Mr. Rogers Would Not Approve

As I've mentioned, we moved into our first house last December, and that means I have to break my longstanding tradition of hardcore antisocial tendencies towards my neighbors. Don't get me wrong, I've never been mean to my apartment based neighbors or anything. I've simply ignored them unless they gave me a reason to complain. This was typically accomplished through bad music being played at a level that I can only assume would cause complete failure of various bodily functions. At least that's what I liked to imagine. The point is, I'm not what you'd call neighborly.

So you can imagine my horror when my new neighbors started introducing themselves. I have no grasp of social decorum in these situations. First, the people nest door brought over Christmas cookies. I introduced myself and my daughter who was standing behind me, they introduced themselves, welcomed us to the neighborhood, and that was that.

Immediately afterwards, Management asked why I didn't invite them in. To be honest, the thought simply hadn't crossed my mind. I mean, I didn't know these people. Why would they want to come into my house? In my defense, they had given me the impression that they had just stopped by to drop the cookies off and welcome us in, and then they were off. Still, it outlines just how much work is needed to make me into a suitable suburbanite.

The funny thing is, I'm really good in social situations. I'm a far cry from shy. I'm always quick with a joke in meetings and parties. It's just that my personality is primed for short, quick bursts of sociability - a meeting, a conversation at a party, that kind of thing.

To make matters worse, I remember names for exactly thirty seconds, and then they are gone permanently. My memory is a funny thing to begin with, but this is the worst of it. Names just don't stick with me. So now I've met four adults and two children who live within spitting distance of me (or would if I were a more practiced spitter anyway), and I've forgotten all of their names. Usually I count on Management for these things, but she's been conspicuously absent from all of these meetings, probably because most of them have occurred while I was out shoveling snow.

I have a plan though. Since all of my relationships have moved to the internet, I'll use the internet to solve this. I'm using the public records and online white pages to look up the owners of the surrounding houses and building a custom Google map of them. At least then I'll have the names of the adults.

And it's scary easy. So long as I have the names and addresses correct, we're in business. How's that for geek? I'm moving actual flesh and blood relationships onto the internet.