Leisure Cards
Christy
Thursday
2:50 pm
Let's all take a cue from Mr. Rogers and say hello to our neighbors.
I recently stumbled upon a friend of a friend’s blog and read about their social experiment using “leisure cards.” It’s an interesting and funny read. You should click on the link to check it out.
The idea is that we tend to broadcast so much of our personal life on the internets via facebook, twitter, and the like and are contrastingly becoming more and more insular in regards to face to face interactions. I’ve met a few of my neighbors in the 3 months I’ve lived in my new place.
There’s the girl downstairs that introduced herself one evening by knocking on my backdoor. She had come home after being gone all day to find her backdoor wide open. She didn’t want to venture in by herself. We bonded over fear.
And then there’s the puppy people next door. One night last week they didn’t shut their backdoor all the way and their dogs got out. I pulled into the drive while being circled by three dogs. I had to make a few phone call before I herded up the two dogs that actually lived there and shut them back inside, but that was after the lady across the way (I don’t know her name, just that she’s the one that drives with all her windows down blaring old school R&B) told me she saw them down at the liquor store. They (humans and puppies) left me a card in my mailbox, so I haven’t actually met them.
It’s as if we’re scared to actually meet each other and it seems easier to just go along with our daily lives ignoring the fact that there are three other apartments in the fourplex. Three sets of lives that are intertwined because of their proximity. And I’m beginning to question why. I may make some leisure cards myself.
Growing up, we had a cookie lady on our block. Just knock on her door and she'd give you cookies. One for each hand. We miss you Mrs. O'Neil. I strive to be The Cookie Lady as I age.
Amber
Jason
Nick Burns
Christy
Charlotte
Autumn
Bill
Blain![Josh [geek6.com]](http://a2.twimg.com/profile_images/449316830/neweravatar0509_normal.jpg){kind=avatar}
Reader Comments
I am going to preface all of this by saying that I think friendly neighbors are a very good thing. That said….
I am so weirded out by neighborliness. I’ve always been that way. When I first moved in to my house, I was getting into my car one day and my neighbor down the way waved at me. I turned around to see at whom she was waving because I just couldn’t fathom why she would wave at me, a total stranger. Later that week it happened again with a couple down the street. I turned to the person I was with at the time and said, “Why are those people waving at me?” He said, “That’s what people do on this planet, Amber.”
I just shrugged. I don’t get it. I’m just glad the neighbors directly to my right haven’t made good on their offer to have me over for ice cream one afternoon.
Well, I can sorta relate because if a neighbor does that to me here, I’ll wave back but in my mind I’m thinking “Who the hell are you?”. I’m not paranoid, but I keep thinking they’re trying to be neighborly because they want something from me or they’re just that lonely. The thing is they usually just do the wave, they don’t come up to talk or anything. I don’t know what their intent is. I don’t feel that so much with the older ladies that do that, because I’m sure they just want to bake me cookies and treat me like another grandchild. But younger couples or middle aged single ones, why do they even bother? They’re not going to have a conversation with me anyway. They just wave. I don’t get it.
Oh…and those cards are creepy.
If someone gave me a “howdy neighbor” card with their interests, email (why would I email them. I live right there), and a “Let’s hang out!” I would think they were a lonely creepy person. lol.
Though the cookie bribe can’t hurt.
Well, they went around and introduced themselves to the neighbors and gave them the cards. However, there were a few that weren’t home.
I think it might depend on the neighborhood you live in. My new neighborhood is much more friendly, say hello than my last one. At my last place, the only neighbor I knew was the girl living below me. And we met after I banged on her door at 4 in the morning to plead her to turn off the rave!
Ha…turn off the rave!
My old apartment was very friendly. Werided me out at first, but I grew to like it! We became a real, little “neighborhood” watched each others kids, had suppers together, it was nice. Not to say we all got a long, but when there was a problem, it was a lot easier to deal with.
I’ve lived in my new building for about 6 months, and I don’t know ANYONE. No one waves, chats, or seems interested in meeting, and I’ve found that I miss that sense of community. I’d reach out, but I get the feeling that they aren’t really interested in “building community”.
I live in a small town so I recognize most people, I don’t KNOW them, exactly, but I can recognize their faces. And it would be considered rude if I DIDN’T wave at them…
…I’m going to be one of the creepy guys on the street who wave to strangers, aren’t I?
I totally get the friendly neighbor thing when you live in a neighborhood of houses, but I’ve never gotten the hang of it in apartments. Maybe it’s because houses seem more permanent, I don’t know. Apartments are weird that way. We are a bunch of people practically living on top of each other but don’t even know each others’ names. I do sometimes meet other dog owners when I’m out walking our dogs around the complex. Not as much as this apartment as my last though. For some reason people here don’t seem to socialize their dogs. I don’t understand why someone would be afraid of my two excited little poodles wagging their tails so hard that their entire bums shake, but….
We don’t have many shared interests in common with our neighbor. He seems to like sports, cigars, and working out, and we like knitting, brewing beer, and assorted nerditry.
However, making the effort of enduring weird backyard conversations and waves all paid when he caught some guy stealing the lawnmower out of our shed at 10pm at night and chased him down the street. Thanks, neighbor!
Knowing your neighbor can pay unexpected dividends down the road. I’d encourage giving it a shot, no matter how awkward you think it may be. If you’re looking for an excuse to go over, you could always try “my phone’s out, is yours?” to get your verbal foot in the door.
Er…. You have a land line? >;)
Did I just lose my geek cred?
Nah: I realize people are still using them for a number of reasons. I was just trying to figure out how I would use a line like that when I’m pretty certain I don’t know anyone with a landline, and I highly suspect that I can include my high-tech-and-cable-Internet-using neighbors in that list.
Borrow a cup of sugar, and offer to bring them some of the resulting cookies as a thank you? It’s a classic.
I have a landline, but that’s because I work from home and need a backup. Mostly it gets used by my roommate when she’s low on minutes on her cell phone.