It seems to me that neighbors are going out of style in America. The friend next door from whom you borrowed four eggs or a ladder has moved and the people in there now are strangers.
Some of the traditional stories of neighborliness are impractical or silly, (1)______________ The saying in the Bible "Love Thy Neighbor" was probably a poor translationof what must have originally been "Respect Thy Neighbor." Love can't be called up on order. Fewer than half the people in the United States live in the same house they lived in five years ago, so there's no reason to love the people who live next door to you just because they happened to wander into a real estate office that listed the place next door to yours. The only thing neighbors have in common, to begin with, is proximity, and unless something more develops, (2)______________ It sometimes happens naturally, but the chances are very small that your neighbors will be you choice as friends. Or that you will be theirs, either.
The best relationship with neighbors is one of friendly distance. You say hello, you small-talk if you see them in the yard, (3)______________ The driveway or the fence between you is not really a cold shoulder, but a clear boundary. We all like clearly-defined boundaries for ourselves.
