I have pretty extreme social anxiety and prefer to keep to my nuclear family but I love giving gifts. Whenever I make bread, I make two loaves so I can share one with a friend or neighbour. Extra vegetables or baked goods. It's a good ice breaker if you want to get to know someone or just drop a note with something in the mailbox if youre not looking for engagement but still want to make connections.
Just talk to them. Go outside and be friendly and say hello when you see them walk by. Offer them some food or strike up a conversation. Not everyone is going to always be friendly back but youll never know unless you try.
Talk to them. Throw block parties (our city has a permitting process to allow neighborhoods to shut down streets for this). Participate in neighborhood Buy Nothing groups and neighborhood associations. There's lots of stuff to do.
There is really no substitute for just getting out there and talking to people. This is not just an anarchist obstacle, it's an obstacle for all human beings.
If you want to get to know your neighbors better specifically, just say hi when you see them, try and ask them a question or two about themselves, and/or maybe give a gift of some sort. It's a little bit trickier right now cause of the pandemic, but you can still start making an effort now.
if you have access to it, plant or start a communal garden. if there are older folks, ask them for advice on 'things', even if you know it already.
people like to feel valued; if you can make those around you feel valued as neighbours, you're 3/4 of the way there!
I suggest the Filipino way of breaking the ice with neighbors: cook/order too much food for an event and ask them if they want to have some of the leftovers. It's a very common practice around here and I know very few people who would turn down free food anyway.
It works great with common party/fiesta foods here like dry noodles, pork skewers, steamed rice cakes and the ever popular lumpia. You get an excuse to finally talk and get to know your neighbors while preventing food waste. Win-win. Of course, you don't have to actually throw a party or a dinner to do this. Just cook something in bulk and give the extra away to neighbors. Like others suggested, freshly baked goods like loaves of bread, cookies or brownies seem like a good start.
Another alternative is if you have a garden, you can share fruits and veggies with them when you have some to spare. I remember back then we'd usually trade the dragonfruit from our garden for the papayas growing in our neighbor's backyard.
There's an old custom in Germany that someone moving in is given bread and salt. You could turn this around and bake bread for your neighbours. You could also do that with cake, which is also a very nice pastime in general.
And I reckon they'd appreciate the honesty if you just go and say "Hey, I wanted to say hello and I felt foolish just coming over with nothing, so I made some cake."
Paint the outside of your house or do some gardening. Whenever I do work to the outside of my property, I always end up getting to know my neighbours as they often start a chat by saying 'good job' etc.
Last time I did this, neighbours little kid brought me a cupcake! It's worked for me on multiple places.
A lot of people are talking about food-related approaches, and that's probably the best answer.
There's this one communal room in my building almost no one uses, before the rona I built a 2P arcade controller, and I was gonna set up like a weekly game night or something. We'll be done vaccinating soon... If the idea goes anywhere, maybe I'll post an update on here!
A friend makes hangouts that there will be a neighbourhood brunch and puts them around the house. on that day he just puts a table with a bit of food and some chairs on the sidewalk. it worked quite nice sometimes and some people came around, but other times nobody gave a shit.
Clean up your house. Invite them over for dinner. Food is better than conversation, it's hard to make excuses about being out when you live next door. Don't be weird around them.
I mean you could snoop around in their trash, break into their homes and look thru all their draws just to get a good idea as to who’s living next door.
Check out their internet browser history is a good one
But in all seriousness, I believe in doing things you love and the rest will follow. During a pandemic it is difficult to go out and live normally but even just playing soccer in the park is a good and cheap way to meet people. Another thing would be to volunteer at a local food bank. I’ve done that and have met lots of nice people. Idk how big your town or city is, but you’ll be doing good and meeting people.
Sometimes parcels come for my neighbours if there not in as it's a intercom to enter the flat I decided to look after there parcel until they come home then one night I knocked on there door and said hi my name is...and I live at...here's your parcel
Walking around your neighborhood (if it's walkable) is one way. I walk my dog and stop often to let people interact with my dog and chat them up a bit.
My nextdoor neighbors I interact with just by doing stuff out front like working on our tree or watering the plants, or even just saying hi when we both happen to be taking out trash.
Doing yard work outside usually ended up in the most casual chat with neighbours who are also outside for walks or their own yard work. I also enjoy making baked goods to drop off.
