SmithWife and I have this friend who I’ll call Steffi ('cause that’s her name), who likes to just drop by once in a while. I don’t have a problem with it, but SmithWife does, even though she has told Steffi (on many occassions) to feel free to drop by any time. :rolleyes: I guess telling her “Drop by” really means “Don’t drop by”.
I’m a drop by kind of guy, but SmithWife ain’t. How about you?
I don’t like people “dropping by.” I might be busy or my house might be messy or I might be getting ready to go out or I might be in the middle of dancing naked around the house. People should call first.
It does seem weird that your wife keeps telling Steffi to drop by but then gets upset when she does. Maybe “drop by” means something else to your wife? Like “drop by right after you call us to check first”?
I like dropping by, and I like people dropping in on me. If I’m too busy I just don’t answer the door.
If someone says to me “I was right in your neighbourhood last week!” my response is usually a genuine “Oh, you should have dropped by !” And, correspondingly, if I’m in someone’s neighbourhood, I have exactly the same feeling about dropping in on them.
When I do drop by on people, though, they usually seem surprised and possibly dismayed.
I might drop by on a family member, but never anyone else, and I hate it when people drop by on me. (Even family members!) 
I hate the pop-in. I wouldn’t even do it to a family member without calling WAY in advance.
I wouldn’t dream of advising someone to drop by, though, for fear they might. That and I try to say what I mean.
I do not take callers unannounced. Ever. My friends know and accept this, but it puzzles others when they see that I am home but do not answer their repeated knocks.
I’ve lived under different sets of drop-by rules.
At my parent’s house, lots of family lives fairly close by, so it’s not uncommon for them to drop by.
At college, I lived in the student ghettos near many of my friends apartments. Due to the fact that any given apartment was typically shared by a large number of people, any of whom might be intersted in hanging out at any particular time, dropping by was extremely common.
In the small community where my grandparents live, people drop by all the time, too. It’s partly because mostly seniors live there. The tradition of a visit on the front porch is alive and well. Also, everybody helps everybody else out and keeps tabs to make sure everybody’s doing all right.
Where I live now, nobody drops by. I’d be horrified if somebody did, because our house is typically in a state of extreme disarray. If people were in the habit of dropping by, I wouldn’t mind; I’d just keep things tidier. But we are 16 hours away from family, most of our friends live in town, and we aren’t really buddy-buddy with our neighbors.
I have friends from Africa who want us to drop by a lot, but they’e 15 storeys up in a relatively remote location only accessible by getting two different buses, with my two year-old in tow. How I’m supposed to drop by casually I do not understand.
I have never been one for people just dropping in. It almost always gets in the way, and to be honest I just tell them so now. If they want to see us they should phone, I’m not running a bloody sitcom here.
I suppose I’d get used to it in another culture, though… and probably it’s healthier to always be open to visitors, because it means I would always have to be relatively sunny and sober. But still.
If anyone is from a drop-by type of culture and finds that they don’t stay sunny or sober, do tell.
For anyone I know well enough that I’ve granted them fridge privileges, or have granted me the same, I will drop by or allow them to. This pretty much means blood relatives… (and since they’re at least 700 miles away, it don’t happen very often, anymore)
For others, I usually don’t like drop-ins, but a fast e-mail or phone call is sufficient notice. An exception would be same aquaintance who knows me, and happens to see me outside, doing something like mowing the lawn. That’s fine, too.
I also won’t call someone after 9:00 unless I know them REAL well, or it’s a bona fide emergency, and I expect the same.
I am definitely not a “drop by” person. If you want to call first and give me five minutes to get dressed / clean up the living room / put the bodies in the closet, that’s fine. I also feel very uncomfortable just showing up on someone’s doorstep unannounced. For all I know, they’re dancing around the living room to music or having sex or using the bathroom, and I know I wouldn’t want to be interrupted. My brother says his mother stops by all the time, unannounced, since she lives a block or two away, and it’s a pain in the butt for a newly-married couple.
