Rarely, and only with people I know really, really well.

What's nyewp?

It's not so much dropping in, exactly, but the need to Schedule Something, that I can't stand. I have a small group of friends from high school that I can drop in on (although I usually call, and actually since none of them live around here it's kind of a moot point), but what's nice is that (when I'm in town) I can just come by and hang out, without us having to be going to a movie or out to eat or something specific. Every friend I've made since high school, you have to PLAN, there has to be a specific REASON to get together. Nobody just hangs out. I dislike that.

I don't, but I love it when people do.

We were the first people we knew to buy a house, and we lived there for a long time. So we developed a reputation for not only being an okay spot to show up unannounced, but to show up unannounced and to expect a bed :)

Now that we are in Portland and don't know very many people, the only ones who do that are my childhood friend Katie and our next door neighbor (who is usually bearing a bottle of wine, yay!).

O and our landlady shows up unannounced all the time, which is totally NOT COOL.

Can't wait to move somewhere more permanent :(

Nope. At least, not since I've lived in NYC, but all of my friends here are ones that I have made in my late 20s, when I think you become less inclined to drop in spontaneously.

In New Zealand, I used to, kind of. I'd usually send a text first: "is it OK if I come around?" When I dropped in unannounced, I'm cool with being asked to leave, and I'm cool with telling people that I'm too busy to hang out, if people do it to me. (this is why I'm glad people don't do it to us -- mr. g can't get it into his head that if people drop in unannounced, you're not under any obligation to entertain them, and he gets all stressed out :) )

In high school and college, yeah. But now, I expect a call, to give me time to put pants on.

The only places I drop in - my mother's and my grandparents (dad's parents...my mom's parents are long dead.)

My grandparents are in their 90s and my grandma, in particular, is always thrilled to bits to see me. (My grandpa is also thrilled to see me but only occasionally lets on that he is so as to not displace his curmudgeonly exterior.) I'm fortunate enough to have living grandparents that happen to live about five minutes away.

I'm at my mom's house way more than I'd like. The woman has neck/back issues and is not supposed to lift more than 8lbs. I really do like the lady but there are days when I really want my own time and space to be my own.

Let's see, I live 2 hours away from my parents and 18 hours away from my closest good friend. I tend to call first.

I did in my younger days. Never now. Not even to the parents' house. If I'm out and about and want to visit my parents on a whim. I'll call and say, "I'm driving down your street. Can we come over?" I get nervous when my doorbell rings unexpectedly. When it happens inevitably the house is a wreck or I'm not decent, or both.

What's nyewp?

Nothin'. What's nyewp with you?

No, I don't ever drop in on people. People do it to us occasionally, and it's usually okay.

I always call first, and like it when others call me - it gives me the chance to say "now's not a good time, how about later"?

Last New Year's we were at a friend's house for a bit and someone there kept saying over and over "Hey, I've never been to your house" and I felt like saying "I've never invited you because I don't like you - you're nosy and judgemental and gossipy". Which was true. She's very much into what people have, and talks about their possessions all the time...not my cup of tea at all. About 2 weeks later my doorbell rings and it's her. She mentioned that she wanted to see what my house looked like inside to a neighbor who lives on my block, so the neighbor said "I've been there. I'll take you. Let's go over now and see if she's home". (wtf)

I'm not crazy about people like that. I was in the middle of an argument with my husband and my kitchen was pretty gross, and it was just totally awkward. The nosy one kept saying things like "Oh I like what you did there" and "That thing is really interesting" and "Is that a real antique"....it was just SO weird. She was just staring at everything and taking it all in and making mental notes so she could talk about my house with her friends. At one point she actually started up the stairs, totally on her own. To inspect it, I guess. I said "Uh...maybe some other time".

So yeah, I pretty much hate when people drop over. My door is always open, just call me first to see if it's not only good for you, but good for me too.

I don't, but I love it when people do.

I hate it when people drop in unannounced. Probably because I'm pretty messy. There's usually books lying around, stuff on the dining table, etc.

