbors than women, as were people with children under the age of 18 in the household, and people with a household income of more than $120k a year.
ah, so "wealthier people are happier and greet more neighbors". Things are much more simple when you drill down into the confounding variables. The data does not support the causality inferred by "maximizes" in the title.
Mr. Rogers was my actual neighbor in Pittsburgh in 1999-2000, while I was at CMU. He would really go out of his way to have social interactions. He would always say hello and ask how you were doing in a way that felt like he actually genuinely wanted to know the answer. Case of the person in real life being exactly like what he seems like on TV.
This is one thing that always got me about the United States: people will ask you how you are doing, but they don't actually mean it, it's just a required pre-amble, a bit like the tones a modem uses to sync up with the other end.
If he did it in a way that he actually genuinely wanted to know the answer that alone would set him apart in a very distinctive way. Most people really don't want to know the answer, but they'll still ask the question.
I mean it's not generally accepted to say "I'm dying of cancer, you?" but it's a good jumping point for lighter conversation, which is healthier than not having the interaction at all.
Speaking for myself, the question is always fairly routine but sometimes people answer genuinely. In almost all those cases I really do care, but the register of the conversation usually only shifts after it’s apparent that the person is looking for more than a routine conversation
That reminds me of Tig Notaro's incredible stand-up set when she found out she had cancer:
"I have cancer, how are you?" "Is everyone having a good time? I have cancer."
It's a masterpiece, in my opinion. Tig finds an intensely awkward situation with an audience that showed up for comedy, and just presses on it relentlessly. I really hope that when it's my turn, I can handle it like her.
That's very powerful, in the beginning the audience is totally unable to calibrate their responses but it gets better over time. Props to her, her tone and delivery are absolutely perfect, aiming straight for the heart.
I watched mother-in-law go through the expensive and painful burn/cut/poison and hospice with two morphine patches. On flight home I determined I was going to learn about it and find a different course than what was offered by the medical establishment. The book World Without Cancer helped start my journey. It's not just random bad luck, so take action.
Some cancers are treatable; some aren't. Delaying treatment for the first and giving false hope to the latter by advocating treatments that have _never_ been effective is actually harmful.
That book has nothing to do with improving actual human health.
Isn't it just how speech works? There are examples of this probably in any culture. It would actually be odd to respond to the question as asked instead of the expected ACK; you'd get something like this classic: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mhEYXcCB1Qw
The problem is in the United States, most people don’t really know how they are doing.
I don’t know how I’m doing right now. If you asked me you wouldn’t get much of an answer. I might say I’m doing just fine to end the conversation.
But what is there to really say? We are simply going about this world trying to survive, trying to not get shot, trying to make so much money so that we never befall the fate of those who have been damned to a life of poverty. And all the time, a war wages for the control of our minds, and our privacy and free agency threatened at every opportunity. Big corporations and lobbyists want to hold us down, keep us in offices toiling away so princely investors can prop up their commercial real estate empires and ensure the working rich never get a chance to break free of their chains and embrace their own financial independence, because that would mean they become uncontrollable, a threat to those in power whose primary tool of coercion is money. The climate is falling apart and it makes little sense to have even one child, assuming you could even find a partner unsullied by the toxic dating culture that has been brewed by impossible standards hoisted upon us by social medias. I had to step over two homeless bums overdosing on the sidewalk this morning, victims of a drug epidemic that goes quietly unnoticed, swept under the rug as an inconvenient truth. It is clear the best days of this nation are far behind it. The future is perilously dark and uncertain.
How am I really doing? Don’t know. I don’t try to think about it.
I'd hate to have your so pessimistic and negative view of the world though.
I don't think most people are viewing things this way (i.e. makes little sense to have one child). Plenty of people are having children and families and enjoying life.
If this isn't a joke, it seems you might need some help as there's no way that's a normal way to feel, at least in my experience.
It's not a joke. I feel exactly the same way as grandparent. The more you learn about the world and its workings, the more unhappy you become. It's a hopeless feeling. Like civilization has already peaked before I was even born. I can see where the world's going and I don't like it but can't change it.
I'd say it's the people who don't feel this way who need help but on second thought I wouldn't wish these feelings on anyone.
Forgive me if I think you're offensive. If it would please you to ignore my writings and refrain from commenting from now on that would help to reduce the discomfort.
In linguistics these are called "phatic expressions", and are far from unique to American English. Similar to idioms, phatic expressions don't have the literal meaning implied by their component words and instead serve a social purpose (in this case, serving to signify the beginning of a communication protocol). In British English the analogous phrase would be "you alright?"
I find it curious/interesting on how you don't notice your own versions of these from just being immersed in the language. It's not until noticing these in other languages/dialects that I really paid attention. UK English's "Watcha" and "innit" (if that's even how they spell them) are some of my favorites
Interesting: so this is one of those things where my ESL background is shining through. I'm sure if I introspect on Dutch I'll find equivalents that I might be using myself which when literally translated to English would upset an English or American counterpart in the same way. Never thought of this. And I didn't know the term Phatic Expression.
“How are you doing?” also has a meaning, and sometimes is used in “the deeper sense”, i.e. the literal one.
Graag gedaan is also something you say to be polite, not only when it really was your pleasure to do it, so it could qualify as a phatic expression - I don’t think anyone on the other side thinks “oh well, that person surely cares about me: it’s a pleasure doing something for me!”.
I treat "how are you" as an opening for a quick update if there's something to say (e.g. "it was Billie's first day of school today"), or a chance to set up a deeper discussion later (e.g. "oh man, long story, let's catch up later").
Do you shake hands? No one in my life shakes hands anymore. "Hi, how are you," is no more rational, but at least it's more hygienic. As polite social conventions go, I'd call it pretty harmless. Sort of miss the handshakes though.
