<p>Ok, here’s an example. My H is a physician and is very extroverted. With his patients, he gets to know everything about them - and it’s quite often I get a phone call, “Oh, I have Susie here in the office - she knows your sister!” or “I have Mary here in the office and she’s going to San Francisco - what was the name of the restaurant we liked there?” His patients love him for it and they think he’s the bomb - but meanwhile, I say to him - that would drive me crazy, I would never want to go to you, I want to go to a doctor and keep my conversation to my medical issues and get in and out! </p>
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<p>I can relate to that. A great way to break the ice and to get to know about someone is to let them talk about themselves and their interests, listen, and do whatever you can to keep the conversation going while ensuring they’re comfortable and at ease. </p>
<p>It’s also not something limited to extroverts as most of my extended family are extreme introverts by nature…but also feel part of being friendly is showing interest in other people and initiating/joining in conversations to get to know them better. In fact, they’ve made it a point to explain showing such interest is a great polite way to acknowledge their humanity and to avoid the impression one’s too aloof and feels themselves “too good to associate with others”. </p>
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<p>PG, you sound you’d fit in better in old NYC than even I…a native-born NYker would. </p>
<p>Yes, I get that part of being friendly is showing interest in other people. The question is when do you desire to express that interest - in all possible circumstances where you interact with other people, or in selected situations and with selected people. I assure you I can be super friendly when I want to be. </p>
<p>IRL, I’ve been tagged as aloof but it’s not really a label that bothers me all that much. I think there are worse things to be than aloof, and being aloof has nothing to do with “thinking I’m too good to associate with others” so I don’t get the connection. </p>
<p>I lived at a NYC suburb for 15 years. I have only met one neighbor and because she came over to introduce herself. It’s not because I don’t want to help out or am not a nice person, but I don’t see the need of being friendly with someone just because someone is my neighbor.</p>
<p>I remember when we first moved out to our house 15 years ago, a little boy rang our doorbell around xmas and we had company. I asked the boy what he wanted. He said, “I live there. My little sister is sleeping and I was making a lot of noise. My mom said I could come over here to play.” I told the little boy that we were busy, we would love to have him over soon, but have his mom call us first for a play date. H walked him back to his house.</p>
<p>“I lived at a NYC suburb for 15 years. I have only met one neighbor and because she came over to introduce herself. It’s not because I don’t want to help out or am not a nice person, but I don’t see the need of being friendly with someone just because someone is my neighbor.”</p>
<p>That is exactly how I feel, and that’s also how I felt when it came to the parents of my kids’ friends and classmates. That’s also how I felt when as a young mom, I joined a moms-of-twins group. Nice women, but they just weren’t for me.</p>
<p>So back to the start again . . . introverts/extroverts, Chatty Kathys/keep-to-selfers, dawdlers/straight to the point people . . . there are lots of personal styles that are all fine and, well, personal. There are also regional and metropolitan styles that we may not even be aware of so it can’t hurt to find out what they are ahead and either decide if you can live and let live and adapt. Forewarned is forearmed so you don’t judge individuals for what is a cultural thing. Pizzagirl . . . I promise not to ring your doorbell and offer you zucchini or expect you to feed my cat ;)</p>
<p>I’m allergic to cats anyway so even if you’re my BFF, I’m not feeding your cat :-)</p>
<p>lizardly wrote: *I do for (D) all of the above.</p>
<p>Also an introvert, but having been in the newbie’s shoes, I now make an effort to meet her. *</p>
<p>I greatly admire the ability to put oneself in another’s shoes, those who do something nice for someone else even if it goes against their own best interests or what makes them comfortable. Just because of a general concern for the rest of humanity. Because they really do care and aren’t just faking it. Me - pretty much self-serving. I generally do it because it’s proper and I need babysitters. I tend to believe in karma. Goodies have sometimes dropped in my lap when I took the time to follow my grandmothers’ instructions on how to behave.</p>
<p>Wine is usually appropriate.
Or a dessert, or even a book that you think the host would be interested in.
Yes you always bring something.</p>
<p>Having been raised in the Midwest and lived my adult life on the East coast, I find the east coasters much more driven, even when it comes to being nice. For example, I’ll complement a friend on an appetizer at a party to find her handing me a hand written recipe the next time I see her, or I’ve brought a plate of something to a sick friend to have the plate returned two days later with homemade cookies. It’s hard to out nice east coasters. </p>
<p>Hahahahahahaaa . . . . Here’s a casual “hey, how’s it going?” conversation that I just had 10 minutes ago:</p>
<p>Me: "Hey, how are you? . . . How were your holidays?
