# Does Etiquette Evolve? -- or, That Should've Been a Text **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [March 28, 2021, 6:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-etiquette-evolve-or-that-shouldve-been-a-text/938915 "2021-03-28T18:58:49Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![lissener](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lissener/32/6139_2.png) [@lissener](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lissener)\ **Post date:** [March 28, 2021, 6:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-etiquette-evolve-or-that-shouldve-been-a-text/938915/1 "2021-03-28T18:58:49Z")
Judging from old movies, up until maybe oh let’s say 50 years ago, dropping by someone’s house unannounced wasn’t considered inappropriate. Doing so today is downright creepy. Or at the very least impolite. You don’t knock on someone’s door without calling first. But has that etiquette evolved even further? After ~15 years or so of cell phones being a universal necessity, to the point where it’s pretty rare–even shocking–to come across someone who doesn’t have one, is it now considered rude, or at least inconsiderate, to call someone “unannounced”; i.e. without texting first? Whenever my phone rings, my immediate reaction is annoyance; I feel intruded upon. I’m vaguely offended that someone thinks they have the right to make me stop whatever I’m doing and focus all of my attention on _their_ needs. Is that just me and my control-freak neurosis? Or do others feel the same way? If so, have we reached a tipping point where “it’s impolite to call without first texting” can be considered an established rule of modern etiquette? ---
**Author:** ![BrickBat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/ac91a4/32.png) [@BrickBat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrickBat)\ **Post date:** [March 28, 2021, 7:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-etiquette-evolve-or-that-shouldve-been-a-text/938915/2 "2021-03-28T19:19:39Z")
If I want to speak to somebody or intend to speak, I send a text asking if and when it might be convenient to call them. I ask the same courtesy in return. > [@lissener](#): > > Whenever my phone rings, my immediate reaction is annoyance; I feel intruded upon It’s funny how my outlook changed over the past 30-something years. When I first got my own place, and my ( newly connected ) phone rang, I felt mild elation. “Somebody’s calling _me_!”. Now when the phone rings, unless I’m anxiously expecting a call, my reaction is of scorn: “Awwwww! Who the hell could _that_ be?” ---
**Author:** ![DPRK](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/4491bb/32.png) [@DPRK](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DPRK)\ **Post date:** [March 28, 2021, 7:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-etiquette-evolve-or-that-shouldve-been-a-text/938915/3 "2021-03-28T19:33:53Z")
Etiquette is always evolving. That goes without saying. That said, you do not bang on someone’s door uninvited. Even today. The old-school method was to deliver (via a servant) your card to the other’s servant, and, if they were willing to receive you, they would later reply with an invitation. Still, telephoning or texting someone is not rude or shocking. If you do not want to be disturbed, do not turn on or answer your phone. ---
**Author:** ![DPRK](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/4491bb/32.png) [@DPRK](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DPRK)\ **Post date:** [March 28, 2021, 7:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-etiquette-evolve-or-that-shouldve-been-a-text/938915/4 "2021-03-28T19:36:06Z")
> [@BrickBat](#): > > If I want to speak to somebody or intend to speak, I send a text asking if and when it might be convenient to call them. I ask the same courtesy in return. Yes. I do not feel so bad calling to ask my neighbor if I may come up and borrow a cup of milk, but I would not call out of the blue if we need to talk business for an extended length of time. ---
**Author:** ![mikecurtis](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mikecurtis/32/3284_2.png) [@mikecurtis](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mikecurtis)\ **Post date:** [March 28, 2021, 7:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-etiquette-evolve-or-that-shouldve-been-a-text/938915/5 "2021-03-28T19:36:47Z")
> [@lissener](#): > > You don’t knock on someone’s door without calling first. This is not true at my house. I’ll say that most do call ahead, these days, but not always. And unexpected guests are not a burden to me. ---
**Author:** ![Dangerosa](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/22d042/32.png) [@Dangerosa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dangerosa)\ **Post date:** [March 28, 2021, 7:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-etiquette-evolve-or-that-shouldve-been-a-text/938915/6 "2021-03-28T19:37:27Z")
A minority of people had servants. How did people without servants visit people? How did the servants visit other servants. (Answer, you showed up unannounced a knock. And for the rich, you didn’t necessarily send a servant around, you would show up unannounced and knock - the staff would take your card and see if you were available - though some people kept “at home” hours when it was assumed you would be there to receive guests.) ---