Edit: FWIW, I often ask people how they are, and while I hope and am delighted to hear how people are, you're right, objectively, I think it's really more just sort of a default template that invites any kind of response vaguely correlating with one's status. But, "Hi, I invite you to tell me anything on your mind that might correlate with how you or the world are, or anything else; I'm just being social," is a bit clumsy.
I still handshake new people that I meet who I know I may meet again. Neighbours, tradesmen, new coworkers etc. It's a sign of respect and openness where i'm from.
COVID was really weird because I knew that on meeting someone I would, and I knew they would normally shake as a greeting, but instead we would stand around hands awkwardly at our sides.
As an American, I view it as an option to start a light conversation. You can decline the option with a simple "Good, thanks", or you can genuinely answer with a light comment and see if the other person reciprocates. Answering with a particularly serious topic will likely catch the other person off guard, so people avoid that, but to say Americans don't actually mean it when they ask how are you misses some of the nuance of the situation.
There are important contextual and regional difference that apply too. You're more likely to get a genuine reply in a place like the rural Midwest than you are in NYC. You also are more likely to get a genuine reply from a person relaxing at a bar than the cashier at a fast food drive through window. There are many people who will take the question as an invitation to talk if the situation is right.
>people will ask you how you are doing, but they don't actually mean it,
it is common to hear a reply as "oh, you know" an an equally un-engaged response. i remember the first time an uncle responed "well, no, I don't. that's why I asked." i had never realized how i had become desensitized to the question that i gave an equally meaningless response. so now, if it's a stranger, it's just a simple "doing good" or "just fine" followed by a "thanks". if it's someone i am familiar with like family or friend, but not coworkers, then i might stop to provide a more truthful response
The entire world probably has the equivalent of "how are you" in every which language available. Not sure where you're going with this "take" on American culture.
Yes, I've heard 'have you had rice today?' and that gave me a similar feeling. It inquires about health, hunger, affluence and is an open invitation to share some food all at once.
I think it's less that people don't actually want to know than it is that people don't actually want to share. But I'm from the Midwest, originally, and that's just kind of how we are.
Expanding on this just a little bit... I think that, in the Midwest but I'm sure in many other distinct American cultural regions, there's a sort of shared, but subdued, understanding that each of us is uniquely going through some shit. We answer the way we do because we don't want to trouble others with said shit.
FWIW, I'm American but well-traveled/encultured, and I work a lot with people in other parts of the world. I ask this question, and I use it as an opportunity for the other person to set the tone of the conversation. I actually find it pretty refreshing when I get a blunt and meaningful answer in response, it's one reason I love working with Dutch and German engineers, because they will give a real answer and not be so concerned as to how it may be perceived.
I think it's exactly a bit like a modem preamble, but it's an opportunity to create a conversation and give both people in the conversation a chance to set the tone. It can really be used to genuinely find out the answer to the question, but a lot of people don't want to share their personal challenges with strangers, coworkers, or even acquaintances. You may not enough know exactly what level of intimacy is included in your relationship with another person or whether you are at the point to move to that next level, this simple question gives them the opportunity to either dive into something that's very personal or to keep it light-hearted and move along.
It's not a throwaway, it's a respectful way to start a conversation that gives the other person agency in setting the tone.
The first time I experienced it, I was dumbfounded when someone asked "How are you?" and then just kept walking past. It took me a while to accept certain questions like this have become greetings and often aren't actually intended as questions.
> This is one thing that always got me about the United States: people will ask you how you are doing, but they don't actually mean it
Yes, we use it like "hello" -- but not always. Sometimes we mean it.
Since this use of "How are you?" trips up people from other nations so much, I've tried to be more aware of this. My compromise is that when I mean it as a greeting rather than a query, I'll say "Howzitgoing" like a single word. If I mean it as a query, I'll look the person in the eye and ask "How are you doing?"
Fun fact: I recently learned that in Fiji they ask "where are you going?" instead of "how are you doing?". They have a "how are you doing" greeting as well, but passing someone in the street you would say "where are you going?" to which there can be both generic and specific responses. I'm not sure if they're any more or less interested in the response but I just found it interesting.
It’s really person dependent. I really mean it, and a lot of folks do. Additionally if you said “not good,” most people will be caught off guard but pivot into sympathy and asking what’s wrong etc. It’s a perfectly acceptable answer. A key thing though is to make sure it’s appropriate to the moment. If my boss asks me how I’m doing I’ll tell them if it’s not good in some way related to work or my performance (I.e., “not good, I can’t get this to compile” or “not good, my mom died I need to take time off,” or even, “not good, I didn’t sleep well last night.”) for friends the “not good” can be deeper, and for family it’s pretty open. For strangers, I still might say “not good” if something particularly acute is happening (“not good, my mom just died,” “not good, I just got out of the hospital this morning.”) I’ve never had someone get uppity about a “not good” response, and have always had an appropriate pivot to sympathy and a refocus on the question.
As such, I’ve always found it odd people narrow in on the “how are you” question being perfunctory and people don’t genuinely care. They routinely ask it and generally expect “good thanks” but react appropriately to other answers.
Me too! I lived in Squirrel Hill and would see him doing things like going into the stationary store with one of his grandchildren to buy a card. Seeing him around was always magical.
My father in law lives in Yorkshire, where people regularly say hello to each other when out and about, particularly in the morning. We live in London, where this is highly unusual.
When visiting he came on our usual morning walk in the park, and said hello, good morning to someone. They were completely flabbergasted and could only muster a garbled reply through the shock.
Most of the year, I live in a midwestern suburb: 1/3rd of an acre lots as far as the eye can see. I go on a walk every day, but it's rare that I ever actually see a human being during said walk: Everyone is cooped up in their houses. In practice, in most of this suburban life, every bit of human interaction is planned. We drive to commerce, and there we are met by workers with constantly changing schedules, who have minimal connection to the businesses they work in. It's not impossible to make connections in this environment, but it takes actual effort. This makes work the main form of social interaction for many people around me.
