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Avoiding new neighbors

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Re: Avoiding new neighbors

Postby Dirgni99 » Sun May 08, 2016 7:48 am

I am new here but I wanted to post a response to this thread because I have been battling this situation also. I have some neighbors that moved in across the street from me about a year now. I have never gone over to say hi. And now I want to go over and say hi but I feel ashamed that I have not been over there sooner. They see me occasionally running to my car or running back into the house. But I have never as much as waved to them. How can I go over and introduce myself without looking like a total ass? What reason could I possibly give them as to why I am just coming over to say hi now?

-- Sun May 08, 2016 2:49 am --

I am new here but I wanted to post a response to this thread because I have been battling this situation also. I have some neighbors that moved in across the street from me about a year now. I have never gone over to say hi. And now I want to go over and say hi but I feel ashamed that I have not been over there sooner. They see me occasionally running to my car or running back into the house. But I have never as much as waved to them. How can I go over and introduce myself without looking like a total ass? What reason could I possibly give them as to why I am just coming over to say hi now?
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Re: Avoiding new neighbors

Postby Kivulitaronyu » Sun May 08, 2016 10:08 am

Hey dirgni ;)
I just wanted to say welcome :) and I can relate to the neighbor-thing as well. Living in a flat, I have one neighboor left and one right to me, and the most social thing I ever managed to bring forward is a murmured "Good Day" while passing by. :lol:
I'd say it would be rather strange if you now go over to them and ring to introduce yourself "officialy", they would definitely wonder why you didn't say hi earlier. So I would either try to do small talk (if you feel capable of doing so) the next time you encounter each other and it doesn't seem like your neighbour(s) aren't too buisy, or I'd just ring them to have a coffee together or something, without formally saying you want to introduce youself. At least that's my personal strategy to deal with the "elephant in the room"- avoidance problem. I found that if you just go silent about why you avoided people when you are finally approaching them (have to approach them sometimes), it's not unlikely they will never ask you why you did it. It's amazing but a lot of time they don't spend enough time thinking about you to ask themselves what's up with you or they even find an excuse for you on themselves :lol: which is pretty banal mostly. I think bringing forward excuses without being asked is even more likely to cause suspicion, bc a lot of times this will make them think about the avoidance for the first time.
Anyway, my social competences aren't very impressive, so don't know if I'm the right person to give advice in this really. :roll: :lol:
Oh, and I wouldn't necessarily assume they think of you as an asshole now, I know it's our thing to always assume the worst, and there are these kind of mores guardians, at least at my apartment block, who are very easily peeved by people not greeting and stuff, but these are mostly elderly, and you can easily recognise them, because the frown at you, or ostentatively greet you when passing by :?
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