To want very friendly neighbours to back off slightly..

[Ccoffee217]

Please help me see this for what it is rather than just getting annoyed.
DH, DD and I moved into our new home 4 months ago. It’s a detached house and our neighbours have the same but a mirror image next door. They are an old retired couple but still have a lot of life in them. Our front doors are on the same side of the house but separated by a fence.
What I need help with is working out whether we’re right to feel they’re overly friendly…
DH and I are fairly introverted people so feeling a bit awkward.

They were great at first, left us alone and just spoke to us if we were in the front garden when they were. But as times gone on they are now trying to get involved in every DIY project my husband does (DH is one of these people that likes to work on his own), so has now stopped telling him what we’re working on. The lady knocks the door every other day offering tomatoes (we took them once but they weren’t very nice), and now whenever I open the front door with DD, if she makes a noise, which is every time, the man starts calling her name and leans over the fence to say hello.
The other day my DH was planting some shrubs out the front and the man stood there the whole time commenting on what he was doing, it was a little bit irritating.
Another example is yesterday DD was in the back garden making noise, and the man called her name again.

As much as they are lovely people, DH and I can’t force ourselves to be comfortable with it, and we’re trying to work out how to get them to back off without actually telling them to back off.
Are we just unfriendly? Or would you find this a bit much?

Thanks :-)

OP we have the same situation, they are nice people but way too present. If we set foot in our back garden they want to chat through the fence. If I’m gardening out the front with headphones on, they will come right up to me in my eyeline and wave so I have to take headphones off to respond. Sometimes (not often thank god) they hear our garage door open and will intercept me as I’m reversing the car out … to ask me a question about something or other. Arrrgh!

Being very terse or saying I’m on a call helps cut these interactions short, but it does make me think twice about stepping outside sometimes. Even though our houses are detached they are a bit in our faces, it’s not very private and it does get on my nerves. They are very nice but just don’t have any sense of time, they often comment how people seem to be in a rush all the time!

If you don't want neighbourly interaction, I highly recommend living behind electric gates, in a gated road. Our garden is surrounded by trees and we cannot see the neighbour on the left or bottom of the garden. Occasionally hear a horse on the bridlepath adjacent to the other side.

It's really very lonely and I have hardly seen a familiar face in the six years since we moved here. I yearn sometimes for our old London house where it was impossible to walk five minutes without a chat.

Be careful what you wish for.

God, Laetitia, that post on nice neighbours wasn't nonsense at all.
Your post concerning your own neighbour nearly giving you a heart attack with his niceness on the other hand... 🤦‍♀️

@RosesAndHellebores

If you don't want neighbourly interaction, I highly recommend living behind electric gates, in a gated road. Our garden is surrounded by trees and we cannot see the neighbour on the left or bottom of the garden. Occasionally hear a horse on the bridlepath adjacent to the other side.

It's really very lonely and I have hardly seen a familiar face in the six years since we moved here. I yearn sometimes for our old London house where it was impossible to walk five minutes without a chat.

Be careful what you wish for.

Yes. I lived in a house with no neighbours in the middle of a city I hated for a long time. Had no choice as it was a tied house. I was really miserable. I longed for nice neighbours.

I voted that you’re being unreasonable for saying homegrown tomatoes weren’t very nice. They’re the food of the gods. If they’re anything like us they’ve got a glut and it was a kind gesture. I think you need to find your inner extrovert.

Time to get the bamboo planted I'd say.

We have chatbags on our street and everyone avoids them. If you get trapped you're there for at least half an hour. I blank them because I get severe depression and can't talk when it happens so I can't risk interacting with them. They occasionally trap dh though.

God be glad they are pleasant. Re..the back garden I think if you are breezy and just say hi then crack on with things they will learn you don't want long chars.

I find this a bit depressing tbh I have had some severely difficult neighbours and these are lovely people who are just trying to make you feel welcome.

As someone said...managing this sort if thing politely is a life skill. Neighbours are rarely perfect but it's part of being human yo learn to get on with them.

I have more than one friend whose lives have literally been ruined by nasty neighbours.

I would much rather never speak to my neighbours. But I would be ok with this as long as they were quiet. I would just be very busy though so they get used to just a quick hello.

@Blossomtoes

I voted that you’re being unreasonable for saying homegrown tomatoes weren’t very nice. They’re the food of the gods. If they’re anything like us they’ve got a glut and it was a kind gesture. I think you need to find your inner extrovert.

Use them to make tomato soup or chutney!!

[quote Marmelace]@bringincrazyback

Marmelace

Why ask this? It's such a clichéd question, ot course people would call a man unfriendly, probably even more so.

I think it's relevant, that's why, and just
something may seem clichéd doesn't make it irrelevant. Even in this day and age some people still value a man's time more highly and are far less likely to think a man is being a big ol' meanie for wanting a modicum of privacy while trying to unwind in his own garden. It's not that dissimilar from the way it's always women who are exhorted to be kind, imho

But the thread is a question about how her and her husband can cope with the attention, not a lone woman, so to compare it to how a man would be responded to is immaterial in this post. Maybe be original and read what has been written in the first place.[/quote]
Nothing wrong with my reading comprehension skills, thanks.