Over the summer, however, I spend time in Spain. A town with a population under 200k, and yet far more dense than San Francisco. Streets are narrower, and most errands are less than 10 minutes away, on foot. The pharmacist, the baker, the workers at the restaurant, don't change very much. Since everyone walks, you really get to pass by every neighbor in the building every couple of weeks. The parks and playing ares with children are never close to empty, and people tend to have routines, so it's far easier to get to know people from random interactions. It's not uncommon to meet people you know, completely by accident, just because you walk the same streets. I might not stop at a certain coffee shop, but it has seating outside, and friends are be sitting there, and therefore I get a chance social encounter, even when I am not visiting the same business. There's benches in random streets, and people meet there, and chat on the street, so you don't even need a business as a "third place", when you have the street. Thus, getting six non-work social interactions a day becomes trivial.
Large parts of America have chosen forms of development that are naturally isolating: It's no surprise so many feel isolated!
Yes, that's exactly right. A town needs to be designed in a way that encourages walking. Shops to walk to, trains for commuting, a certain density, etc. Walking create so many opportunities to see people regularly without planning and to become comfortable with each other and it grows from there. Multiply that by everyone else doing it and you do get a real sense of community.
> Large parts of America have chosen forms of development that are naturally isolating: It's no surprise so many feel isolated!
Indeed - I have relatives that live in a place like this. Nice homes, etc but few trees, no sidewalks, and nowhere to walk. Why would you other than exercise? And a lot of people like it this way and that's fine. They want privacy and aren't interested in building relationships with people they live near. That's fine.
But if you want a sense of community then you need to live in a place that encourages walking by making it useful.
Well, there’s lots of land making land ownership very attainable.
During the 1930s and 1940s very little was built. And what was built was seldomly maintained. So after the war there were a lot of people living in old, outdated, cramped, and expensive apartments and tenements in cities.
Suddenly materials were plentiful and there was a lot of available land. The economics of it were such that you could get a car and a home outside the city for less than an apartment inside. And the living conditions were so much better. People still had their bigger families and community bond in their new neighborhoods.
But over time that was lost and we were left with the isolated towns that need a car to get anywhere and there’s no community connection as the new development doubled down on bigger houses, bigger lots, more cars.
I live in an old pre-war town. Most every home was built before 1930 and most around the turn of the century. Lots of walkable shops and a train runs through. There are many old towns like this and they’re wonderful. They also tend to be expensive nowadays.
I grew up in the suburbs, and it was a noteworthy occurrence when someone saw someone they knew out and about at the store or something like that.
Now I live in the city and with so many more people around I see people I know so much more often. It really makes you understand how isolating the suburbs can become.
I make a point of bringing a bunch of flowers to the 10 or so houses near us at the beginning of every year. It is such a small thing to do but the effects have so far been well beyond what I would expect, immediately 'neighbor' becomes 'person I know a little bit' and from there the network around you will strengthen.
We've started hosting monthly "spaghetti and meatball nights" and invite almost everyone we know, including all the neighbors. We often get 30 people, but spaghetti and meatballs scale trivially so it's not hard to host. It's been tremendous for building community.
I can't take credit. Two dear friends in L.A. started doing it years ago, with similar results, and it sounded so great we just copied it.
Except they make the meatballs from scratch, which I don't have time for. Decent bulk frozen meatballs + excellent Victoria jarred sauce from Costco to the rescue. My Italian wife tarts up the jarred sauce a bit with fresh aromatics and chunks of canned San Marzano tomatoes, and the end result is acceptable even to her exceptionally picky palette... Add a big stack of cheap, mismatched thrift-store china plates and silverware, and dinner for 30 takes us about an hour to prep + an hour to clean up after total.
If you are unhappy, does starting to greet your neighbor makes your happier? Or is it the other way around, when you are happy you greet your neighbor.
This sounds like a "one little weird trick to boost your happiness: greet six neighbors."
The important factors are the other things: having a high income, living in a good neighborhood, and and being a good community member. These increase your wellbeing, then of course you'll say hi to everyone.
People in low-income and "bad" neighbourhoods actually stand to gain a lot more by knowing their neighbours because they get a lot more out of community solidarity when there's trouble, they'll have networks to identify trouble earlier, etc.
I feel I have lost much of my ability to be a part of a community, due to the covid lockdown, full time work from home, and in general spending so much time on the internet.
This and /r/awww and such are nice, and we need more warm-fuzzies. But I see this article citing a lot of science, and then dropping the ball on causation.
I live in an apartment, and I don't even know what the person who lives next to me looks like. Why would I ask them? People are living their own lives, why am I going to invade into someone's life to make myself feel better
This seems shortsighted. There are dozens of reasons you may want to get to know your neighbors: help each other out, become friends, watch a package, babysit, petsit, and so forth. Sure, nothing may happen from an interaction, but it seems one of the unique aspects of living in an apartment complex is that you can easily know your neighbors.
I live in a large neighborhood of single-family homes and know many of my neighbors, most of which have become good, trusted friends.
I'm amazed people find pleasant apartments to live in. I think I hate every one of my neighbors. From their annoying behaviors. I have one that just let's their kids run around, blasting music at the moment and kept parking in my assigned spot.
Having a cute, friendly dog helps more than I can say. The dog remembers all the houses where our friends live (even if they've moved out, or we just saw them on the street so they can't possibly be home).
Yeah, there are unfriendly people. You just ignore them.
I guess he lived in a different time when people were kinder, particularly in Pittsburgh. It's hard to greet your neighbors when they rutinely park on sidewalks, take their trash out several days before pick up and don't take care of their lawn. Recently leaving the city for a farm in the country with the next neighbor several hundred feet away seems idyllic.
One of the reasons I love living where I do, is because while I don't know any of the neighbours who live directly adjacent to me in their $2m houses, it's a relatively dense and active neighbourhood because of all the people forced to rent rooms from them, and we all walk to get our groceries or to the bars down the street, or meet at the gym, or see each other in the park. There's not a chance I'd move to some cul-de-sac, and it's frustrating that the possibility of securing a longer-term stay here isn't really possible any more.
