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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]I will admit that I like saying hi to neighbors. I don’t want to be best friends but we live in a low traffic area. Nodding hello makes this area feel smaller. I recognize that not everyone wants to say to everyone who passes their path, that’s fine.

We have one neighbor who lives in our small cul de sac and still does not want to say hi, even if we are very close physically. This is beyond bizarre to me. I’m not a random person from 3 streets over. We met each other when we moved in and then I would say hi after that and they would reluctantly wave. They will not acknowledge at all if someone else doesn’t initiate and even then it’s perfunctory. sometimes they will even ignore that. They have young kids and otherwise seem like regular people. I am still determining if this is particular to me or everyone.

Can someone help me understand the psychology? I really don’t get it and would like to understand. It would make my day worse to be so sour. Or do they tune out other people somehow and that gives them peace? Or do they not like me for some reason? [/quote]

I don't really like doing it because it becomes required and I have to constantly do this dance in my mind whenever I see you. I would rather just make the interaction less personal and move on with my day. When I was younger in my 20's and lived in a house. We lived next to a single guy and sometimes he would be out mowing his lawn, I absolutely hated it but back then, BUT I made myself smile and do a short wave to him as a signal for being neighborly when I got home from work. Did I want to? No, but I felt I had to because I thought he might be offended, etc.. Now I just don't give a darn! lol I've been jaded by life to some degree. [/quote]

Waving at a person required this much internal dialogue?  And you hated it?  I think that's what people can't grasp.  That some people have this much social anxiety.  But you are explaining, which is helpful.

[/quote]

I wouldn't call it social anxiety. I used to be a teacher and socialized all day long, when I came home and parked in my driveway I wanted to immediately go into my home, jump into my pajamas, veg out and be in silence.

So when I would drive into my drive way and saw he was out mowing, I was like "crap", I don't have any energy to fake smile and wave to another person today but I will for the sake of being neighborly. [/quote]

Okay, I just don't think smiling and waving takes any energy.  I drive by in my car and lift my hand to the neighbor walking their dog and a smile crosses my lips for a fleeting second.  It's just automatic.  I think it's interesting people are giving scenarios like this any thought at all.

That said, if I waved and smiled and you never did it back I would also not give it much thought and would just stop.  [/quote]

But most of the posters in this thread will spend hours agonizing over this "incident" and finally post here to ask what they did wrong and will this be held against them.[/quote]

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