The unfriendly neighbor

My neighbor, for whatever reason, has been not saying hello to my wife, and she now vows she will not say hello to him. These are the minor squabbles I get to hear about.

I gave her some advice from Stoicism: keep saying hello. You can't control how people act to you, but you can control how you act to other people. It doesn't even take much effort to say hello. Why not keep doing it?

But that's not the way she sees it. If someone is not nice to me, I don't have to be nice to them. I can't say that's wrong, or even non-Stoical. Seneca said he would rather bestow gifts on the worthy than the unworthy. But this is a small gift that is easy to give. I think it makes sense to keep giving it.