Aside from that though, in my first 12 years as an adult, I've learned that if you see someone you know when you're out and about, wave to them, always, unless they're really occupied by something else; they might be gone/dead tomorrow, and nobody hates being acknowledged in a friendly way.
329 comments
[ 3.0 ms ] story [ 104 ms ] threadIn my area there are people who sit in they are retirees that sit in their front yards and greet not just pedestrians but every vehicle that goes by.
This seems like a cop out.
It's definitely possible with the right neighbor, you just have to be intentional and friendly.
Now, I'll qualify that by saying that Redmond in general is a lot more pedestrian-friendly than a lot of suburbs I've experienced. And in the last twenty years or so, it's also quite wealthy. And seeing your neighbors also entails getting outside. ;-)
Interesting, "No meaningful increase in wellbeing is seen for additional neighbors greeted beyond six."
I guess we'll keep its title though because the top comment ("Mr. Rogers was my actual neighbor") won't make sense without it.
So this wasn't a study. As far as I can tell, the results can just as easily be summarized as "people who report higher well-being are more likely to greet neighbours."
This is probably just the article to blame, the quotes they pick use words like "correlation."
I find the five vs. six distinction rather interesting though. What's up with that?
> Averaged across five dimensions that included career, communal, physical, financial, and social well-being, the increase which greeting a neighbor had led to around a 2-point increase on a scale of 0-100 up until the sixth neighbor, at which point further greetings had no measured impact.
The value of the average is the result of the biases in data collection.
There is obviously a cap in the number of people you can practically greet in a day.
There's no reasonable mechanism in which greeting people causes well-being. So asking why it caps out at 6 makes no sense, unless you implicitly want to call out their bullshit. It's just another vague correlation in a overinterpreted study of noisy data.
Socializing increases well-being, and greeting someone is socializing.
You're also excluding the reverse causality: you can only greet 6 people per day if e.g. you're healthy. On a sickbed, it's much harder to do.
The way it's stated in the headline is bollocks.
Per sociologist Cornelia Mayr, "Greeting is one of the basic functions of socialization and the first step in connecting to people at a more personal level."
Where's the assumptions there? I simply connected two established facts. Socialization increases well-being and greeting is socializing, therefore...
As you point out, there's a lot more nuance to it, but to claim there's "no reasonable mechanism" is absurd. Greeting someone is a type of socialization, and socialization increases well-being.
But what about your neighbor's? Maybe so as well, unless you are that weird neighbor people talk about when they are not around.
And let's be honest. You are that weird neighbor.
Correlation. Happy people are happy. That's not cynical: you can improve your happiness by working on all of those fronts.
In our previous house, we lived about halfway down a dead end street, so anyone from one end walking by would come past our house. Also, there was a neighborhood garden which brought people together. In our new house, there is no community gathering space and we leave in a culdesac at the end of a road. The result is we don’t get to know our neighbors.
We have new Gen Z neighbours for the last two years who seem to exist in their bubble, shutting out the immediate world and interacting only with their social circle. Barely an acknowledgement even if we’re out in the yard, shovelling snow or cutting grass.
I don’t expect much, but maybe small talk once every couple of months to get a sense they’re alright, and not gone off the deep end and bottling their urine in mason jars.
At some point, you start to fill in the blanks by noticing little things like what’s on TV through the window (hockey 24/7) when you drive by, who does the yard work (she does) or the decorations they put up on the outside.
I am wondering if this is some generational divide at play where some slice of the population had been conditioned that the only valid interactions are those that happen online.
It’s also possible that we seem intimidating or unsocial — but our interactions with other neighbours don’t seem to give this vibe.
I think it's likely some of that is at play, yeah. A less confrontational way to phrase this could be: perhaps people who were raised with the Internet feel they find sufficient socialization through talking with their friends online, and don't go looking for it elsewhere.
In any case, I wouldn't read too much into it, or take it personally. I'm 35 and have lived in my house for 10 years and have only really met three of my neighbors beyond "hi". If we were neighbors, maybe you would think I think you're intimidating or unsocial, but that's not the case, I'm just shy and have a hard time being around new people. Talking with strangers is a major event for me, and I'm usually not up to the task without a lot of mental prep work. I wish I was more social, but well, I've tried, and I'm just not comfortable with it. It is what it is.
I'm not quite so shy, but on that same side of the spectrum for sure. The deal with me these days is that I've got a couple kids; one thing that comes along with that is quite a bit of social interaction with people you're not 100 percent at ease with. So, that energy - the same type id use to do some small talking with the neighbors - is almost always on E for me.
I got some Gen-Z co-workers, and most of them immigrated here alone. A lot of them don't interact much with other co-workers, don't join parties, activities or happy hours, don't speak the language of the country, and report spending all weekend alone at their single-room apartments.
I also ask them to not work overtime but they just mute Slack and continue working after 6pm and lie on their monthly timesheets (yep we got those now because of this). They haven't learned how to change git timestamps yet, though.
Most will go back to their country sometime after claiming they couldn't adapt to the "cold culture" here. At least that's what happened for the last few years.
Once the pandemic hit, everyone sort of disappeared, and I hadn't even talked to the neighbors on one side of the house. During that period, I got more introverted and sort of started avoiding social interactions with people, and not because of a fear of catching COVID. I just became more withdrawn since I wasn't socializing in general.
Anyway, after it got safer and more people were getting out, I now felt awkward seeing the people who introduced themselves on that first day since so much time has elapsed without conversation. (That's on me and my social anxiety, though.) I think it'll require me getting over my introversion to chat with them now.
On the other hand, I have been over to a neighbor on one side of my house a couple of times, but that was them going out of their way to include me.
I think what I'm saying is the pandemic created this weird empty period where people who had just moved in to neighborhoods didn't necessarily build connections with their neighbors and now it'll take some effort to bridge those gaps. On top of that, I think there was some social practice that many of us were out of, which made it even more difficult to just chat up strangers, but I feel like for me this is finally starting to go away.