I always call people before I drop in. The other day I called in on a neighbour, and gave her a call beforehand. Every single time I've been to her place at short notice her home is immaculate (and she lives across the close, 30 seconds walk, so it's not as if she has time to tidy up and vacuum before I arrive).

There's never a thing out of place, no books or magazines, no dishes in the sink, not a bit of dust on the floor (she has two cats, but she has no dust/catfur bunnies hiding in the corners as I do), no sign or aroma of any cooking being done, no ironing piled up. It's almost as if she's been sitting there in a vacuum, doing nothing. Weird.

nyewp = nope. I totally miss hanging out with no agenda. It very rarely happens with us, and everything is a big plan now. That being said, I'd rather be the dropper inner than the one dropped in on.

I have an acquaintance who had a habit of stopping by unannounced about 3 times a month - often at 10 pm -and would stay FOREVER. Drove me crazy. Not the drop in part so much as the staying forever part. And the 10 pm part.

Nah. If you're on good enough terms with people to be a guest in their house, you almost certainly have their phone number and therefore have the means to make a short call letting them know you're in the neighborhood and asking if they'd like to hang out.

Spontaneity is good in many areas of life but this isn't one of them.

I'm realizing I don't really know people enough to go to their houses ever. I need friends. /cries

With family, I totally drop in unannounced. I don't even knock, just walk in (with the exception of my grandparents' house - I knock first and then just walk in). That's how my family is and it freaks my boyfriend out. We have dropped by unannounced at his brother's house, but he knocks and waits for someone to answer the door. Which is so weird to me.

I have an acquaintance who had a habit of stopping by unannounced about 3 times a month - often at 10 pm -and would stay FOREVER. Drove me crazy.

We had a friend who used to come over sometimes to hang out on Friday night... and many times wouldn't leave until Monday morning, when he'd leave our house and go to work. THAT used to make me crazy. We finally had to put a stop to it.

Sil, you know it's illegal for your landlady to do that, right? You can gently remind her that she needs to give you 24 hours' notice.

P.S. You totally should come to the next Portland meetup!

I think cel phones have made dropping in obsolete. I always call first as do all my friends. Even the one friend I've had for ages who has always been a dropper-in (drop-inner? dropper-inner?) now calls first. Granted, he calls like 30 seconds before he shows up and it's pretty much always at dinnertime ;-), but that's cool - he's a good friend and sometimes he even brings a salad.

I panic when people come by unannounced. But I also panic when the phone rings.

But now, I expect a call, to give me time to put pants on.

That sums it up for me. When we're home alone, our household is a trousers-optional resort, and if the bell rings unexpectedly, I'll probably need a moment before springing off to answer it.

Rarely (all too rarely!) my niece drops by after school. I'm sure she learned it from my sister, who is the only other person who drops by unannounced, usually to deliver the overflow from her garden or a treat from her bakery, and who will happily leave the goodies outside the door if no one's home.

I agree that cell phones sharply reduced dropping in in my circles. Instead, we get the two-minute warning of "Hey, we're around the corner and wondered if you were free."

I don't mind people dropping by as long as they don't mind me saying "I am in the middle of something demanding my full attention, let's hang out later, okay?" and closing the door on them. They also pretty much need to not comment on what I'm wearing (pjs usually) or how the house looks (like a mad scientist lab on a good day) but otherwise I'm cool with it.

I think cel phones have made dropping in obsolete.

I have a few drop-by friends who are on the way to one place or another and have made it crystal clear that dropping by is totally fine. One of the weird things about being out here in no-cell-phone-land (I have one but it doesn't work in most places, most of my friends out here don't have them) is that I don't have my friends' numbers very often when I'm not at home. So, dropping by is the way to see if someone's free and it's more normal as a first step not a "hi I'm here to hang out!"

In the spring and summer people are often outside so you can sort of hang out in someone's yard with them and it's a different sort of hang out time than going inside.

Yeah, I know she's being illegal. It's an odd situation for me, I am a landlord, so I know exactly everything she is doing that is illegal. She's super flaky. It's really hurrying up my schedule for trying to find a better place to live here.