**Author:** ![Odesio](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/odesio/32/20003_2.png) [@Odesio](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Odesio)\ **Post date:** [March 28, 2021, 7:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-etiquette-evolve-or-that-shouldve-been-a-text/938915/7 "2021-03-28T19:41:11Z")
> [@lissener](#): > > But has that etiquette evolved even further? After ~15 years or so of cell phones being a universal necessity, to the point where it’s pretty rare–even shocking–to come across someone who doesn’t have one, is it now considered rude, or at least inconsiderate, to call someone “unannounced”; i.e. without texting first? I don’t consider it the least bit rude to call someone without texting first. If I don’t want to answer the phone I’ll let it go to voicemail. It’s weird to me that anyone would consider a phone call to be any more intrusive than a text. ---
**Author:** ![GreenWyvern](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/greenwyvern/32/2834_2.png) [@GreenWyvern](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GreenWyvern)\ **Post date:** [March 28, 2021, 7:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-etiquette-evolve-or-that-shouldve-been-a-text/938915/8 "2021-03-28T19:46:10Z")
> [@lissener](#): > > dropping by someone’s house unannounced wasn’t considered inappropriate. Before telephones, if you wanted to speak to someone, what else could you do except go round to their house and knock on their door? Cards, servants… meh. They were only for very formal dealings among the wealthy and privileged. Ordinary people just turned up and knocked on each other’s doors. Technology has changed this. Telephones, then cell phones. It takes a few years for social conventions to update. ---
**Author:** ![DPRK](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/4491bb/32.png) [@DPRK](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DPRK)\ **Post date:** [March 28, 2021, 7:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-etiquette-evolve-or-that-shouldve-been-a-text/938915/9 "2021-03-28T19:46:18Z")
See, I’m just a barbarian so I would have to look this stuff up. Emily Post (American/1922) already wrote: > [@](#): > > Not so many years ago, a lady or gentleman, young girl or youth, who failed to pay her or his “party call” after having been invited to Mrs. Social-Leader’s ball was left out of her list when she gave her next one. For the old-fashioned hostess kept her visiting list with the precision of a bookkeeper in a bank; everyone’s credit was entered or cancelled according to the presence of her or his cards in the card receiver. Young people who liked to be asked to her house were apt to leave an extra one at the door, on occasion, so that theirs should not be among the missing when the new list for the season was made up—especially as the more important old ladies were very quick to strike a name off, but seldom if ever known to put one back. > > But about twenty years ago the era of informality set in and has been gaining ground ever since. In certain cities old-fashioned hostesses, it is said, exclude delinquents. But New York is too exotic and intractable, and the too exacting hostess is likely to find her tapestried rooms rather empty, while the younger world of fashion flocks to the crystal-fountained ballroom of the new Spendeasy Westerns. And then, too, life holds so many other diversions and interests for the very type of youth which of necessity is the vital essence of all social gaiety. Society can have distinction and dignity without youth—but not gaiety. The country with its outdoor sports, its freedom from exacting conventions, has gradually deflected the interest of the younger fashionables, until at present they care very little whether Mrs. Toplofty and Mrs. Social-Leader ask them to their balls or not. They are glad enough to go, of course, but they don’t care enough for invitations to pay dull visits and to live up to the conventions of “manners” that old-fashioned hostesses demand. And as these “rebels” are invariably the most attractive and the most eligible youths, it has become almost an issue; a hostess must in many cases either invite none but older people and the few young girls and men whose mothers have left cards for them, or ignore convention and invite the rebels. > > In trying to find out where the present indifference started, many ascribe it to Bobo Gilding, to whom entering a great drawing-room was more suggestive of the daily afternoon tea ordeal of his early nursery days, than a voluntary act of pleasure. He was long ago one of the first to rebel against