After I got into tech I lived in a couple of them for five years then just gave up and moved back to the underdeveloped part of the city I grew up in, where people are willing to acknowledge each other.
lived in a diverse, affluent, tech/corpo neighborhood, most neighbors ignored or were passive aggressive - the kind where you know you aren’t being ignored because the behavior is too egregious to not be aware of the impact. you aren’t being ignored, you aren’t worth ignoring.
lived in an older, affluent neighborhood. four neighbors that would likely be described as caucasian regardless of their names or backgrounds were nothing but kind, offering to help the first time we interacted.
lived in an older, rural, poor neighborhood. most folks would stop and talk if you were outside, see how stuff is going. place was shit. some of the folks were gold.
the issue isn’t the skin color, the wallet fullness, the religion, or the race. you can look any which way and be an asshole on the inside. you can have a lot or a lot of nothing, and be an asshole.
affluence just let’s the asshole shine through a bit more. after all, the asshole deserves a lot, and the money is proof.
larger cities develop these little bubbles of halfluence - starter mcmansions for the white collar “elite,” close to their cubicle farms or at least a fat internet pipe and a starbucks within uber. the environment is shit - these aren’t actually elites - so the individuals tend to act up in their burbclaves.
established vs gentrified might be a better distinction. established doesn’t always mean affluent, but it does have a different sort of wealth.
long term residents vs. new blood. different motivations and world view, and playing different games.
i'm in a well off 'burb next to a university, no one talks. lots of community leagues, posters about clubs, etc. but none of the neighbors interact. lots of renters, med students, et al, and they'll be gone in 3 years.
previous neighborhood was a poorer downtown apartment neighborhood owned by old italian ladies. they didn't do management companies or automated rent transfers, they made a point to come around every month, both to collect, but also to check in. they genuinely cared about knowing people, and wanted us to talk to each other -- helped prevent things like break-ins and accidental fires, etc.
I've lived in a range of neighborhoods over my life, and I haven't really seen a pattern. My gut instinct is that attitude is contagious, and friendly neighborhoods have (or had) someone who spreads the love. People reflect the way they are treated.
The rest of the neighbors are a younger and more diverse crowd who have moved here within the last decade. A few of them will wave hi occasionally. More commonly they will avoid eye contact.
IMO it is a generational thing and not racial.
But this is the PNW, and while our history is far from crystal clean, we mostly don't have anything like the tension that is normal in areas of the country farther south.
No one cares.
Racism exists but most white social activists way overemphasize the role it plays in my life.
White people, like all races, are extremely friendly. All Americans are really.
But if you live in a place where there's nothing walkable and walking isn't even encouraged (no sidewalks, etc) then people don't really leave their back yards. Everyone is isolated. And to be sure this is what a good deal of people want. But if you want community and getting to know each other then you need to live in a place that encourages walking around.
Anyway... No this is not the norm. My neighborhood is extremely social and has constant get togethers.
I agree with the comments on 'half fluence'. I have some friends who've moved in to newer developments. Those neighborhoods are much less social. Ours is more established.
Some people like people ..
I’m currently in Phoenix, AZ, and given regular temperatures over 105* F, there just typically aren’t many people out and about, save for a few hours in the morning. And that’s usually before sun up.
I have noticed a general decline in my spirits not shooting the breeze with my neighbors from time to time.
I'm a fairly introverted, reclusive person. Much like your one neighbour. I keep to myself.
I do know my neighbours. The couple on one side is delightful and the woman on the other side is a "Karen" who I prefer not associate with. She is an outdoor person and only "talks" to me when she has a problem with how I keep my yard. Ironically I would probably use my yard more (and thus tend to it more) if she were not always outside in her yard being loud.
We have alley parking and garages in the rear, and I have workshop in my garage so I met a lot of my neighbours on the other side of the alley when working on projects... they came and introduced themselves and asked me what I was working on. They are delightful, but they also interrupted me which is annoying.
My wife and I are easy to get along with and go out of our way to be friendly, but would honestly rather not know that our neighbours exist. Car doors, the sound of people talking, dogs barking, kids being loud, lack of privacy in our back yard are all things that really bother us. On the flip-side, when the tree in our front yard shed a branch so large that it was practically a small tree, the delightful couple next door helped us clean it up. I felt a sense of community that day and I started to get what others find enjoyable about it. Still, we often talk of going "going rural" and not having neighbours at all.
We are social animals. We can't do it all alone. That modern society has enabled us to be 'reclusive' is frankly a maladaptive outcome.
I'm not sure the same is true in 'real' communities.
To take it further. even if we were all in the matrix, the statement "it wouldn't make a difference" is not true - philosophically speaking.
Also, humans have a circular reference with society at-large. Humans shape society, and society shapes humans. So something completely different might shape future societies, but I'd rather discuss the situation as it exists today, rather than an imagined future.
Loners are probably much more likely to die of say, having a heart attack and not receiving help promptly.
On the other hand, loners won't get a heart attack caused by other people ..
https://amp.cnn.com/cnn/2023/06/19/health/loneliness-social-...
I guess except for rare exceptions, allmost no one really wants to be alone by default. But I know that I am rather alone, than in bad company.. and I met quite some people, who lived in misery, because they were too scared of being on their own for some time.
> "Loners are probably much more likely to die of say, having a heart attack and not receiving help promptly." On the other hand, loners won't get a heart attack caused by other people ..
I’ve never need to rely on anyone, other than of course normal economic transactions.
Why would I park my car in a ditch?
That's funny. You are relying on thousands of other people every day, all day long. you just don't realize it. And not all of those are economic transactions there is plenty of goodwill involved. For instance, you rely on other people not to kill you when you are driving. Every time a stranger saves your bacon when you make a mistake, for instance. They don't have to! But if that's your worldview I don't think I'll be able to change it.