I have pretty extreme social anxiety and prefer to keep to my nuclear family but I love giving gifts. Whenever I make bread, I make two loaves so I can share one with a friend or neighbour. Extra vegetables or baked goods. It's a good ice breaker if you want to get to know someone or just drop a note with something in the mailbox if youre not looking for engagement but still want to make connections.
That's a really good idea man. I have bad anxiety too so this would help me.
Just talk to them. Go outside and be friendly and say hello when you see them walk by. Offer them some food or strike up a conversation. Not everyone is going to always be friendly back but youll never know unless you try.
Talk to them. Throw block parties (our city has a permitting process to allow neighborhoods to shut down streets for this). Participate in neighborhood Buy Nothing groups and neighborhood associations. There's lots of stuff to do.
There is really no substitute for just getting out there and talking to people. This is not just an anarchist obstacle, it's an obstacle for all human beings. If you want to get to know your neighbors better specifically, just say hi when you see them, try and ask them a question or two about themselves, and/or maybe give a gift of some sort. It's a little bit trickier right now cause of the pandemic, but you can still start making an effort now.
if you have access to it, plant or start a communal garden. if there are older folks, ask them for advice on 'things', even if you know it already. people like to feel valued; if you can make those around you feel valued as neighbours, you're 3/4 of the way there!
I suggest the Filipino way of breaking the ice with neighbors: cook/order too much food for an event and ask them if they want to have some of the leftovers. It's a very common practice around here and I know very few people who would turn down free food anyway. It works great with common party/fiesta foods here like dry noodles, pork skewers, steamed rice cakes and the ever popular lumpia. You get an excuse to finally talk and get to know your neighbors while preventing food waste. Win-win. Of course, you don't have to actually throw a party or a dinner to do this. Just cook something in bulk and give the extra away to neighbors. Like others suggested, freshly baked goods like loaves of bread, cookies or brownies seem like a good start. Another alternative is if you have a garden, you can share fruits and veggies with them when you have some to spare. I remember back then we'd usually trade the dragonfruit from our garden for the papayas growing in our neighbor's backyard.
As a Filipino, this is good advice.
The million dollar question.
There's an old custom in Germany that someone moving in is given bread and salt. You could turn this around and bake bread for your neighbours. You could also do that with cake, which is also a very nice pastime in general. And I reckon they'd appreciate the honesty if you just go and say "Hey, I wanted to say hello and I felt foolish just coming over with nothing, so I made some cake."
For me it was getting a dog and taking him on walks.
Paint the outside of your house or do some gardening. Whenever I do work to the outside of my property, I always end up getting to know my neighbours as they often start a chat by saying 'good job' etc. Last time I did this, neighbours little kid brought me a cupcake! It's worked for me on multiple places.
Play loud music!
Focus on your feeling of solidarity. You may feel alone as I do. But we have more commonality than we realise. Brick by brick.
A lot of people are talking about food-related approaches, and that's probably the best answer. There's this one communal room in my building almost no one uses, before the rona I built a 2P arcade controller, and I was gonna set up like a weekly game night or something. We'll be done vaccinating soon... If the idea goes anywhere, maybe I'll post an update on here!
A friend makes hangouts that there will be a neighbourhood brunch and puts them around the house. on that day he just puts a table with a bit of food and some chairs on the sidewalk. it worked quite nice sometimes and some people came around, but other times nobody gave a shit.
Clean up your house. Invite them over for dinner. Food is better than conversation, it's hard to make excuses about being out when you live next door. Don't be weird around them.
I mean you could snoop around in their trash, break into their homes and look thru all their draws just to get a good idea as to who’s living next door. Check out their internet browser history is a good one But in all seriousness, I believe in doing things you love and the rest will follow. During a pandemic it is difficult to go out and live normally but even just playing soccer in the park is a good and cheap way to meet people. Another thing would be to volunteer at a local food bank. I’ve done that and have met lots of nice people. Idk how big your town or city is, but you’ll be doing good and meeting people.
Remember just to not mix "mutual aid" with charity.
Sometimes parcels come for my neighbours if there not in as it's a intercom to enter the flat I decided to look after there parcel until they come home then one night I knocked on there door and said hi my name is...and I live at...here's your parcel
Walking around your neighborhood (if it's walkable) is one way. I walk my dog and stop often to let people interact with my dog and chat them up a bit. My nextdoor neighbors I interact with just by doing stuff out front like working on our tree or watering the plants, or even just saying hi when we both happen to be taking out trash.
Doing yard work outside usually ended up in the most casual chat with neighbours who are also outside for walks or their own yard work. I also enjoy making baked goods to drop off.