Do drop in! Or not …

Posted on April 28, 2008 by meowmie

What happened to the casual drop in at home? People would be driving past on their way home from something, see the turn off to Suburb X and say “Let’s see if Meowmie is home!” Next thing, there’d be a familiar car in the driveway, and a chance to have coffee with old friends.

Nowadays we have only 3 or 4 friends who do that. I think that with the compression of life’s activities, whether they be work or leisure related, our time at home is precious and the fact that people don’t drop in most likely shows that they respect your leisure.

Of course, the alternative reasons for the decline in drop ins are:
- They don’t want to see you running around doing the cleaning on the weekend
- You might be in bed in your pyjamas
- … or not in your pyjamas
- You might end up being asked to do chores with the family (happened with my family sometimes!)
- There will be seething resentment from the unsolicited hosts at the time ticking by while being forced into civility and conviviality.
- It takes extra petrol to travel there.

Yes, we had drop ins this weekend. Yes, I ended up several hours behind in what I’d planned to do that day, but the inconvenience and extra work were outweighed by the chance to catch up with friends.

Filed under: Life Matters

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4 Responses to “Do drop in! Or not …”

  1. dianehk, on April 28th, 2008 at 1:59 pm Said:

    This is very interesting.

    Dropping in on someone is considered rather a faux pas in ye olde New England communities such as my own. It is just Not Done. The only exception as far as I know is dropping in on an immediate family member, and that is done rarely.

  2. meowmie, on April 29th, 2008 at 12:19 am Said:

    I think we’re in flux here. Some do, some don’t. It’s much more likely that a person would phone first to check that there would actually be someone at home.

  3. Betsy, on May 9th, 2008 at 1:01 pm Said:

    Here here. I LOVE it, mostly, when people stop by and an impromptu kaffee klatsch ensues. And, I find, whenever I do it to others, only when I’m feeling bold, they love it as well. I think we’ve lost touch with each other. Ettiquette be damned, people need to connect.

  4. meowmie, on May 12th, 2008 at 3:25 am Said:

    I agree - we *do* need to connect! I reckon that if you have good ’social radar’ (for lack of a better term), then you will know if you’ve called in at a bad time or when people are frazzled, at which point you find a graceful way to say a quick goodbye.

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