Do you actually LIKE your neighbors?

  I can't stand mine.  Well, more accurately, I don't know them, and I don't really care to know them.  It's not that they are bad people, but every interaction I have had with them just left me with a kind of a "meh" feeling, and not enough motivation to pursue it any further.  

  Sometimes, we'll be warming up our cars at the same time, or checking the mail, and it's absolutely CRUCIFYING for me.  I smile, do the "neighbor wave", say "How ya doin" and go about my business, rushing to get back inside.  Now, I know that we are really only speaking to each other because we're supposed to--because it's "neighborly".  

  I'm of two minds when it comes to this type of arrangement.  Back in the old days, it seems that community was as big a part of life as family.  Everyone kinda knew everyone else and people were very much a part of each other's lives.   When my folks told me stories of what it was like in Hawaii during the 50's, I get a little nostalgic about it, and start to feel like I'm missing out on a quality of life that seems to be diminishing in today's world.

  The other part of me is very happy with not knowing or being social with my neighbors.  I've always been pretty fiercely independent, and I value my privacy very highly.  Over the last few years, my social network has shrunk down a bit, mostly to my closest and oldest of friends.  Right now, I really don't feel  like adding to that network.  I'm happy with the people in my life, and unless Kate Beckinsdale decides she'd like to hang out with a slobbered-on Asian-trail-mix-single-dad-type who is short of sleep and desperately in need of a haircut, I'll take what I've got, thanks.

  So should I feel guilty for not giving a damn about my neighbors?  Maybe.  Maybe I'm falling into the trap that the media has set for us.  Maybe I'm focussing more on how we are all different rather than how we are alike.  Maybe we as a whole are all guilty of this to some extent.  We interact with the world through the TV and of course the internet.   Face to face communication is starting to feel less natural to us, as we retreat to our little ivory towers and send out digital signals into the ether looking to replace something we feel is missing in our lives.  We text when we have time to call.  More business is being done by email than by phone. And we read and blog when our folks would have been talking to our neighbors.

  Then again, we are the first generations to be faced with something as paradigm shifting as the internetz.  A whole new type of global community that mankind has never had access to, and we're still figuring out how to balance the digital community with the physical one.  So, in light of that, welcome neighbor...and if you need anything, let me know.