[OrangeBlossomBaby]

Originally Posted by tophcfa

Like any place in this world, wherever you go there are always some unhappy/unfriendly/angry people, it is unavoidable. However, our observation has been that in the Villages those unhappy people are fewer and further in-between than any other place we have ever experienced (except for possibly the great tiny Caribbean Island of St. John, where just about everyone is on "island time", which is a very happy place. Sure, everyone is entitled to an occasional bad day, but if you are active and enjoy everything the Villages has to offer, it is hard to have many bad days. If you want to experience friendly, try pulling over on the side of a multi-modal path and open up the seat of your golf cart like it's broken down. Within a very short time, multiple people will stop and ask if everything is OK, if you need any help, or if they can do anything for you. It is amazing! We find that one problem we have with the Villages is that sometimes people are actually too friendly. Sometimes we have a free hour or so to go out in our front yard to work on the garden and tidy things up and find that we never get more than a few minutes to actually work. Everyone that walks by the house wants to stop and chat and make friends. Other times I go to a sports pool to swim as many laps as possible during the short times allocated for lap swimming and find that I can't get in many laps because everyone wants to chat and make friends. Don't get me wrong, I am not complaining about this, having people being overly friendly is a great problem to have. Like others have said, the Villages is not for everyone. But there is a reason why it is the largest 55+ retirement community of it's kind in the world and they can keep selling new homes as fast as they can be built. This would not happen in a community filled with angry and unhappy residents.

If I was trying to get work done in my yard and was inundated with folks interrupting the work, I'd just give them a spade or hand-rake or some potting soil and invite them to participate, and then when we're done I'd bring them onto the lanai for some fresh-squeezed lemonade with honey.