> Why would I park my car in a ditch?
I don't think anybody who ever parked their car in a ditch asked that question prior to it happening and afterwards they probably still didn't know. But in areas where there is snow it isn't rare at all to have vehicles do stuff that wasn't quite in the plan. My neighbor in Canada managed to do this with a tractor. Fortunately for him I had a bigger tractor and was able to pull his out of the ditch. And when it was my turn someone kindly brought over an excavator...
Society is a fabric, and no man is an island, not even you. You may have the illusion that you are but from the cradle to the grave you are 100% dependent on other people. Unless you live in the boonies and grow your own food and hunt, but if that were the case you wouldn't be writing here. Speaking of which: right now you rely on me to converse with you.
I’m sure it was decades ago in the curtain twitching world where people stayed living int he same street for decades, but not today in a highly movable world. Certainly not for me any my peers. any interactions I make are slot my own choosing, that I happen to live near someone is of no consequence.
If I did park my car in a ditch there a plethora of recovery services that will retrieve it, whether I’m a mile from home of 200 miles from home. I have no need or desire to know anything about the recovery driver, or the pilot who flew the plane I was last on, or the guy who delivers my mail, nor the plumber who replaced my boiler last year.
Errm.. yes, that's perfectly normal.
Given how our language has a word, "neighborly", to describe friendly, helpful behavior, I think the burden is on you here for explaining why talking to your neighbor isn't a thing one can normally expect. I don't think you've done that yet.
> I’m sure it was decades ago in the curtain twitching world where people stayed living int he same street for decades, but not today in a highly movable world. Certainly not for me any my peers.
How old are you? I'm in my mid 30s and this describes none of my peers, including the younger ones in their late 20s. I can imagine younger folks wanting this. I certainly remember having friends who talked about wanting to move around to different cities/countries all the time in college and shortly after, but their priorities shifted over time. I have friends who love to travel, but I don't know anyone who wouldn't love either a house or an apartment they didn't have to worry about losing each year due to the landlord jacking up the rent or the building being sold to someone who wants to convert the building to condos.
> any interactions I make are slot my own choosing, that I happen to live near someone is of no consequence.
I'm not sure what this means. I can't imagine it's literally true as you can't really control if someone else approaches you, unless you just flatly refuse to acknowledge their presence.
> If I did park my car in a ditch there a plethora of recovery services that will retrieve it, whether I’m a mile from home of 200 miles from home.
I've had to wait a long time on a tow truck before when the weather was pleasant. When there's a snowstorm emergency services get slammed and delays increase. My neighbor has a truck and a snow plow, and I wouldn't hesitate to ask him if he could help unstick my car if it sank into the mud a bit. Also, he plows my driveway when the snow is heavy. We do neighborly things for them as well, like helping out when a tree falls in their yard.
I don't have kids yet, but from our experiences helping our neighbors out and having grown up with neighbors we knew well, they're invaluable for raising kids. "It takes a village to raise a child" is quite real!
I live happily alone. I have never owned a house and I have no desire to ever own one. I don't greet my neighbors and never have. And yet, somehow, I am still able to function in society. In my current place, I have spoken to my neighbors once or twice, when a problem was affecting the building, or the floor, or just our section of the floor. We communicated well enough to contact the landlord and decide who would stay home when the workman came. We have collaborated to solve shared problems, as any human in society does. I don't know their names or anything about their private lives, though. It's not relevant. They're not my friends, they are just part of my community.
From my perspective the idea that only friends are capable of helping one another out is a really pessimistic view of the world that - when applied broadly - results in corruption and injustice. I place a greater importance on civil society then on friendship, and I am grateful to live amongst neighbors who apparently feel the same.
I think someone's experience of major life events probably plays into this. I don't think it fully determines someone's position obviously, but I'd be pretty surprised if it didn't correlate somewhat. There are always going to be outliers though.
> I don't greet my neighbors and never have. And yet, somehow, I am still able to function in society.
I don't doubt that's true, and I didn't say you couldn't function in society either. When I lived in apartments I didn't say hi to my neighbors much either, as in that case the landlord fulfills a lot of the same type of role, and neighbors come and go much faster.
> From my perspective the idea that only friends are capable of helping one another out is a really pessimistic view of the world that - when applied broadly - results in corruption and injustice.
I agree. That would indeed be a very pessimistic view of the world. For what it's worth I don't think I said anything of the sort. I do think people are more likely to help out people they know and like though. I don't know if that's good or not, but I think it's true. Regardless, I don't know how you'd reach out to someone you didn't have contact info for, and knowing someone's routine surely helps as well.
You're simply wrong - decades ago people moved much more than they do now.
https://www.businessinsider.com/americans-are-moving-less-so...
>In 2021, 8.4% of Americans lived in a different residence than they did a year ago, per the Census Bureau's annual Current Population survey. This was not only a decline from 9.8% in 2019 and 9.3% in 2020, but the lowest "mover rate" since at least 1948 — the earliest data period measured. Back then, the mover rate was roughly 20%, and it's been on a steady decline since the 1980's.
Unless you are non-white, an immigrant, LGBTQ, neurodivergent, etc...
I was specifically talking about rural areas in the US, since HN is predominantly a US-centric website, but my argument applies to other countries as well.
I would suggest that, while you might find less cosmopolitan people in rural areas, they're also more willing to overlook aspects of you that they dislike. You can't really afford to be too picky about your friendships when there's not much to choose from.
Only someone extremely privileged could twist the desire for basic safety as being "picky"
And yet, here you are...
I'm pretty sure there are people who live alone like up in the mountains or out in the wilderness alone and do just fine.
(I've done solo trips and hiked the AT; it's a great experience, but definitely not for everyone.)
So again, not a solution for many in my mind (even if they want it).
— <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=04qPdGNA_KM>
6pm-6:30pm seems to be a prime time for people in general and families specifically to go for a walk. If you are outside with kids playing on the front lawn, this leads to a lot of organic conversation since no one is in a rush.
