I assumed that I would get married right after I graduated from college and have three kids. In actuality, I did not marry until I was 32, and I have zero kids. Lots of pets, though.
I spent too much time worrying about getting hazed when I got to high school.
We don’t have “homecoming” either. We got a prom, but I quit school before I got to go to one. I also thought football games would be way more important than they turned out to be and that cheerleaders would be way more popular than they turned out to be.
I also thought that college would be full of sororities and fraternities and their various shenanigans - nope. Maybe in Toronto universities, but not in this one-horse college town.
My father told a hair-raising story of this sort.
An American, he arrived in Europe in 1944, serving in the infantry. He was inexperienced, but learned fast. At one point, his mortar squad came under heavy rifle fire while passing a cemetery. He and his buddies ducked behind convenient granite headstones.
Crack. A single steel-jacketed rifle bullet split the granite, toppling the headstone in front of my dad, leaving him exposed to his enemies, and showering the area with stone splinters. One by one, every monument they tried to use as cover was smashed, and they fled the cemetery. “Hollywood LIED to me!” my father huffed, decades later.
Any wall or fence can be scaled by anyone if they really try, and every jump is not that high/far.
From watching sitcoms I grew up thinking that saying funny insulting zingers to everyone was how to be popular and successful.
Madame P. is convinced that anyone who wakes up and is not immediately bright-eyed and bushytailed and ready to start the day has seen to much TV where the people wander around half-catatonic. I respectfully disagree.
Having friends and neighbors just drop by unannounced, like they always seem to do on TV, seemed like an unquestionably good thing to me as a kid. And the more quirky and zany the guest, the better. Because that’s what leads to wacky fun times and laughter!
In past generations, some people did do that, especially in small towns. We had to grow up in a perpetually spit-shined house “in case somebody stops by”. Really.
Here’s my contribution: Doctors inform patients’ families of a death or serious illness in a crowded hallway, or the parking lot.
I have some more.
Your mother would throw herself into wedding planning! She would try to extend the guest list by 100. She would go along with you when you looked at wedding gowns, and bridesmaid gowns. She would basically try to take over! She was a proper WASPY genteel type who always spoke wistfully, fondly, of her own wedding and wanted everything for you to be Just So.
On The Big Day, your father in a beautiful rented tux would stand with you at the back of the church holding your hand, bursting with pride, and saying, ‘here we go, Princess. I love you so much. You never looked more beautiful. That’s our cue! Ready?’
You would meet-cute your future husband. Or you would realize the dweeby guy you had put in the ‘friend zone’ was always there for you, loved you for who you were, and never ever let you down. It must be love!
Watching Happy Days growing up I was convinced the way to get girls was to “act cool” like Fonzie.
Talk to them? No.
Smile? No.
Be funny? No.
Share with them? No.
Compliment them? No.
Just ignore them, act cool and the girls will come to you.
F-you Fonzie!
Don’t despair!
All of these things do happen in my neighborhood (that’s not meant as a brag…for example, I could take or leave our summer block party…)
More than physical neighbors, though, most of these things flow from parents of our child’s classmates. Once your kid enters preschool or kindergarten (I’m assuming your kid hasn’t started school, because you mentioned a stroller), you will get to know some of the other parents (especially if you walk to/from school or at least wait outside the front door of the school for afternoon pickup…waiting in the car kills this opportunity to meet other parents. The setup/pickup procedure at your school might not allow this, though.)
But once your kid has play dates you will form relationships with other parents, and the coffee, child care exchange, help in an emergency, etc. will just flow naturally.
If you didn’t have a date every Saturday night you would be a social misfit.
Wait a second, maybe that explains a thing or two!
When no wacky neighbor showed up didn’t you ever think it was up to you to let yourself into neighbors apartments, raid the fridge and help them solve their problems?
So maybe my posting history on SDMB isn’t all my fault. I just saw too many sitcoms as a kid.
When I became a newspaper editor, I quickly found many people wanted this myth to be true. So I kept a cheap bottle of rot gut in the bottom drawer. It came in handy a couple of times. Mind you, I’m not saying booze is an answer, but holding a quarter coffee cup of cheap whiskey and talking can help deal with a day of a lot of stuff.
I figured once I got to high school, boys would ask me on dates.
Not quite hardly… 
I was nearly 20 and in the Navy before I went on my first date.
Speaking of the Navy, I thought it would be like McHale’s Navy. OK, some was, but not a whole lot. 
Apparently, this used to be a thing in some areas.
High school is a great time where you hang out with a big group of friends and the only problem is when a mean old teacher assigns too much work. Occasionally there might be a bully making trouble in your neighborhood, but if so eventually everyone will band together and send him running away as a coward.
We never ONCE had the ‘boss’ over ‘for dinner’. As a matter of fact, I never ONCE had a ‘dinner party’ where I cooked a roast, had Martha Stewart type munchies, exotic drinks, etc. Never once. We just didn’t have that kind of thing, and I know it goes on outside my little bubble. One neighbor did have us over for a cookout, he was a lot richer than we were and we hired his kids to do our yard work, so he probably pitied us more than anything.
That was pretty much my wedding only no church.
And there’s tons of casual, consequence-free sex, unless you’re attending DeGrassi (Junior) High, in which case there are always dire, life-long consequences.
Pharmacists are all middle-aged or older white men who wear one of those Nehru-jacket type things.