Respondent: “Oh really nice, but I ate too much . . . I’m all stopped up from too much matzo.”</p>
<p>Well alright then . . . ;)</p>
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<p>The association is one those whom you decide to not associate with due to feeling “they’re weren’t for me”…especially considering many folks can pick up that vibe and judge you’re unfriendly as a result. </p>
<p>This is something even NYC neighbors over the years have complained about with particularly aloof and unfriendly neighbors. </p>
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<p>I’m also allergic to cats, but I find them so delightful I would not only be happy to feed your cats, but also hang out with them…and happily sustain the allergic reactions. </p>
<p>Some cat owners I know are also allergic…some more severely than yours truly…yet keep cats as pets. The one with the more severe allergy is owned by around a dozen cats in his family’s small NYC area house. Most were adoptees or strays from neighbors who moved away or died. </p>
<p>Well, there are two different issues here.</p>
<p>One is the whether people make an effort to interact with others, neighbors and/or strangers, and whether they are warm vs. neutral when they do. As some others are on this thread, I am also an introvert, and don’t really enjoy making smalltalk with people I don’t know well. </p>
<p>The other issue is whether there is a different in value systems, at least on average–that is, people value other people less in one geographic area. I think it is more likely that someone would push you out of the way to get into a cab in NYC rather than a big city in the Midwest. If I was going to miss a plane, I might ask the person if I could take the cab (or share it.) But I wouldn’t just push them out of the way. </p>
<p>That’s fair. ^</p>
<p>I am the product of two introverts and grew up in a smallish southern town where everyone knew everyone and had for generations.( My grandma who lived with us was an extrovert btw and was the reason we knew everyone. People were all friends or potential friends to her. ) Still we all knew the rules of how to behave and my mom would bake pies and casseroles and take them over to new neighbors and neighbors who had new babies or who had suffered losses or been in accidents. Sometimes she did it with warmth and sometimes out of duty, but she did it. </p>
<p>I didn’t really appreciate these rule until I was a new neighbor with two small children and a husband who was never around. By then I lived in a middle sized midwestern city after many years in big cities here and abroad. My neighbors brought me lasagnas and cakes and phonebooks and even a snow shovel until I could buy my own. My husband suffered through a serious illness, and again there was an outpouring of small good deeds and gifts. One of the best was from a young man, mid twenties, who couldn’t cook and didn’t have much who gave us dinner from Boston Market one night. We were all so overwhelmed, his gift was much appreciated. My time in the Midwest (okay and in the South) made such an impression on me that I resolved to keep acting that way. I don’t always do it warmly, but I do it. </p>
<p>I live in a large NYC apartment building. It opened it’s doors a few decades ago. Most people who moved in when it opened were between 25 and 35 years of age. I think it’s a bit unusual because more than half of the people who moved in during the first 2 years still live here. I probably know about one-third of them by name–and I’m talking a couple hundred people. I know the life stories for about 100 of them. By that, I mean their profession, their spouse’s name, whether it’s a first or second marriage, the names of their kids, etc. </p>
<p>When someone new moves onto my floor, I don’t bring their doorbell or bake a cake, but I usually do introduce myself when we run into each other in the garbage room or waiting for the elevator. </p>
<p>“The association is one those whom you decide to not associate with due to feeling “they’re weren’t for me”…especially considering many folks can pick up that vibe and judge you’re unfriendly as a result.”</p>
<p>And if they do, since I’m not associating with them (other than in the generic sense of wishing them well), I’ll never know, will I! </p>
<p>Would it bother you to learn you might have hurt their feelings?</p>
<p>Sure, I wouldn’t want to deliberately hurt someone’s feelings. I’d have to put it in context of what actually happened. I would expect someone’s feelings to be hurt if I were deliberately rude to them, but I wouldn’t expect their feelings to be hurt if they moved in and I didn’t show up with a cake.</p>
<p>I know you aren’t going to be deliberately rude. But what if someone moves into your neighborhood and no one goes over to say hello and they think the whole neighborhood just doesn’t like them? Even if this is a ridiculous conclusion to draw, because maybe no one does that in your neighborhood. However, if you knew they felt unwelcome, would it be worth it to you to just go on over and say “hi, I’m PG and I live over there”?</p>
<p>I was really impressed when my (then) new neighbors brought me homemade baklava…of course I had just totally remodeled a foreclosed house next door and they also wanted to see it. I didn’t make food but I made a point of welcoming my new next door neighbors recently and say hi to all the walkers/dog people out and about.
We have a neighborhood fb page I like too. </p>