old Mrs. Toplofty’s exactions of party calls, by saying he did not care in the least whether his great-aunt Jane Toplofty invited him to her stodgy old ball or not. And then Lucy Wellborn (the present Mrs. Bobo Gilding) did not care much to go either if none of her particular men friends were to be there. Little she cared to dance the cotillion with old Colonel Bluffington or to go to supper with that odious Hector Newman. > > And so, beginning first with a few gilded youths, then including young society, the habit has spread until the obligatory paying of visits by young girls and men has almost joined the once universal “day at home” as belonging to a past age. Do not understand by this that visits are never paid on other occasions. Visits to strangers, visits of condolence, and of other courtesies are still paid, quite as punctiliously as ever. But within the walls of society itself, the visit of formality is decreasing. One might almost say that in certain cities society has become a family affair. Its walls are as high as ever, higher perhaps to outsiders, but among its own members, such customs as keeping visiting lists and having days at home, or even knowing who owes a visit to whom, is not only unobserved but is unheard of. > > But because punctilious card-leaving, visiting, and “days at home” have gone out of fashion in New York, is no reason why these really important observances should not be, or are not, in the height of fashion elsewhere. Nor, on the other hand, must anyone suppose because the younger fashionables in New York pay few visits and never have days at home, that they are a bit less careful about the things which they happen to consider essential to good-breeding. > > The best type of young men pay few, if any, party calls, because they work and they exercise, and whatever time is left over, if any, is spent in their club or at the house of a young woman, not tête-a-tête, but invariably playing bridge. The Sunday afternoon visits that the youth of another generation used always to pay, are unknown in this, because every man who can, spends the week-end in the country. > > It is scarcely an exaggeration to say that not alone men, but many young married women of highest social position, except to send with flowers or wedding presents, do not use a dozen visiting cards a year. But there are circumstances when even the most indifferent to social obligations must leave cards. So by 1900 nobody in New York who was actually cool would be so formal or old-fashioned as to leave a card. ---
**Author:** ![TheCuse](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thecuse/32/2854_2.png) [@TheCuse](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TheCuse)\ **Post date:** [March 28, 2021, 7:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-etiquette-evolve-or-that-shouldve-been-a-text/938915/10 "2021-03-28T19:49:08Z")
> [@Odesio](#): > > I don’t consider it the least bit rude to call someone without texting first. If I don’t want to answer the phone I’ll let it go to voicemail. It’s weird to me that anyone would consider a phone call to be any more intrusive than a text. Well said. ---
**Author:** ![GreenWyvern](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/greenwyvern/32/2834_2.png) [@GreenWyvern](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GreenWyvern)\ **Post date:** [March 28, 2021, 7:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-etiquette-evolve-or-that-shouldve-been-a-text/938915/11 "2021-03-28T19:53:50Z")
If you had a servant to answer the door, then there was the convention (or polite fiction) of the servant saying you were ‘out’ if you didn’t want to see someone. You might genuinely be out, so it was a good excuse. Often people _were_ genuinely out when you knocked at their door, so you might walk all the way to their house for nothing, but that’s just the way things were. ---
**Author:** ![GreenWyvern](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/greenwyvern/32/2834_2.png) [@GreenWyvern](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GreenWyvern)\ **Post date:** [March 28, 2021, 7:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-etiquette-evolve-or-that-shouldve-been-a-text/938915/12 "2021-03-28T19:56:45Z")
> [@DPRK](#): > > So by 1900 nobody in New York who was actually cool… You mean nobody in New York who was a fashionable member of the wealthy social elite. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![blabbermeister](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/e9a140/32.png) [@blabbermeister](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/blabbermeister)\ **Post date:** [March 28, 2021, 8:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-etiquette-evolve-or-that-shouldve-been-a-text/938915/13 "2021-03-28T20:03:40Z")
How do I indicate to someone, without being too intrusive, that I’d like to text them to ask if I can call them to ask if I can come visit? ---
