How come some people these days won't even speak?

To say hello, hi, whatever?

For instance, I live in an apartment complex. Some people who live close by I know by sight, but they won't even respond to a "hello".

murderous rampages. Shh!

And I have to admit, I'm just like them. When I was a kid, my family knew all the neighbors. I don't know any of my neighbors now and I've lived here for 6 years.

I think people are more insulated from each other than they used to be. I'm not sure why but that's what I see. :shrug:

Food, travel, communication, entertainment, family, home, work, politics, etc, etc.

the death of proximity as a vital social requirement.

50 years ago, the only people you could interact with daily were the people around you. I mean you could call your mom everyday 4 states away but you'd have a $100 phone bill monthly. Thus, it was vital to be friendly with the neighbors because even if they were suck-assed, freeper, conservative types...you were stuck with them. That was your "circle". Period...end of story.

Now with the internet, cell phones, unlimited long-distance calling, instant messaging, email, etc. It is no longer necessary to be social with the people around you...you have other means of proximity...like DU. We're spread across the globe, but we're no farther away than your router...and we're closer in other ways such as shared interests.

At the same time, we're all becoming less social. It's the Platonic (might have been Aristotle, not Plato...I haven't taken philosophy in 10 years.) theory about friendships...we have a limited capacity to maintain friendships. Just because our capacity to communicate has increased in 2,500 years does not mean our capacity to maintain friendships has.

but the dearth of actual knowledge.

I keed, I keed!

No greeting. No "That'll be $5.86, please." No farewell. I asked if he was unwell.

I have done my share of running registers, and it won't kill you to behave like a human being for the customers. At the very least, you acknowledge someone's presence and verbally conduct the transaction.

because I am introverted and also have social anxiety.

I moved to this nice, cozy neighborhood and a house with a porch so that I could say HI to people and get to know them. Well, turns out if you say hi, they look at you like you just sneezed on them.

So I'm giving up on people and moving to the sticks, going solar, growing my own food.

I agree that it's rude not to respond to a greeting or a wave from a casual acquaintance or a neighbor you recognize. But speaking for me, I might not want to do much more than that. I seem to have so little "down" time during an average day when I'm NOT interacting with people that often I really just want to be alone in the crowd.

to get into an extended conversation. I'm referring to greeting somebody in passing.

We've had pot lucks with them, buy their kids cookies or calendars and whatnot. Visit the old lady downstairs. The young adults with mohawks are really nice, and we chat with them. The neighbors all check in on the two old ladies, and the guy downstairs who owns a small grocery/specialty shop will bring home a specific grocery or two in the evening if you call him up and ask him. The guy with the beard next door does the grocery shopping and trash for Janet downstairs, who has a hard time walking. The neighbor's daughters will babysit for us.

It's really nice!

certainly not outside their small circle of family and friends, and most especially in the better off suburbs.

Why should we? We're under tremendous economic stress, fed a steady diet of crime and punishment with the occasional reality show showing people to be cruel and manipulative, at best. It's a rough world out there (we think), so we retreat behind a wall of silence and try to interact with it as little as possible.

It almost seems like we're developing a cultural cabin fever, isolated and with little social contact, starved for the thing we most fear: human interaction.

violence on TV, it makes us scared of everybody.

SOmetimes I wish I'd grown up in an earlier era. Although I realize they all had their downsides (mucho infectious diseases, no anesthesia for dental work, etc.).

Sad, really.

Like into another friendship, relationship, etc.

If time is a hot commodity, I could see not establishing contact with what will inevitably be a transient friendship.

I joke with my friends that when a new person puts a full court press on me wanting to be my new BFF, I tell them the job is filled, but to feel free to fill out an application in case of an opening.

normal people don't put "a full court press" on someone they don't know who just happens by chance to live nearby

the "full court press" is done by the queen bees of the neighborhood who want to get you involved in their dramas or the sociopaths who are always on the look-out for a victim to provide free baby-sitting or even to loan money

i actually find i can cut a lot of fake friendliness off at the roots by letting it known that i do not, will not, no matter what the emergency (sociopaths and users are always having emergencies) watch anyone's kids ever

so, I don't get it, either.

you're a friendly sort though, i think there are some people either by learning or by choice who have become young curmudgeons who don't talk.

i went to a fitness center in a city about the size of where i live now and it was weird to me. everyone (including me) had their i pod on, and no one spoke to anyone.

the fitness center i go to, people speak all the time.

of course this was a HUGH fitness center and the one i go to is a medium sized one.

:shrug:

:hi:

but, there's nothing to be lost by smiling and greeting people, and it makes the world a much nicer place.

:hi:

maybe more people are depressed than there used to be

i know that when i've been depressed i didn't like to talk or make eye contact

it was just too hard

right now, it is rather pleasant to make conversation with people and nice to smile at them etc.

:shrug:

:hi:

I find people fascinating

oh well
I am just that kind of a gal

while it is wrong of them not to speak or even to say "hi," a lot of people have learned that "you don't shit where you eat" is a pretty good policy

i work at home, neighbors who are overly friendly can be a source of constant interruption for everything from baby-sitting to trying to get me to buy useless craps their kids are selling for school or just filling their lonely hours w. chitchat

so i find it's best to maintain distance

not saying "hello" is kind of cold, but for some neighbors, really, if you get any hint that they are or might become overly clinging, you just feel like you've got to cut it off at the source

one lonely neigbhor who talks too much can steal hours out of a day!

I've thought that sometimes when people don't want to speak, it's because they're afraid you'll ask them for a favor.

i mean, who boils their eggs in vinegar?

their customs are so strange.

I will smile, maybe say hello, but I keep on going. I despise small talk, and hate being sucked into conversations with people I either don't knowe or don't care to, unless the conversation is something I find interesting. I really don't care if this means people think I'm an asshole. I get tired of those kinds of people that wander the cubicles and just start walking into your work area and chatting while you're trying to get work done or look at porn. I don't want any fucking company, and get your fucking hands off my stuff. Out!

I don't own either an Ipod, nor a cell phone, so I don't get it. Nobody talks to each other anymore. I go on the bus...quiet. I walk on the street...quiet. The only thing you hear is the thumping of the music on the Ipods.

I think, though, that a lot of people crave socializing, but don't know how to do it. My neighbours were like that for awhile....they never said much at all to me, apart from hi every now and then one day, I made a conscious effort. They were really friendly, and even invited me in to see their chameleon. After that, we talked all the time.

Sometimes, you just have to make an effort, I guess.