You are 1000% more sociable than me, although if there was a person who needed someone to check up on them, I would agree to do it.
Most of the neighbors we were friends with have moved out of the neighborhood. We plan to stay a few more years.
While I agree this guy’s parents may be as nutty as he is, I do not think the judgment of their neighbors about their sociability is an indication of their mental stability. Our neighbors would probably say we are anti-social and religiously suspect. We are high church Anglican in a predominantly Baptist area. A couple of people have asked us about the chalk marks on our doorway. It’s an Epiphany blessing of the Three Kings, but unless one asks they probably would not know. Also Anglican is a foreign word here, we have been called angelicans and asked if we worship angels. I hate to see anyone rush to judge parents on the basis of their adult children’s mental status especially when I know how hard it is on the parents.
We have two friends who have schizophrenic sons. One family have battled fiercely to get their son treatment. It is very hard to do when the son is an adult, they have rights that parents can not override. Unless he is an immediate danger to himself or others they can not get him committed. Every day for them is a fear he will stop taking meds and disappear as he has occasionally in the past.
The other family are in denial. The son of the denying family is our godchild. I have tried to reason with the mother and have even spoken to adult services where they live. He’s 23 and I can see him doing something tragic. He has attempted suicide 3 times in the last 2 years. So far he has failed and I wonder if the attempts were pleas for help on his part. Then I worry that at some point he will succeed and I just hope he doesn’t harm anyone else when it happens.