**Author:** ![furryman](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/furryman/32/99_2.png) [@furryman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/furryman)\ **Post date:** [March 28, 2021, 8:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-etiquette-evolve-or-that-shouldve-been-a-text/938915/14 "2021-03-28T20:06:12Z")
Honestly I wonder if it was ever “a thing” outside radio and TV shows. I don’t know what the first radio comedy show was, but I’d be willing to bet they adopted this trope fairly quickly so the show was less monotonous. ---
**Author:** ![DPRK](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/4491bb/32.png) [@DPRK](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DPRK)\ **Post date:** [March 28, 2021, 8:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-etiquette-evolve-or-that-shouldve-been-a-text/938915/15 "2021-03-28T20:10:11Z")
> [@blabbermeister](#): > > How do I indicate to someone, without being too intrusive, that I’d like to text them to ask if I can call them to ask if I can come visit? The modern evolved way is, you clear it by talking to the person’s A.I. personal assistant. ---
**Author:** ![Bootb](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/e19b73/32.png) [@Bootb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bootb)\ **Post date:** [March 28, 2021, 9:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-etiquette-evolve-or-that-shouldve-been-a-text/938915/16 "2021-03-28T21:15:02Z")
> [@lissener](#): > > Whenever my phone rings, my immediate reaction is annoyance; I feel intruded upon. I’m vaguely offended that someone thinks they have the right to make me stop whatever I’m doing and focus all of my attention on _their_ needs. How very old-fashioned of you. 😄 When the phone was new, and just being adopted, that is precisely one of the complaints that some people had. Many people welcomed it in the office, as a work-related technology, but shunned it at home. ---
**Author:** ![SCAdian](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/scadian/32/3292_2.png) [@SCAdian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SCAdian)\ **Post date:** [March 28, 2021, 9:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-etiquette-evolve-or-that-shouldve-been-a-text/938915/17 "2021-03-28T21:27:45Z")
> [@lissener](#): > > You don’t knock on someone’s door without calling first. Only reason I call ahead is to see if they’re home, so I don’t waste time driving to an empty house. ---
**Author:** ![lissener](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lissener/32/6139_2.png) [@lissener](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lissener)\ **Post date:** [March 28, 2021, 9:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-etiquette-evolve-or-that-shouldve-been-a-text/938915/18 "2021-03-28T21:46:51Z")
> [@SCAdian](#): > > Only reason I call ahead is to see if they’re home, so I don’t waste time driving to an empty house. Exactly ---
**Author:** ![Senegoid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/senegoid/32/6606_2.png) [@Senegoid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Senegoid)\ **Post date:** [March 28, 2021, 9:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-etiquette-evolve-or-that-shouldve-been-a-text/938915/19 "2021-03-28T21:55:16Z")
> [@blabbermeister](#): > > How do I indicate to someone, without being too intrusive, that I’d like to text them to ask if I can call them to ask if I can come visit? It’s a multi-step process of successive approximations. First, you publish a notice in your local newspaper of record announcing your plan to establish contact. After a suitable time (three to five days?) you send a snail-mail asking for leave to send a text. When you get an affirmative response to that, you send the text. When you get an affirmative response to that, you can call. Then, during that call, you wrangle an invite to visit in person. ---
**Author:** ![LurkMeister](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/3da27b/32.png) [@LurkMeister](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LurkMeister)\ **Post date:** [March 28, 2021, 9:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-etiquette-evolve-or-that-shouldve-been-a-text/938915/20 "2021-03-28T21:58:57Z")
I have a friend who would occasionally come over after work on Friday and spend the weekend, Generally she would call me before doing so, just to make sure I didn’t have other plans (which I usually didn’t). One Friday evening, well after she would have gotten off work, my phone rang and it was her, asking if it would okay if she came over. I said sure, when will you get here? She replied, in about ten seconds, I’m sitting in your driveway. She had gone home after work and then decided to go for a drive, something she did occasionally when she was having emotional issues. Somewhere on the road she decided to drive to my place, and rather than pull over to call me she waited until she got there. [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-etiquette-evolve-or-that-shouldve-been-a-text/938915.md?page=2)