[nsxwolf]

My suburban neighborhood consists of single family homes on roughly quarter-acre lots. I "bump in" to my neighbors a lot when we're in our front yards. But I hate the "stop and chat", so when I see a neighbor outside I employ the following strategies to avoid neighbor contact:

- Driving into the garage and lowering the garage door even when I really wanted to park in the driveway

- Peeking through blinds to see when my neighbors go back inside

- Getting into my SUV from the passenger side so they can't see me through the smoked glass

- And more!

[anigbrowl]

That's kind of pathological. I also don't care for ad-hoc social interactions, but you can learn a few routines to manage them, like wave but don't engage, or greet but say you had a long day and you'd prefer to talk later. It's probably not worth seeing a therapist over, but a little work on dealing with the small talk is much less stressful than the anxiety of skulking around hiding from eye contact. If you can't get past this then you should see a therapist, letting it stress you that much is unhealthy.

[scoofy]

Why do you hate chatting? I can understand if one of your neighbors is annoying, but my point is that if you weren't driving, you'd certainly know more than just the annoying one next door, and you almost certainly get a kick out of dogging him with the person on the other side of his house.

If not, hey, there's always one or two annoying neighbors, and if you can't find them, it's probably you.

[icebraining]

you almost certainly get a kick out of dogging him with the person on the other side of his house

Well no, not everyone enjoys that kind of behavior. To me, it's one of the repellants in neighbor relations. I'm happy to help them out, but that kind of shit talk is poisonous.

[nsxwolf]

I really don't know! I just get this deeply uncomfortable feeling when I see that I'm going to have to have some kind of unplanned interaction with them. I'm not a terribly shy person, there's just something about the neighbor encounter.

[pcrh]

It's because you don't know them well enough. Or maybe because you haven't been "formally introduced". This makes you nervous of the impact that an accidental disclosure of information might have.

Invite them around for a BBQ (if you're American).

Even better, if you notice one of them having a minor problem, offer to help with it.

[gtremper]

I feel the same way about neighbors in my apartment building and deploy similar strategies. I think its a mild form of social anxiety.

[sliverstorm]

If you get to know them better, will you feel less anxious?

[nsxwolf]

Possibly, but I think maybe it's that I like social interactions to be on my terms or anticipated ahead of time.

[shutupalready]

When I worked a few months in Silicon Valley, I noticed something similar there:

There's a McDonalds in an area dominated by software and engineering companies. At lunch, people would go through the drive-thru, park in the McDonalds' parking lot, and eat in their cars. The parking lot was full; the large dining area inside was usually empty.

The saddest part is that I myself started doing the same thing after a while. Although Silicon Valley is the center of the universe for my profession, I found that it is also a lonely experience compared to other cities/countries.

[eru]

This is satire, it must be.