Second-homer wanting to be part of the community

[IMustConfess]

I live in a village on the coast in a semi-rural area. It's a place where people come to live for a relatively quiet life with great walks, fresh air and unspoiled beaches. Lots of artists and writers and gardeners.

Two years ago a couple from London bought the small detached property next door to me. It's a holiday home for them and their friends and family. They're in their 50s, clearly used to a busy lifestyle in London. Lots of talk of theatre and gigs and nice restaurants. They moved in and invited a few locals to dinner and said they wanted to get involved with whatever's going on. They clearly expected to be invited back to eat with everyone and were surprised when some didn't reciprocate. 'But we were told there was a great community here!' They went round knocking on lots of doors and introducing themselves and saying how much they wanted to be involved, but they're probably only here for 10 weeks of the year max. One of my neighbours was really pissed off by it. She said it was like they had an idea of country life they'd got from a TV drama.

When their families come down independently they knock on my door and introduce themselves and say how wonderful that we're all such good friends/ such a lovely community and seem to expect to be invited in and given tea and told what's on. If there's something happening they want me to take them along. They've clearly been told I'll be happy to include them.

This year the husband's been working away a lot and so the wife has been coming down on her own. She always messages me a day or two before she's due to arrive and announces she's coming and wants to know what's on in 'the community'. She messages me when she's arrived so I know she's arrived safely. 😱She expects to be included in anything I've got going on. I took her to my book group when she was down in the summer, and now she expects to be included and tries to get us to schedule our meet-ups for when she's here.

When I moved here I got to know people slowly and worked out who I got on with. My neighbours seem to think friendship comes on a plate and everyone loves them. We have friends who live next door to an AirBnB and say something similar: many of the people who rent the place want to talk to them as if they're friends and happy to spend half an hour telling them which coastal walk is most scenic or which local pub does the best beer. We live here: we're not tourist information or rent-a-mate.

Are we the unreasonable ones? What's going on with people that they think they can just waltz into a new area and everyone'll love them?

I also lived in London for 20 years and this was not my experience AT ALL. There was an amazing community, and that was one of the things that made life there enjoyable rather than just something we felt we had to "survive". I would not have left if family circumstances had allowed me to stay. It sounds like your approach to your wider community both in London and in the countryside is at odds with the approach your more open part-time neighbours take.

The overbearing in pursuit of the insular.

How are they meant to know about fetes and shit like that without a bit of overly enthusiastic attempts to make friends with their new (part time) neighbours.

Most villages now have websites, one for events, one for the Parish Council, one for the school, one for the church, a Facebook groups, a Parish magazine and a notice board in the village.

(Mine has all of those.)

It's easy to find out what goes on.

@Oneforsorrowtwoforjoy I'm sure they'd be delighted to, after all that's what community is all about is it not.

I do think you are being a bit churlish about the work they need doing though, they are probably very important and have very busy lives. Which just living in the country you'd know nothing about 🤣.

Are there any functional community groups? That meet on Tuesdays? I’d think of something like the litter picking or the helping kids with their reading that happens during the week- women’s institute? And mention to her that everyone who’s anyone in this place does that. Bake sales…

i do think there’s scope for saying at the next request ‘you know the thing about good neighbours is they do these things for each other. But I live here and you just holiday here so im sure if you think about ti you can see I feel like a free resource here asked to get gutters cleaned etc. If you buy a holiday house you need a plan for maintaining it and I’m afraid I have a life here, I’m not your plan.

Oh I intend to move to Frome, from London. I will live there; will I be welcome as an outsider?

Next time they ask you what's going on can't you say you don't know / nothing much? Or point them in the direction of the church, who might have something useful they could do. Could they sing in the church choir?
Don't tell them if you're getting your gutters cleaned etc - but you could give them contact details of the person / company and they could make their own arrangements and pay online.
Yes annoying if they knock on your door - tell them you're busy.

Wow. How rude is that!

I’m surprised by people saying she’s just being friendly - the examples are clearly more pushy than friendly. It’s important to put yourself out there to meet people but it’s equally important to be sensitive to their preferences and signals, which is not happening here.

Friendly should be more about offering something than demanding something. New neighbour apparently hasn’t realised that she’s not offering anything that’s wanted. Agree with pp saying maybe she expects to be seen as some wonderful exotic creature coming from the big city. Who knows.

In any case, you’re not unreasonable for being annoyed at the presumptuous behaviour. I don’t know how to get around it without being direct to the point of rudeness, and I don’t doubt that she will take offence if you are direct, rather than reflecting on her own actions. So then your best bet is to avoid. She says hello how are you, tries to start a conversation. You put on your best smile and say oh hello Doris and just walk away. If she asks for a favour say no thank you. As if she was offering something to you and you’re too polite to accept. You don’t have to respond to any of the content of what she says. You can ignore any part of it you don’t want to answer. Answer what you would have liked her to say. Because that’s basically what she’s doing to you - she’s ignoring your signals and pushing ahead as if you fit the role she’s set out for you.

