I have a friend that I don’t visit, or hardly ever. She is quite ill (needs a valve job, weighs under 80 lb, is weak) but if she knows we are coming over, she will get out of bad and clean the house top to bottom. Her husband has stopped inviting anyone for that reason. He has begged her not to do this, but she seems incapable of it. So very occasionally we just drop in unannounced. They live just a half mile away, so “in the neighborhood” is not an excuse.
Another friend has actually asked us to drop in unannounced for essentially the same reason. She has told us that then she will feel no obligation to feed us. We haven’t actually done it yet, but I think we will. Her husband is not well. (Combination of mesothelioma and incipient dementia, although not so’s you’d notice.)
I usually can find something far more interesting to do than entertain the sort of people who like to just drop by unannounced. This doesn’t mean that I don’t enjoy visiting with people. I do enjoy visiting. But I don’t need or want that sort of surprise…especially when people know that my husband and/or I work non-standard shifts, yet expect us to be awake and ready for visitors during standard hours. There’s nothing like having your in-laws drop by first thing in the morning, when you’ve worked swing (and they know you work swing, and really want and need another couple of hours of sleep to feel like having company. Sure, they’ll leave if you tell them you need more sleep, but you’re already up, at your equivalent of 3 AM.
One day (my 25th birthday, as a matter of fact), I dropped in on a friend, unannounced. Four years later, we were married, and have been for 27 years now.
The drop-in did not by itself convert “friend” to “girlfriend”, but without it, the later conversion probably wouldn’t have happened.
I think it’s a bit of a bygone era when you could just drop in on a friend. I’m starting to feel that way about phone calls too…it seems no one has time to chat any more.
As much as I actually enjoy the novelty of someone dropping in, I learned the hard way to try and keep a less slovenly house…hubby and I were lounging about in front of the tube in our sweats one night, when his boss and the boss’ wife dropped in unexpectedly. Not only were we a mess but the house was a wreck as well. We had no food or booze to offer. Bit of a nightmare trying to tidy and chat at the same time! Now I try and at least have a bottle of wine on hand and a bag of chips and salsa!
Why can’t the phone call be the delightful surprise, if the recipient welcomes the visit? It’s the same surprise visit, you just know about it 5 minutes sooner.
I’m self-employed and work at home, so I have no qualms whatsoever about telling unexpected visitors or phone-callers, “Sorry, but I have a deadline today. See you some other time/I’ll call you tonight/whatever.” Fortunately we live in the middle of nowhere and I don’t pick up calls from numbers I don’t recognize or when I’m too busy to chat, so this rarely comes up.
But if you visit someone else’s house (at short notice) and it’s not picture perfect, will you judge?
When I was at college I would drop in on people regularly, maybe 5/6 different student households, and we’d have tea and a chat. Sometimes I’d visit 3 houses consecutively, and be welcomed in until moving on before my stay was out welcomed.
I never paid any attention to their cleanliness or grooming or whatever, it was just a mate visiting to have a chat. Now if I have unexpected guests I’ll put the kettle on and be attentive, polite, enjoy their company (or pretend to). It’s no biggie, and I make good relationships doing it. To me it’s a small burden but, unless I have some important things (work, a doctor’s appointment) I don’t see it as a big trial. Maybe that’s just me; I’ve been the one ‘popping by’ and there were a couple of people who were nonplussed by me doing that, so I stopped but still looked in on the ones who were welcoming.
One girl I used to visit intimated that I was good looking but my intelligence wasn’t suitable for her, ha ha. I don’t know where that came from as she was the ex of a very good friend (a much closer friend than she was) who wasn’t happy about their breakup, so I said I understood and stopped visiting. No harm done. I was only there for a cuppa and conversation.
I think as I regularly visited (2/3 times a week) they expected me to come round at some point.
My ex-mother-in-law used to drop in on us whenever she felt like it. My ex worked nights, and I wasn’t working at the time so I pretty much kept the same hours he did. So when ex-MIL would come knocking on the door at noon, we were both normally still asleep. Ex-MIL knew we kept odd hours, but that didn’t stop her from expecting to be welcomed at any time of day. After a while, if we didn’t answer the door she would walk around to the side of the house and bang on the bedroom window until someone answered!
But if you feel that pressure to say "sure, come on over" aren't you also going to feel pressure to either agree to the neutral location or issue an invitation? This is the part I honestly don't get. If you don't feel free to say "Actually, this isn't a good time" " or "Let's go to the coffee shop" , then it seems to me you wouldn't feel free to say "Actually, it's not a good time" if I suggested the coffee shop or if I had called you a week in advance.
No, because agreeing to meet in a neutral place is a compromise that communicates that you want to see the person. “Actually, it’s not a good time” can communicate multiple things, and it can result in hurt feelings (especially if no explanation is given).
If it was a coworker who I’m going to see tomorrow anyway, I wouldn’t have a problem saying “It’s not a good time”. But if it’s someone who I haven’t seen in a long time, who I actually wouldn’t mind visiting with for a bit? And who I’d rather not horrify with my messy house? I hope they like Starbucks.
