threemonkeys | Dropping by to post (Reply)

Childhood memories time again. From time to time, our parents would bundle us in the car and we would all go for a drive somewhere. But no matter what the announced destination of the drive, there would always be a side trip. Our mother would say "lets drop in on ..." and a visit would happen. No prior arrangements would have been made - the drop-in was a surprise to the victim who would always be welcoming and rush around to be hospitable - making tea and the like. It happened in reverse too - we would occasionally get unexpected visitors doing the drop-in as well.

So, from my upbringing, there is a tendency to think of the drop-by as normal. Yet I have never practised it myself. There is something vaguely intrusive about visiting somebody unannounced that just gets the attention of my politeness reflexes. So I don't do it. On the other hand, if somebody drops by I don't really have any reason to think that it is unusual behaviour. Those same politeness reflexes mean that I open my door and welcome them.

A couple of things make me wonder though. The weekend just gone, I wasn't feeling well. I had a couple of unexpected drop-by visits from people who I had to give a pretty swift hello and goodbye. I really wasn't in a good state to receive visitors.

This added to a similar thing that was raised on Moata's blog a couple of weeks ago. In the comments, all the people who expressed an opinion about the unexpected drop-by were clearly against it. There was a clearly stated opinion in favour of the warning call or text message.

So I'm asking the same question here. How do you folk feel about the unexpected drop-by visit? Has its acceptability changed as communication technology has changed?

On a related note, how about the phrase "I may call around sometime tomorrow"?