If you happen to be preparing and eating dinner inside during this time (like we used to), you can miss out on a lot of opportunities to get to know your neighbors (assuming they are friendly).
We had a mom who had recently moved in, screaming in hysterics on the block one day because she thought her toddler ran away when she stepped out for a moment to throw out trash. My neighbor (who also talks to everyone) and I came out, and along with the mailman and a couple of construction guys around the corner, immediately did a search on the neighborhood blocks. She eventually found him hiding in the house, and was relieved, but then just walked away without so much as a thank you to anyone. Such a strange way to live.
That one bad neighbor is a real problem, and a huge source of stress and unhappiness.
The one positive is I avoid his house completely, so now my standard dog walking route is a block longer, so more exercise for me and the dogs.
I had an Amazon package mistakenly delivered to my house. I recognized the address of one of my (unknown) neighbors a few doors down, and I had time, so I walked it down to their door.. Maybe I'll finally meet this unknown family. I knocked on their door, holding the package, and let me just explain something that's important: I'm a slightly overweight nerd that spends too much time in his office chair. I'm about as threatening looking as a Best Buy worker in his khakis. Well, through the window next to the front door, I saw one of the home's occupants (a young lady probably early 20s) just standing there looking at me through the window, apparently not knowing what to do. I knocked on the door again and gestured towards the Amazon box in my hand. Well the woman let out a shriek from the bowels of hell and damnation, like terrified. Picture Donald Sutherland in Invasion Of The Body Snatchers. I'm just standing there trying to hand a package to a neighbor and she is screaming over and over and over and looking at me like I'm a serial killer. I put the box down on the front porch and backed away. I heard the screaming long after I got down the driveway to the road.
I don't know what's wrong with people. Maybe this person has some kind of traumatic past and can't bear to even see other people. I don't know. This didn't seem like even remotely a thing 10 or 20 years ago.
When moving and choosing a place, you can try to get some idea of the vibe and whether it seems neighborly at all, but it's very hard to get more than a cursory sense. I'd take a modest house surrounded by friendly/awesome people compared to a much nicer house surrounded by rude/stuck-up people any day.
ah, so "wealthier people are happier and greet more neighbors". Things are much more simple when you drill down into the confounding variables. The data does not support the causality inferred by "maximizes" in the title.
If he did it in a way that he actually genuinely wanted to know the answer that alone would set him apart in a very distinctive way. Most people really don't want to know the answer, but they'll still ask the question.
"How's it going?" can be either a throwaway acknowledgment, or it can be a light opener to a longer conversation.
"I have cancer, how are you?" "Is everyone having a good time? I have cancer."
It's a masterpiece, in my opinion. Tig finds an intensely awkward situation with an audience that showed up for comedy, and just presses on it relentlessly. I really hope that when it's my turn, I can handle it like her.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oXk1DSbXsZk
I watched mother-in-law go through the expensive and painful burn/cut/poison and hospice with two morphine patches. On flight home I determined I was going to learn about it and find a different course than what was offered by the medical establishment. The book World Without Cancer helped start my journey. It's not just random bad luck, so take action.
That book has nothing to do with improving actual human health.
I don’t know how I’m doing right now. If you asked me you wouldn’t get much of an answer. I might say I’m doing just fine to end the conversation.
But what is there to really say? We are simply going about this world trying to survive, trying to not get shot, trying to make so much money so that we never befall the fate of those who have been damned to a life of poverty. And all the time, a war wages for the control of our minds, and our privacy and free agency threatened at every opportunity. Big corporations and lobbyists want to hold us down, keep us in offices toiling away so princely investors can prop up their commercial real estate empires and ensure the working rich never get a chance to break free of their chains and embrace their own financial independence, because that would mean they become uncontrollable, a threat to those in power whose primary tool of coercion is money. The climate is falling apart and it makes little sense to have even one child, assuming you could even find a partner unsullied by the toxic dating culture that has been brewed by impossible standards hoisted upon us by social medias. I had to step over two homeless bums overdosing on the sidewalk this morning, victims of a drug epidemic that goes quietly unnoticed, swept under the rug as an inconvenient truth. It is clear the best days of this nation are far behind it. The future is perilously dark and uncertain.
How am I really doing? Don’t know. I don’t try to think about it.
I'd hate to have your so pessimistic and negative view of the world though.
I don't think most people are viewing things this way (i.e. makes little sense to have one child). Plenty of people are having children and families and enjoying life.
If this isn't a joke, it seems you might need some help as there's no way that's a normal way to feel, at least in my experience.
I'd say it's the people who don't feel this way who need help but on second thought I wouldn't wish these feelings on anyone.
there is no problem. It's a friendly greeting. Sorry your life is such a bummer.
Try saying, "Great, and you?" even if you don't mean it at all. You get back what you give out.
Edit: you can also say, "Shitty. It sucks to be me." That might even be honest, judging from the responses.
Yes, that is exactly the problem. It invites fake responses and real responses are not appreciated at all. It's just noise.
Sorry? Are you a mind reader or something?
Unbelievable.
Nothing I hate more than a liar.
> Was it good for you?
> I've had better.
https://youtube.com/watch?v=eGnH0KAXhCw
Thank you for posting this and the video link.
Conversely:Americans probably think I'm rude because I don't first ask them how they are but start the actual conversation without pre-amble.
Graag gedaan is also something you say to be polite, not only when it really was your pleasure to do it, so it could qualify as a phatic expression - I don’t think anyone on the other side thinks “oh well, that person surely cares about me: it’s a pleasure doing something for me!”.
Edit: FWIW, I often ask people how they are, and while I hope and am delighted to hear how people are, you're right, objectively, I think it's really more just sort of a default template that invites any kind of response vaguely correlating with one's status. But, "Hi, I invite you to tell me anything on your mind that might correlate with how you or the world are, or anything else; I'm just being social," is a bit clumsy.