Some on this thread are piling on to the OP for not loving (what I, like the OP, consider to be) the intrusiveness of her neighbours. I believe some of the judgement that's being dished on her could be related to the fact that she's a female and therefore expected by some, still, in this day and age, to be lovely and friendly at all times.

I had this. I found it less annoying once I started to take the initiative instead of being the respondent. So, when I went out, I'd be the first to cal out "hi there! Just going off the shops" and off I'd trot. Somehow made me feel more in charge of the exchange.

@bringincrazyback fair enough, maybe I miss that at times, my mind can't comprehend that sort of narrow mindedness. I've always been a tad bulldozery to anyone acting sexist towards me, not everyones cup of tea or way, maybe I've become a little blind to things. So you were right to point it out. I will in future take more notice.

@WanderingFruitWonderer thank you for your response, you sound so lovely, and I think you might be right, in time things should even out when we've gotten to know each other better :-)

And @Blackberrybunnet that's some good advice, feeling in control won't make me feel like I have to walk out the front door with my teeth clenched waiting for the inevitable 😂

Some interesting replies on here other ladies, thanks all, it's actually great to hear what everyone thinks.
I should definitely feel grateful we don't have teenagers with drum kits and 5 barking dogs next door, and I do feel lucky, but it would be great just to feel less watched, and less interesting to the neighbours IYSWIM, more invisible. DH and I both work, and Dd is pretty full-on, so life can feel pretty stressful most of the time. I find it hard talking to them and being really pleasant when I've had a crap day in the office for example. I get this is normal life stuff though!

Oh and just to clarify, the fence is like 8 foot high, so he literally shouts my DD's name and we can't see him, I find it so odd and annoying. Otherwise I can probably get over the other stuff, but would be good if they met us in the middle..

[quote Ccoffee217]@WanderingFruitWonderer thank you for your response, you sound so lovely, and I think you might be right, in time things should even out when we've gotten to know each other better :-)

And @Blackberrybunnet that's some good advice, feeling in control won't make me feel like I have to walk out the front door with my teeth clenched waiting for the inevitable 😂

Some interesting replies on here other ladies, thanks all, it's actually great to hear what everyone thinks.
I should definitely feel grateful we don't have teenagers with drum kits and 5 barking dogs next door, and I do feel lucky, but it would be great just to feel less watched, and less interesting to the neighbours IYSWIM, more invisible. DH and I both work, and Dd is pretty full-on, so life can feel pretty stressful most of the time. I find it hard talking to them and being really pleasant when I've had a crap day in the office for example. I get this is normal life stuff though!

Oh and just to clarify, the fence is like 8 foot high, so he literally shouts my DD's name and we can't see him, I find it so odd and annoying. Otherwise I can probably get over the other stuff, but would be good if they met us in the middle..
[/quote]
I think that you might reasonably ask him not to do that.

@RosesAndHellebores

If you don't want neighbourly interaction, I highly recommend living behind electric gates, in a gated road. Our garden is surrounded by trees and we cannot see the neighbour on the left or bottom of the garden. Occasionally hear a horse on the bridlepath adjacent to the other side.

It's really very lonely and I have hardly seen a familiar face in the six years since we moved here. I yearn sometimes for our old London house where it was impossible to walk five minutes without a chat.

Be careful what you wish for.

Sounds like Heaven. Actual HEAVEN! #welljell

@bringincrazyback

Some on this thread are piling on to the OP for not loving (what I, like the OP, consider to be) the intrusiveness of her neighbours. I believe some of the judgement that's being dished on her could be related to the fact that she's a female and therefore expected by some, still, in this day and age, to be lovely and friendly at all times.

Well said, and pretty much what I said too earlier on.

As I said, (and some others too,) niceness, and, compliance, and the #bekind wankery is never expected of men.

I would be ordering cherry laurel and planting a whole row of them along the border.

Criticising the woman's tomatoes 🙄

I much prefer the sound of them over you.

If I were you I'd look to move somewhere with no close neighbours.

Just keep it brief and pleasant.

My neighbours are right miserable, noisy sods.
I think I would rather tomatos and a chat.

Death by a thousand papercuts.

When I moved into my house, the first thing I did was whack a six foot fence up all round the garden, then planted a row of lleylandi (sp?) along the fence line, which I keep trimmed at 7ft.
The neighbour came out when the fence was being put up, it was being put up on my property with no interference to the existing fence, to ask what we were doing, which earned him the response of, putting a bloody fence up, what do you think!
I'm not an introvert, I'm anti social when it comes to neighbours, and I've managed to get along without them for years just fine. Fortunately I live on a corner plot, so I've only got them at one side.

@BlotBangRub

When I moved into my house, the first thing I did was whack a six foot fence up all round the garden, then planted a row of lleylandi (sp?) along the fence line, which I keep trimmed at 7ft. The neighbour came out when the fence was being put up, it was being put up on my property with no interference to the existing fence, to ask what we were doing, which earned him the response of, putting a bloody fence up, what do you think! I'm not an introvert, I'm anti social when it comes to neighbours, and I've managed to get along without them for years just fine. Fortunately I live on a corner plot, so I've only got them at one side.

Your neighbours are probably quite fortunate you've hidden yourself behind your giant barrier.

They are.
They could be dead now for all I know or care.

Ask to borrow some money from them. A large amount. That should see them off.

Having had awful neighbours I would be grateful for the friendly faces! It could be so much worse!