When I was growing up my family had people popping in and out all the time, so I did that too for a while. Now, though, I usually call ahead, and so do my friends. It just seems more polite in a faster-paced world.
Funny enough I have a pit thread complaining about just that.
The answer is NO!. Is that clear enough? Showing up unnannounced and uninvited is rude and inconsiderate. It’s not like telephones have not been invented yet.
That’s the advantage of living in New Jersey—no one ever “drops by.”
Anyone just dropping by is likely to have their knocks ignored. We don’t know a whole lot of people in the first place, so anyone coming to our door is probably selling something and I don’t want to be bothered. Call or email first, leave a message, and then you’ll be fine.
**ALWAYS ** Call before. I would never think of just walking into someone’s house willy-nilly. Except my mother, whose hobby is to dust under the refrigerator. :rolleyes:
If you show up at my door, prepare to be ignored. I *may * meet you in the driveway, if I’m dressed and if I want to. Otherwise, no dice.
If you want to actually come in, call at least 3 days ahead. I have cats; they shed and don’t like you or the vacuum (also known as the evil kitten sucker-upper). I try not to make them shed more than necessary. And you do not get to complain about cat hair. They were here first.
Only 2 people are allowed to just drop by… my brother, verbenabeast, who has been well trained to not only clear off his own chair but to always report that my house was clean and smelled of potpourri; and my friend with 3 kids under 5 (No matter how bad my house is, hers is worse).
Certainly not, because they would then have to admit having been to such a place. Lord, Brooklyn is bad enough—you can’t expect them to actually leave New York, can you? 
I don’t think it would be inappropriate to ask her to call first. Sometimes someone dropping in is fine - you know them well enough it doesn’t matter. But sometimes you want some warning before seeing anyone - even your closest friend or SO. If it was me, I’d be all the happier knowing in what way I can visit without causing uncomfortableness. If you don’t say, I don’t know what’s ok. If you do, I’m happy to see you without risking embarasment.
I think people who say “just drop by when you’re in the area” are just trying to sound friendly and accommodating, similar to saying, “if there’s anything else I can do for you, please let me know.” If I happen to be in their area I’m usually on my way to someplace else and I want to get there as soon as I can, so I don’t take people up on such offers for this reason, and the fact that Ijust don’t feel right about dropping in on anyone with little or no advance notice.
Likewise, I would never tell someone that they can just drop by without at least calling well in advance (an hour or more). A friend of mine used to just stop in unannounced when his place of work was only a mile away. One time I forgot to lock the front door and I was lounging around in my underwear (it was hot and I had no A/C at the time). I didn’t even hear him come to the door. Instead of at least having the courtesy to knock he just came right in, as if it were his own house. I quickly ran back to my bedroom to get dressed. I explained to him that I had to get some clothes on when he heard me run back into my bedroom. I think he learned his lesson since he never did this again.
Well, seeing as I live in dorms at college, no, of course I don’t mind people just dropping by. In fact, I wished people would do it more often. I have my own room and get bored, but am just too lazy to go visit other people usually.
I don’t think that I’d mind people stopping by unannounced if I lived in a house and had a normal job either though. I might not be home, or I might be busy, but by all means stop by and say a quick hello. I think it would be weird if people who don’t live very close by just dropped by. Then they might as well call and check.
Seeing as everyone (ok, most people) have mobile phones, it wouldn’t be difficult to call even if you are just around the corner. So, why not call just in case the person you’re visiting hates unannounced visitors? Once you know how they feel about it, act accordingly in the future. Easy.
Since we live at least 45 minutes from anyone we know, we don’t drop by for fear of driving all that way and finding they’re not home. Even if we’re in the area, we always call first before we “pop in” (unless we are having a Major Toilet Emergency).
We got “dropped in on” once - and boy, did we learn our lesson! It was after 10pm when it happened, and we were … er, occupied when we heard the knock. It was our own fault, though, because we did say “Drop in any time.” Since then, we continue to issue invitations, but we are careful to say, “You’re always welcome as long as you call first.”
I don’t care if people are standing on the porch when they call, using their cell phones - the point is, they called before they knocked.