A pop in? Where a friend just shows up unannounced with a knock at your door and a tip of the hat and says they were just in the neighborhood and felt like they should drop and has a seat on your couch?

Sure. Maybe they catch you at an awesome time, maybe they don't and they leave- it's a pop-in after all. Keep expectations low. At least you saw them.

That goes back to a time when most homes had a stay-at-home homemaker.

Today, I'm not really crazy about the idea of a random pop-in, having to cut the few hours of time that I do have for laundry, dishes, or just a bit of down time, to have to make coffee and find snacks and sit down for a chat. If I were home all day that would be quite different, or so I think.

Where I grew up people still do pop ins. You get around your problem by helping the person out with what they were doing when you popped in.

Doing the dishes when you pop in? Cool, you get to dry them as I wash. Everyone basically follows this rule. There’s no expectation of entertaining guests if you pop in for a visit.

That works if someone isn’t frantically trying to get from point A to point B, or so overwhelmed they are trying to find some time to stop and think. That’s the challenge for most Suburban parents around here anyway.

Everyone is busy at times, but if you are always frantically trying to get from A to B or overwhelmed, that's probably an issue in its own right in need of addressing.

Of course! That’s also practically what most middle class folks with kids are in all day every day. Upper middle class too.

If not that well off, it’s usually worse.

And near as I can tell, that barely keeps their head above water, if that.

I feel like a literal pop in does not work for many people due to mobile phones and suburbs. Suburbs make it so you have to go at least a little out of your way to visit someone, which means you might as well call to make sure they are available before wasting your time on a detour.

Although, I see no problem with impromptu visits, I get them all the time. They just happen to call or text before coming.

Agree. Even when I was a kid, "pop-ins" were only immediate neighbors, maybe within a 3-4 house radius. Anyone farther away you'd call first, even with landlines.

These days many people don't even know the names of the people living across the street.

I was about to read HN now what

This is how my grandparents and their friends do it and they clearly have better communication with their friends than I do with mine.

Maybe this whole "scheduling" things was a mistake.

Meanwhile in the real world, most folks seem to have a panic attack if anyone knocks on their door. Or they have to make a phone call.

Ughh..this is not an exaggeration. I remember recently when Amazon delivered a package to my house meant for a neighbor down the street. I had time so I walked over and knocked on the door. After about a minute I saw a young lady barely pulling the window blinds apart to peek out. When she saw there was still someone there (an out of shape nerd who looks like a Best Buy worker—the opposite of intimidating) just holding a package, she let out a shriek from the depths of damnation, and basically stood there screaming until I set the package down and walked away. You could hear it from the sidewalk. People have gone la la.

I think the advent of cell phones killed the pop in, everyone can call or text now before popping in.

or just shoot a text to say hi and check in.

no need to roll up and see how your week has been, just send someone a how-do and maybe to a 5 min facetime