Are You A Nosy Neighbour?

[MadMen]

As above, are you a nosy neighbour?

I've just spent half an hour glaring at the people next door trying to reverse a motorhome onto their drive. It got to the point where I didn't actually know what I was looking at, just being nosy.

Do you know your neighbours?

I don't really. I know a couple, like the little old dear a few doors down, who reminds me so much of my departed Nan that I grab every opportunity to speak to her, and the odd couple next door who's cat I am plotting to kill.

I used to live on a main road. Well, the main road to the sea front anyway, and I knew them all. I kind of miss that. Standing outside in the morning, in your Pj's, waving the kids off to school and saying hello to the other Mothers doing the same. Friendliness. There doesn't seem to be any around here.

[Kiki-frog]

I'm naturally curious, but hopefully not nosy. I think the boundary lies where curiosity turns into something obtrusive.

[MadMen]

Surely curious is just a way of dressing up nosiness?

[AlwaysConfused]

I'd say I'm nosy, I just can't help it! If something is going on , I need to know about it.

[Kiki-frog]

I don't think so, MadMen. I might glance out of my window and see my neighbour planting out some new flowers, and I might wonder what they are. Next time I saw her, I might ask her (or I might not), just out of curiosity. That's just curiosity, it's not important for me to know.

Nosiness would be if it was really important to me to know, so much so that I became intrusive and went straight out and asked her. Or asked other neighbours what they thought.

All humans have curiosity. Otherwise we'd still be in the Stone Age. Nosiness is when curiosity turns into a pathology.

[Sparkles62]

Not nosy but we all look out for each other, which is nice.

[magsmay]

We live in a small rural hamlet in the North of England and everyone knows and helps when needed, but keeps their distance -no popping in for coffee -which I appreciate. I have lived in many many places and have always found neighbours to be friendly if you are open and pleasant back -though the more affluent the area the more snotty the neighbours tend to be.

[Purple_Popple]

I'm not a nosey neighbour and pretty much keep myself to myself ashlar from the usual pleasantries if I see my neighbours about. However there is a very nosey neighbour who always goes to chat to anyone who is our mowing the lawn or washing the car and believe it or not it's a guy! He's not an old guy either! But he knows everyone's business lol.

[woofgang]

Not nosey and neither are my actual neighbours. DH worked for a local big multinational though and you can't so much a sniff, let alone sneeze without the grapevine finding out. I loathe it.

[joko]

do you really expect people to be friendly to you, if you stand 'glaring' at them when they are trying to do something?
as though somehow trying to let them know you don't approve, even though they are doing nothing wrong.
i wouldn't speak to you either.

why glare at them?

you also say you are plotting to kill a cat - joking aside - you actually don't sound like a very nice neighbour.

[joko]

my dad makes a point of jumping up and very blatantly glaring at anyone who walks down our street that he doesn't recognise (cul-de-sac) because he says hes letting them know hes seen their faces and if they're up to something they now know they've been seen and can be identified.

generally though they are just neighbours and neighbours friends etc

[tamborine]

hmmm..... what are they? I waive to the planes ;)

[murraymints]

In a cul de sac...see everything coming and going as my sofa is directly opposite large picture window....know my direct neighbours quite well..been here nearly seven years now, but still considered newbies I think..

[EvianBaby]

Yep. Very nosy. I only have neighbours one side and there's something weird going on there. I think they secretly have about 700 people living in there. They're always out in the garden but I can never understand what they're talking about because they're foreign but I still try.

I even stood with my ear to ,y front door a few weeks ago when I heard the guy on the other side of them having a go at them about the noise they make.