That part I understand. But if I someone I hadn’t seen for a while and wanted to drop by , I’d suggest Starbucks myself ,rather than feeling pressure to agree to have them come to my often-under-construction house because the dropper-in didn’t suggest Starbucks. It’s the part where someone feels pressure or feels put on the spot to invite someone to their home even if they don’t want to - whether they don’t want to because the house is a mess and they would prefer to get together elsewhere , because they’re busy or , because they want nothing to do with the drop -in, whatever. Manda JO said
I’m wondering why she wouldn’t also feel pressure to agree to meet at the coffee shop , even if that’s not really what she really wants?
Because that’s not withholding hospitality when it is directly requested. If someone asks for my hospitality, I really feel like I can’t say no: it’s like denying someone food when they say they are hungry. It’s much, much stronger of a rejection than just not being able to leave your house o go meet someone. There are people out there --not many, but a few–that I Would Not Allow In My House. I am not comfortable rejecting anyone else. And the flip side of this is that I am uncomfortable with other people inviting themselves into my home: it seems pushy.
Even so, a call up to meet right now at a local coffee shop would make me feel some pressure, though less. The fact that they were making the request on such short order would be really unusual, and I’d assume they either had something really important to talk about–and so needed a friend–or were really stranded and bored between appointments, and I’d want to help them out by amusing them. But at least it gives me the option to do the inviting, instead of having to divert them away from my house, and get into a discussion of whether or not my house really is that messy. It also allows for a wider range of white lies (I’d love to but I am watching the baby/cleaning the house).
And a call for a week hence is totally different. Assuming I do want to see the person at some point, the call for a week in advance is really the opening offer in the “Let’s find a time we can meet” routine. And if I really don’t want to see them again ever, then I don’t feel pressure because I don’t like them.
ETA: And my real point was that Nava seemed to be endorsing the idea that “You aren’t rude if you ask: they can always say no!” In many cases, I don’t think that’s true, and I think a lot of rude, pushy people exploit other people’s reluctance to say no, even if they don’t admit it to themselves. I don’t think Nava is one of those people, simply that her advice is the sort of thing they tell themselves.
I guess that’s it, then. Because I absolutely wouldn’t feel like I was rejecting someone or withholding hospitality if I suggested the coffee shop. I figure the person is asking to drop by to visit *me *, not my house. And I have no problem saying “no” to people I think are pushy - the particular people who have asked to spend a week of their vacation at my house don’t want to see me,they just don’t want to pay for a hotel.
Just saw your edit- I’m sure rude people do tell themselves that, but I’m also sure a lot of people truly don’t think it’s rude. I mean , now that I know how you feel, I would never call you on short notice because it would be rude to know your preferences and ignore them. But before I started seeing these threads, it truly never occurred to me that anyone would feel that they had to invite me over because I called and said “I’m in town and have a couple of hours ,can I drop by?” instead of "Can we meet at the coffee shop? I don’t know if it’s because other people have a wider circle of who might drop in ( my boss would never drop in , but my sister’s husband did whenever he knew my husband was home and there was a football game) or if being able to say “No” is part of being a city dweller , but all the people who might drop in are people I’m perfectly comfortable saying “no” to.
This is precisely how my in-laws were. Including banging on the window. The in-laws also expected me to to mostly stay off the phone during the day…and I was using one of the early online services (US Videotel). They’d bitch to my husband because they got a busy signal all day. Mother-in-law wanted me to pick her up and go shopping with her, for instance, and was pissed because I wasn’t available for her desires. Or father-in-law wanted to tell me just how I was raising his granddaughter incorrectly.
Pa— you just called my whole culture passive-agressive, let’s not even speak of the Israelis. What is passive agressive in asking a straight question and expecting a straight answer?
ETA: Ah, the problem is that you are one of those people who have trouble saying no. It’s your problem, not ours, but when I know I’m dealing with someone like you I never, ever, ask them for anything.
I would agree about the kids. Anyone with kids dropping in on me without warning would be shown the door.
However, as for people I know dropping in, I have no problems with that, so long as they don’t expect special treatment, or a tidy house.
There was a time of my life that I used to go visiting a lot, never “booked” ahead, and was always welcome, but that was only with people I knew well.
These days, I’d always check ahead, as it’s more likely than not that they’d be out.
I should probably be clear here that my perspective is much more that of the person that would never, ever drop in on someone, or invite myself over to their house, rather than the person troubled with pop-ins. I don’t have any pop-ins.
Passive-aggressive may not be quite the right term, but there can be something very high-pressure about someone who always puts the pressure on other people to say no, and who disavows any responsibility to pay attention as to whether or not their request is reasonable, or acknowledge the reality that people are reluctant to say no.
Cultures vary. But I was raised with the pretty firm idea that it’s rude to invite yourself over to other people’s houses: you invite them to yours, or to go do something. Unless you are routinely in and out of their house, you don’t assume you are welcome there. You also don’t ask if you are getting an invite to a wedding or birthday party, you don’t ask if you can have a bite off someone’s plate, you don’t request a gift.
There may be some sort of confusion about who we mean by “people”. As I said above, no one in my work/social circle routinely comes to my house, so my mental picture is someone who has never been in my home calling me out of the blue and saying “Hey, I am down the street. Can I come in?”. A neighbor who I visited back and forth regularly? I am sure that would be very different. But to my mind, the “close friend who visits regularly” is the exception to the rule, but the rule still stands: you don’t invite yourself over to someone’s house unless you have very, very good reason to believe they are comfortable hosting you.