If nobody in this country community owns a second home or investment property anywhere else, then they are welcome to enjoy the moral high ground. If not, they're probably not in a position to judge how long the new part time neighbours spend at their property.

In truth she may be exactly the same in the place where her first home is.

People tend to be the same wherever they live!

She sounds needy and a bit insecure to be honest.

Why would you need to know she's arrived safely? You're not her mum!

Just pull back and stop jumping to her tune.
You can be pleasant but less available.

Louise Candlish has recently published a rather dull book about second homers in a coastal village, called Our Holiday. It is full of similar examples.

To quote myself, 'All that genuflecting require to ingratiate yourself in the way The Locals expect of you.'

It can be such hard work - you have your own lives to live and it takes a huge amount of energy to be "friends" with someone you don't really know. It is perfectly possible to be nice, but it seems these neighbours want to be friends. And that is not the same thing, at all.

My dad had a house in France, in a tiny hamlet and he could only go during school holidays. He became the closet friends to the neighbours there. They loved him and he loved them.
Unless these people are awful, I don’t see the harm in being neighbourly. Life is too short.

Ah yes, you're right. I was completely forgetting that. Because you see they've made time to try to get to know us whilst they're here for 5 mins every year and they've made the effort to be sociable, so they should be able to just drop in and drop out of other people's lives and expect to be included or have favours done for them because they've been a bit nice and a bit smiley.

So we should just forget that houses are laying empty and being unused for most of the year, whilst local families are having to relocate miles away because there simply isn't the housing available in the area. We have lost two families this term from my kids school year because of this issue, there's just no housing available. Yet when you walk down some streets at this time of year the majority of the houses are just dark and empty.

But hey, it's okay because they've made an effort to be sociable by having a BBQ. I'm sure the locals will be thrilled.

Have you got a village Facebook page? If you have, I'd direct them to that and make myself scarce when they turn up.

Absolutely this. I don't understand why it's so troublesome to be a decent human being.

If you say so.

One day some of you may have to move. Good luck making friends and finding out stuff while the neighbours say ' What have you got to offer?". 😆

Why am I not surprised though? MN was ever thus, full of deeply miserable people muttering about school cliques and going on about how they hate everyone.

Agree! You've cracked the stereotypical British "We're so polite" code. This is where most people want to act a certain way to your face (usually positive) but expect you to read their mind and realise they actually mean something totally opposite (usually negative)

this is a total oversimplification. Expecting people to understand non verbal communication like body language, tone of voice, and more subtle verbal cues like am I actually prolonging the conversation by asking you questions or just answering what I have to, is not the same as expecting mind reading.

Sure, some people have genuine challenges with non verbal communication, in my experience those people are usually very responsive to direct communication and try very hard to figure out the non verbal stuff as far as they can.

The bigger problem is with people who are totally capable of understanding non verbal cues but choose not to bother so they can squash other peoples boundaries, then use this sort of bullshit excuse to gaslight. Those same people are very easily offended if you try to be direct with them so there’s really no winning. It’s naff all to do with over politeness, absolutely a choice to ignore other people’s preferences.

selfish is selfish, whatever you dress it up in.

This is actually bo**ocks - I am London born raised and still live here as an adult (after time away working in other cities). People who move to London for a bit for careers or excitement tend to act in the way you describe, those of us actually from here do know our neighbours and get involved in local stuff like fetes and events and speaking to those who live on our street because like anywhere else it’s our community where we have a history - family, school friends, life long bonds. It always annoys me how moving to London, driving house prices up for the locals, acting like an aloof dickhead is fine, but anyone from London does it and somehow we’re the worst of the worst.

and yes it’s rude to accept a dinner invitation and other hospitality and not reciprocate.

OP, they sound a bit much.

It takes a while to fit into an established community, and you don't do it by wading in and insisting that you're going to be part of it. You build up slowly and tactfully (you don't try to take over or run things before you find out some of the backstories). If you're only there 1/5 of the time, it's going to take you 5x as long.

Someone needs to explain this to OP's part-time neighbours.

I was thinking the same. Imagine being so insular. I bet she doesn't answer the door, either.

How do you know this? I was giving you the benefit of the doubt before, but this is rubbish. I’m sorry you didn’t make any friends in London, but you shouldn’t let it cloud your judgement on this couple. I’ve lived in London for 20yrs and made so many friends and neighbours. We look out for each other, help each other and just generally get on.

If you lived in London for 20yrs (say between 18-38) and made no friends, I think this a reflection on you rather than others.