Divided by a Common Language - Love thy neighbor
Sunday, August 30, 2009 at 3:48PM 
We are about to go to a Block Party.
This seems to me to be an American phenomenon. In suburban England, one does not consort with one's immediate neighbors.
I remember talking to a friend in the UK who had met her neighbor and got on well with her. Then, she said, her neighbor asked her out. She found a way to refuse. When I asked her why, she said that being close to one's neighbor's is dangerous.
"What if we become friends and then have a fight?" she asked. "Then I have to see her every day."
Although I was initially horrified at her close-mindedness, after I thought about it, I saw her point. It's a bit like the magazine articles these days that advise women not to shag men who live in their apartment building.
In England, if you happen to see your neighbor you do one of five things:
- Say "Hello", and smile, no teeth
- Wave and smile, no teeth
- Nod at them with small smile, no teeth
- Duck under your umbrella and pretend you didn't see them
- Take out your mobile phone and act like you have a call
Any other communication is carried out by letter, slipped through the letter box slot in the front door. Even exchanging email addresses is too intimate.
I see people on the news here, when they are being interviewed about someone on their street found dead, or whose house burnt down, or whatever, saying things that indicate that, to some extent, they knew the person.
They say things like:
"Yeah, our kids used to play together. They were a nice family."
In suburban England, the only reply would be:
"Well, he seemed like a nice chap. Always said hello when we saw each other out gardening."
Or...
"They seemed like a nice family. Never made any trouble. No noisy parties or anything like that."
It's three minutes till we are supposed to step out and meet our fellow block dwellers. We are sitting on the couch, front door closed, watching British TV. Probably because we need a quick reminder of who we are and where we come from before we have to go out and assimilate.
Wish us luck.
Ittybittycrazy
Kumar, who kindly left a comment (Hint! Hint!) has asked me what the mingling was like.
It was very nice, and very interesting.
One on one, people fascinate me and, 99% of the time, are very nice, so the conversations I had were great.
Those of you who read this regularly will know that I am not a big fan of kids, so we'll gloss over that part. They were there. We ignored them.
The food brought by everyone else was very home made and very yummy. It may be just that there is more of a tradition of cooking here (you try and cook regularly and significantly in a closet-sized British kitchen). Or, of course, it could be that there was a little competitiveness going on. Just a smidge. A soupcon. A nano-floobble.
We have very different priorities - as demonstrated by our offering on the table. We bought some cheap-ass mini chocolate cupcakes with coloured thingies on them to keep the kids away from us. But - and it is a big but - we brought good alcohol.
We took a massive jug of Pimms and lemonade, the quintessential English summer drink, complete with floating bits of cucumber and orange.
Of course, people had no idea what it was - or how lethal it is - and so they were quaffing it down. Wasn't long before I had to take the jug back up to the house and refill it.
Fluffy Bear said he heard someone say it was interesting iced tea!
And so we are responsible, no doubt, for the hangovers of many people on our block on Monday morning.
Reader Comments (2)
So, how was mingling with the americans?
Au contraire... We are all being encouraged to hold 'block parties too, though of course we don't have blocks: http://www.thebiglunch.com/
And it's 'neighbour'.