We hold a quaint notion regarding our neighbourhoods, that they have community, community spirit, neighbours that look out for each other and protect each other’s interests. You say hello to these guys, wish them a good day, maybe when they are away you might put their bins out. We have a regard for our neighbours that we often mistake for a sort of friendship. I’d like to state that quite the opposite is often true, I have had many neighbours and lived in many places. My fellow street dwellers have always been civil and doorstep friendly, but none of them have ever been my friend.
I come from a middle class background, people of some affluence but not great wealth, folks that work but are not struggling or making decisions between heat and eat. This consideration may define my neighbour experience, I do not think that when people grow up in detached houses in cul-de-sacs the experience is the same as for people who spend their formative years in streets of tenant houses on council estates. My pals Steve and Jason were cousins that often walked into the houses of their friends and relatives without knocking the door, which seemed weird to me at the time but it was the norm to them.
Neighbourhood and community are two different things, one indicates geographical happenstance, the other a decided upon kinship. Your community are those people that you share commonality with in purpose, your neighbours are just those people that live close to you and often inconvenience your day. I am of the opinion that people are not in general considerate toward each other, they more often do what is selfishly best for them, yet they often hold the perspective that they are quite the opposite. I’m sure this is a psychological malady, a sort of dissonance between the reality of their lives as examined, and the way they wish to feel about themselves, or feel they are felt of as.
I find this aspect of psychology completely fascinating, and I’ve never met anyone who quite realises about themselves that they are likely not even close in the reality of others to what they imagine. I mean nobody ever seems to stop and ask themselves “I wonder am I an asshole?”. You may be an asshole, as may I. There’s a thing a character in a tv series I watched who says to another character “you meet and asshole in the morning, you met an asshole. You keep meeting assholes all day, you are an asshole”, I think that may be an insight.
My neighbours are good people, decent, friendly, but when I move I won’t stay in touch with them. The neighbours they had before I bought this house haven’t stayed in touch with them, that’s just how it tends to be. We are a neighbourhood not a community.
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