When Your Good Life Sits Beside Someone's Hard One

Telling a neighbor how little we pay for things can land badly when their income is low.

By Neil Solomon · 3 min read

Picture a couple named Anna and Paul. They have found a lovely flat near the sea. Their monthly spending is lower than at home, and they say so happily to friends. Then one morning Anna sees an older woman at the bins, sorting bottles into a bag. The woman is about her own age.

Anna says nothing. She walks on. All day she carries the picture with her.

"Is it wrong that we are comfortable here?" she asks Paul that night.

"I do not know," he says. "But I would rather ask the question than not."

I think this is one of the hardest feelings in a move abroad, and it gets little attention. Some stories say it plainly.

What the stories describe

Greece. A writer notes how low the prices feel in her new home, and then feels uneasy. She has just seen older people struggle through a hard season. The same low prices that help us are a daily weight for the people who live there.

Cyprus. In a village, the worry is water. A resident watches the supply with concern. Newcomers and locals draw from the same source, and when it runs short, everyone feels it.

Croatia. One account sets two pictures side by side: retirees from abroad enjoying their days, and local pensioners collecting bottles to get by. It is an uncomfortable contrast, and I think that is the point of it.

Albania. Here a newcomer complains about woodsmoke. The story reads as a scolding, aimed at the complainer. For some neighbors, that smoke may simply be how they keep warm, and a newcomer's opinion lands hard.

What I take from it

I would not call any of these people wrong. Anna and Paul chose a place where their money goes further. That is a fair choice. The neighbor sorting bottles is not Anna's fault.

Still, I think it matters how we carry ourselves. A few habits seem to separate the people who settle in well from those who stay on the edge.

One is word choice. Telling a neighbor how little we pay for things can land badly when their income is low. Another is complaint. The person who dislikes woodsmoke may be right about the air, and still miss that the smoke is a sign of how others get through winter. The third is curiosity. Asking how a neighbor is doing, and listening, tends to open more doors than comparing prices.

None of this asks us to feel guilty. It asks us to see.

The four places differ in what people notice. In Greece it is the winter and the older generation. In Cyprus it is a shared resource. In Croatia it is a side-by-side picture of two retirements. In Albania it is a clash of habits. Each one asks a slightly different question of the newcomer, and I think it helps to ask ourselves which of them would trouble us most.