# People dropping in unannounced **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [September 8, 2013, 1:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/people-dropping-in-unannounced/668297 "2013-09-08T01:05:51Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 5\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![Machine\_Elf](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/82dd89/32.png) [@Machine\_Elf](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Machine_Elf)\ **Post date:** [September 9, 2013, 6:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/people-dropping-in-unannounced/668297/61 "2013-09-09T18:45:10Z")
> [@gallows\_fodder](#): > > Last week I had the unpleasant experience of a friend of my family’s (not my friend, and not someone I like) drop in on me without warning, and since I was upstairs cleaning my bathtub at the time, I guess I didn’t hear her knock (if she even knocked!). She just came into my house and yelled, “Hellooooo?” at me up the stairs. :eek: At some houses this would end with the intruder staring at the business end of a gun (until identity is confirmed, hopefully after just a second or two). What kind of an idiot walks into someone’s house with no invitation? ---
**Author:** ![Nava](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/da6949/32.png) [@Nava](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nava)\ **Post date:** [September 9, 2013, 7:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/people-dropping-in-unannounced/668297/62 "2013-09-09T19:09:07Z")
> [@MandaJo](#): > > I think I am thinking of the whinned "I was just aaaaaaskiiiiinnnng . . .you can’t blame me for asking . . . " kind of remark a certain type of child or adult-child makes, that attempts to make the problem about the listener’s unwillingness to be rude, instead of the unreasonableness of the request. To me, that’s passive aggressive because it it all about playing innocent and trying to make the other person feel like they are the bad guy. Thankfully, I don’t have to put up with anybody like that; in fact, I don’t know anybody like that, and the closest to that I know are also the ones who can’t be asked for anything because the smallest request becomes an enormous production of trying to guess what did the requestor really want. Is the majority of people you deal with like you describe? I find it strange that your default thought was of “assholes who try to pull shit that would be unacceptable from a five-year-old” rather than of “adults”, and that you needed so many posts worth of explanations before realizing that some of us were talking of grown-ups. ---
**Author:** ![gallows\_fodder](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/8c91f0/32.png) [@gallows\_fodder](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gallows_fodder)\ **Post date:** [September 9, 2013, 8:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/people-dropping-in-unannounced/668297/63 "2013-09-09T20:19:43Z")
Well, I don’t have a gun and I’m not usually that hostile, anyway – I was more freaked out because it was this particular person whom I dislike and now had to scrape together an excuse to get her out of my home. If, say, my aunt who lives a few miles down the road came into my house without invitation, I wouldn’t have minded too much in the first place and could also easily say, “Now’s not a good time to chat – would you mind coming by tomorrow?” And she would probably say, “Sure, sorry about that” and leave with no hard feelings. But in my experience loose acquaintances who don’t respect privacy or normal bounds of courtesy also don’t respect gentle hints that they’re inconveniencing you, and then you have to be firm with them, and then they think you’re a bitch. So they suck. Fuck those people. ---
**Author:** ![Incubus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/c68b51/32.png) [@Incubus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Incubus)\ **Post date:** [September 9, 2013, 8:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/people-dropping-in-unannounced/668297/64 "2013-09-09T20:41:01Z")
I’mI’m kind of torn about this. On one hand, I don’t like getting ambushed by guests if I’m not in the mood to entertain. On the other, I do like the company of friends and family in my home, and found I can com3 off as so inflexible people wont even bother to call or ask because they assume I wont want them over. So then I get lonely / butthurt I always have to visit them. It was hard early in my marraige because my in laws would always pop by. Granted, they live 3 blocks away and own the house we rent. In addition to taking care of our yard. I’ve started to get used to it. Often, if they are there to do yardwork or other exterior work, they wont even bother us. But even if they do knock, its just to say hello while they are on a walk. ---
**Author:** ![MLS](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/919ad9/32.png) [@MLS](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MLS)\ **Post date:** [September 9, 2013, 10:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/people-dropping-in-unannounced/668297/65 "2013-09-09T22:50:25Z")
My in-laws were droppers-in without notice, which is weird because it was over an hour’s drive from their house to ours. I hated it. It’s a cultural thing; they didn’t think it was at all unusual, and for it not to be convenient for me was seen as inhospitable. Contrariwise, one time early in the marriage, I invited them over for dinner and went to great trouble to make a nice meal. They showed up more than an hour, probably closer to two, after the dinner was ready. And then they said they weren’t hungry, having stopped for a Whopper on the way. More recently, we had to be very firm with my husband that he is not, NOT, N O T to drop in to our daughter and son-in-law’s home without calling first, even though they’re only 4 blocks away. The final convincer was that they just might be in the process of creating grandchild #2 and we wouldn’t want to interrupt that, would we? [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/people-dropping-in-unannounced/668297.md?page=3)