We are trying to extend our lease for six more months, and then I'm going to remind her of a few things. It's pretty clear that she's not done this before - she didn't run a background check on us or anything, just approved us on the spot. I feel like she got super lucky to get us rather than the myriad of bad tenants that are out there.

I am completely in for the next meet-up! I'm looking forward to it :)

Elsa, your trouser-optional resort remark made me lol.

I used to be in the odd situation of living upstairs from my place of work, so friends would feel free to drop by the shop to see me or, if I wasn't working, to drop by the shop and call me.

For the record, Sil, I do have trousers on at the moment. I hadn't really considered that my remark might force others to envision me lolling about pantsless. I apologize for any grimacing this may have caused the unwary or imaginative.

Will someone come and see me? I would like it.

I would like to have friends again that feel they can drop in, and vice versa.

The most memorable "drop in" was from some old friends from California, who were coming through, unbeknownst to us. It would have been groovy had my wife had not been in labor at the time.

I don't; I think NYC is anti-drop in, on the whole, because we're all so ashamed of our small, shitty apartments.

Wow. I totally miss that of my youth.

I lived in a hostel for a while and one of the things I liked most about it was the culture of "just hanging out." It's the only time I've felt that outside of uni. Also, the friends I made there would routinely drop in on me after I got an apartment, and it was never a "entertain and feed me" thing, it was always just a "in the neighbourhood, wanted to say hi. wanna do something?" kind of thing. I loved it.

Every other place (besides hostel and uni), people usually text or call first. Which I guess is good, because I'm not expecting people to just drop in. But I definitely wouldn't mind it.

We had very, very close friends in New Orleans who also lived in the same small neighborhood (French Quarter), and that was a very family-like situation vis-a-vis dropping in, etc. We saw each other almost every day anyway, and I was comfortable with it. If one of them showed up at the door while I was in disarray, well, it was like they were a sister or brother, and I didn't feel embarrassed; there were no worries about politeness - it was either "come in and grab yourself a cup of coffee while I get dressed", or "nah, I'm not in the mood", or "meet me in a half an hour at the pub".

Here it's not too good for me. I don't have friends that I feel as close as that with (I have one, but she's in Thessaloniki, and we never lived near each other even there - and she has three kids, so it had to be super-organized when we wanted to get together). We do have people coming by a lot, but they are usually V.'s colleagues (many of whom are friends, but mostly his, from work) and he usually tells me about 15 minutes before they show up, which makes me a bit crazy. Maybe things are messy, maybe I'm still in pajamas, maybe I'm just not in the mood to be social, whatever. I've started not doing much of anything about it because I get tired of going from zero to panic in three seconds. If he tells someone to come on over without alerting me in advance, they'll just have to deal with dishes in the sink and a grumpy bed-head in no makeup hunched over her computer ignoring them.

When we lived in the center of Copenhagen we were the drop in house. The after party house. Every week a spontanious drop in or sudden party would happen. After I got pregnant, less and less - probably because I was in the bedroom like a beached whale at the end and didn't whip up funky cocktails or play music when people came over.

These days, nobody drops in because we moved to Sweden, and with baby I plan everything. When she gets older I hope this will change, I like people dropping in.

When I lived in Amsterdam I had the drop in house as well, and in NYC too. I don't drop in to other peoples houses that much and never did but I like when friends come by.

When I was young (in my twenties), and social life was more fluid, then fine.

Now? No friggin' way. And it's not that my place is messy or awful, really, it's that I value my privacy and solitude, such as I have. I recently turned the ringer off on my phone so that I only know if someone is calling when the answering machine kicks in. Sometimes I answer, sometimes not.

However (there's always a however) I live in a Housing Co-op of 32 suites, everyone knows each other, many of us have lived here for a decade or more, seen our kids grow up together, etc. So every couple of weeks my upstairs neighbour will knock at the door and we'll have tea, but I have to repress a moment of irritation first. But once we begin talking I'm generally glad of the unexpected visit. But other than that? No way, no how.

I'm not one to drop in or have people drop in. The only house I'd just walk into is my mother's and that would be because it was planned for me to just walk in.

Please give me at least 15 minutes warning so I could put on a bra and brush my hair and teeth.