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why.

In the course of a typical day I'll be in social contact with a myriad of people, as most of us are, who are complete strangers or mere aquaintances, and it's generally a pleasant experience. I mean let's face it, for the most part people are pretty friendly and courteous, otherwise the world would be in a lot worse shape than it is now. Anyway, I tend to find myself in the good graces of the general public 99 per cent of the time.

So why is it that the people who we'll refer to as our neighbors either won't give us the time of day or will go out of their way to avoid us ?

Well, on the one hand, I may have made a small error in judgement with the neighbors who I'll refer to as NEIGHBOR A, in which my initial attempt to break the ice failed miserably. We happened to be in our respective backyards at the same time one day, shortly after we had just moved in, when I decided this was an oppurtune time to demonstrate that I had a sense of humour by blurting out something like "I have to warn you, we'll probably be throwing a lot of nude Keg parties this summer ... ".

The sound of crickets penetrating the silence as their jaws dropped to the ground (including that of my wifes' who was standing in the doorway) wasn't quite the reaction I was expecting. Whether it was taken out of context or simply deemed inappropriate I'm not sure, but I didn't get the chance to find out as they quickly departed, and things have never been on proper footing since. Sometimes you only get to make that mistake once ... I mean, they're still friendly enough and all, often waving back to us from across the fence as they hurriedly usher their friends back into the house, but that dinner invitation is still forthcoming.

And as for NEIGHBOR B ? Not too sure what happened there. In this case they won't even pretend to be friendly, and it can't even be anything I said because I didn't get the chance. The first thing they did upon moving in was install a hot tub in the backyard, and now we've taken to going camping on weekends more than ever before.

Obviously neither of these scenarios are nearly as bad as living next door to the really obnoxious where it involves a steady dose of loud parties, barking dogs, hot-tub / fire-pit parties, etc ...

But does it seem as though we tend to build pretenses about our neighbors as we are forced into close proximity with them, making them harder to get along with ? Are we simply building up walls instead of tearing down fences ? (Yes, that fence we share with NEIGHBOR A really needs to be replaced) ... I'm not really sure. But one thing I am sure of is that some neighbors could turn even Mr. Rogers into the most hardened, cynical old bastard ...

It's a beautiful day in the neighborhood ... now get off my lawn!

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