COVID was really weird because I knew that on meeting someone I would, and I knew they would normally shake as a greeting, but instead we would stand around hands awkwardly at our sides.
There are important contextual and regional difference that apply too. You're more likely to get a genuine reply in a place like the rural Midwest than you are in NYC. You also are more likely to get a genuine reply from a person relaxing at a bar than the cashier at a fast food drive through window. There are many people who will take the question as an invitation to talk if the situation is right.
it is common to hear a reply as "oh, you know" an an equally un-engaged response. i remember the first time an uncle responed "well, no, I don't. that's why I asked." i had never realized how i had become desensitized to the question that i gave an equally meaningless response. so now, if it's a stranger, it's just a simple "doing good" or "just fine" followed by a "thanks". if it's someone i am familiar with like family or friend, but not coworkers, then i might stop to provide a more truthful response
- How are you doing? - How are you doing?
- How are you doing? - Well, you know, yesterday..
both are equally socially acceptable
Expanding on this just a little bit... I think that, in the Midwest but I'm sure in many other distinct American cultural regions, there's a sort of shared, but subdued, understanding that each of us is uniquely going through some shit. We answer the way we do because we don't want to trouble others with said shit.
Still, other languages do that too: que tal (Spanish), šta ima (Serbian), wie gehts (German),...
I think it's exactly a bit like a modem preamble, but it's an opportunity to create a conversation and give both people in the conversation a chance to set the tone. It can really be used to genuinely find out the answer to the question, but a lot of people don't want to share their personal challenges with strangers, coworkers, or even acquaintances. You may not enough know exactly what level of intimacy is included in your relationship with another person or whether you are at the point to move to that next level, this simple question gives them the opportunity to either dive into something that's very personal or to keep it light-hearted and move along.
It's not a throwaway, it's a respectful way to start a conversation that gives the other person agency in setting the tone.
Yes, we use it like "hello" -- but not always. Sometimes we mean it.
Since this use of "How are you?" trips up people from other nations so much, I've tried to be more aware of this. My compromise is that when I mean it as a greeting rather than a query, I'll say "Howzitgoing" like a single word. If I mean it as a query, I'll look the person in the eye and ask "How are you doing?"
As such, I’ve always found it odd people narrow in on the “how are you” question being perfunctory and people don’t genuinely care. They routinely ask it and generally expect “good thanks” but react appropriately to other answers.
https://youtube.com/watch?v=vV-eVYahckA
http://www.neighborhoodarchive.com/misc/candid_camera/index....
The world is much poorer without him.
When visiting he came on our usual morning walk in the park, and said hello, good morning to someone. They were completely flabbergasted and could only muster a garbled reply through the shock.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PT0ay9u1gg4
Over the summer, however, I spend time in Spain. A town with a population under 200k, and yet far more dense than San Francisco. Streets are narrower, and most errands are less than 10 minutes away, on foot. The pharmacist, the baker, the workers at the restaurant, don't change very much. Since everyone walks, you really get to pass by every neighbor in the building every couple of weeks. The parks and playing ares with children are never close to empty, and people tend to have routines, so it's far easier to get to know people from random interactions. It's not uncommon to meet people you know, completely by accident, just because you walk the same streets. I might not stop at a certain coffee shop, but it has seating outside, and friends are be sitting there, and therefore I get a chance social encounter, even when I am not visiting the same business. There's benches in random streets, and people meet there, and chat on the street, so you don't even need a business as a "third place", when you have the street. Thus, getting six non-work social interactions a day becomes trivial.
Large parts of America have chosen forms of development that are naturally isolating: It's no surprise so many feel isolated!
> Large parts of America have chosen forms of development that are naturally isolating: It's no surprise so many feel isolated!
Indeed - I have relatives that live in a place like this. Nice homes, etc but few trees, no sidewalks, and nowhere to walk. Why would you other than exercise? And a lot of people like it this way and that's fine. They want privacy and aren't interested in building relationships with people they live near. That's fine.
But if you want a sense of community then you need to live in a place that encourages walking by making it useful.
During the 1930s and 1940s very little was built. And what was built was seldomly maintained. So after the war there were a lot of people living in old, outdated, cramped, and expensive apartments and tenements in cities.
Suddenly materials were plentiful and there was a lot of available land. The economics of it were such that you could get a car and a home outside the city for less than an apartment inside. And the living conditions were so much better. People still had their bigger families and community bond in their new neighborhoods.
But over time that was lost and we were left with the isolated towns that need a car to get anywhere and there’s no community connection as the new development doubled down on bigger houses, bigger lots, more cars.
I live in an old pre-war town. Most every home was built before 1930 and most around the turn of the century. Lots of walkable shops and a train runs through. There are many old towns like this and they’re wonderful. They also tend to be expensive nowadays.
Now I live in the city and with so many more people around I see people I know so much more often. It really makes you understand how isolating the suburbs can become.
Except they make the meatballs from scratch, which I don't have time for. Decent bulk frozen meatballs + excellent Victoria jarred sauce from Costco to the rescue. My Italian wife tarts up the jarred sauce a bit with fresh aromatics and chunks of canned San Marzano tomatoes, and the end result is acceptable even to her exceptionally picky palette... Add a big stack of cheap, mismatched thrift-store china plates and silverware, and dinner for 30 takes us about an hour to prep + an hour to clean up after total.
This sounds like a "one little weird trick to boost your happiness: greet six neighbors."
The important factors are the other things: having a high income, living in a good neighborhood, and and being a good community member. These increase your wellbeing, then of course you'll say hi to everyone.
I live in a large neighborhood of single-family homes and know many of my neighbors, most of which have become good, trusted friends.
Yeah, there are unfriendly people. You just ignore them.
Aside from that though, in my first 12 years as an adult, I've learned that if you see someone you know when you're out and about, wave to them, always, unless they're really occupied by something else; they might be gone/dead tomorrow, and nobody hates being acknowledged in a friendly way.