(no subject)

[sorcyress]

A friend of mine recently posted (in a locked entry, so no direct quotes) that it had been recently pointed out to them that people typically ask others to visit them, rather than asking to visit others. This led to both reassurance and digression on my part, some of which ought to go into the USER MANUAL! also known as this journal.

***

So, I was SUPER SUPER TRAINED as a kid that you never invited yourself to someone else's house. Like, according to my mom "can I come over" was pretty much universally rude.

As I've grown up, I've come to realize that this is sortof bullshit, especially when it comes to my life. There are heaps of people I would love to see and if I had to sit there and extend specific invitations to each and every one of them, it would be a huge pain in the ass, and I would probably forget someone. I would really quite prefer it if someone said "I'd love to come see you, when's a good time for me to visit?" and I could say "next weekend" or "tomorrow" or "try again in November" or "I don't quite know you well enough to give you crashspace, but do let me know when you're in Boston so we can do lunch" or "ALL THE TIME, GET YOUR BUTT INTO MY HOUSE" or whatever.

(It occurs to me that saying "I will be in town on the 17th, yo give me crashspace" is significantly less desirable. Don't do that. I want to see you, but I lead a busy life and I want to work out a time that'll be good for both of us, not just you. Additionally, I am not particularly a hostel service, especially not while I have roommates.)

This goes double for periods of time like right now, when I am short on time, and super short on money. I would love to visit all the people I know and adore in the world, but holy shit, I so can't afford the airfare (or bus, or car rental, or taxi, or whatever) right now. More importantly, I can't really justify spending four days away from potential jobs, but if you're willing to entertain yourself during the day, we can hang out in the evenings and it'll be awesome.

At any rate, what this all boils down to is:

• In general, people should ask me if they want to hang out, and are totally welcome to ask "can I come over" as part of that. I really like hosting, it's easier on me in a lot of ways, and it's the sort of household I grew up with and feel most comfortable with. What do you *mean* there are only three people in the house right now and they all live here? That's nonsense!



• This is true both in a micro and macro sense. If you live a quartermile away, but want to spend the night here because DS is awesome, by all means let me¹ know and we'll work something out. If you live on the opposite coast and you want to come to Boston for a week and base out of my place, yes yes yes let me know and we'll figure things out from there.



• I am still pretty bad at asking to go over to other people's houses and always will be, so I guess more people should either tell me they are cool with me asking for an invite sometime, or they should actively extend some sort of invitation. Maybe I should keep a file of people who've said variations on "come over anytime (with reasonable warning and planning time)". Would that be creepy?

Yep!

~Sor
MOOP!

1: And the roommates. I mean, this should go for pretty much all cases --while my roommates are chill people, I do still want to ask/give warning for people in the house. Especially if we mess up and accidentally all book visitors for the same weekend or something. Although that would make for a pretty boss party.

Comments

[genarti]

My general tactic has been to either go "Hey, FYI, I'm going to be in [CITY] on these dates for another thing! Want to meet up?" or "Hey, I'm strongly considering making a trip to [CITY] this fall, maybe in late October. What're you up to around then?"

Tactic 1 is mostly when I'm already coming for some other reason. I might already be staying somewhere, or I might have somewhere to stay for some of the time but be considering staying a couple extra days with friends if the friends offer. (Although I'll usually make it clearer, in that case, that I'm coming for [THING] but that the trip's dates are flexible beyond that.) It's usually more "Let's meet up!" than "Do you have a couch?", but that's flexible.

Tactic 2 is when I would really quite like to stay with a friend. But that gives them the option of saying "Hey, awesome! My couch/floor/spare room is yours if you want it!" or saying "Hey, awesome! Let's have lunch or something!" or saying "Oh, boo, I have relatives already visiting in late October. Otherwise I'd totally offer to put you up." If they don't offer couch space, I know to either see if I can (and want to) swing a hotel, or if I have other friends I can stay with, or how I want to handle that. And if they have a schedule conflict, I can revisit my schedule and see what's worth rescheduling for.

It's been a while since I visited somewhere where I didn't either have hotel plans (for a con, on a family trip, etc) or a close enough friend that I knew we had mutual stay-on-my-couch-any-time consensus. But I'd float it the same way with close friends, really; I'd just probably toss in some kind of "Any chance of couch space? :D?" rider.

[harena]

If you don't already know that you have an Open Invitation to Chez Hypertwin Manor, then let me smack you upside yo silly head DARLYSOR COME ON DOWN (Anytime, honest! Heck even if we are in the middle of something, you can have the CoA till we're done and Pip will love you for the attention)!

Obviously, we have similar sorts of constraints as you (with an added dash of podlings) that prevent us from coming up to see you every weekend every month or you'd totally be sick of the sight of us by now ;)

And no, i don't think such a file would be creepy but a good way for a person to keep track of stuffnthings *nods firmly*

Also, the only long-version i could come up for DS was DarlySor (totally ignoring you Gameboy, ohyes) so you might need to explain that one to my stubborn brain ;D

[tirerim]

I would like to see you more often, and I am totally cool with you asking for an invite. My schedule is somewhat insane at the moment (next free weekend is, um, the third weekend in October, I think), so I make no guarantees about specific availability, but there is definitely general availability somewhere in there. I will also try to ask to come over at some point -- I have not even seen your house!

Poking back through the user manual tag...

[squirrelitude]

It basically never occurs to me to invite people over or otherwise visit with them *even though that's really enjoyable*, so the whole "never invite yourself over" thing strikes me as untenable. (Because everyone is like me, right?)

So yeah, I have no objection to someone asking to visit! Good to know your thoughts on this as well.

[luckylefty.livejournal.com]

Since we live far from town, we're more used to making the 45 minute drive than other people, so most socializing happens at other people's houses. So we actively like it when people invite themselves over. Please do!

In the summer, we have a lake to play in. If you want to get out of town and go swimming or canoeing, please invite yourself to come play in the lake. You'll almost certainly get either the response of "Great! See you then!" or "No-one will be home, but you're welcome to come play in our lake anyway; let's try to schedule the next time when we're home, though, since we like to see you!"

[stgreyhounds.livejournal.com]

Can I tweet/facebook this post? It bears repeating, in both the "please invite yourself to visit but accept my limits if you do" sense and the "I'm not gonna invite myself to your place so invite me over already" sense.

[kdsorceress.livejournal.com]

Have at! I am heavily invested in CC, and all my public posts (in this journal) fall under CC-BY-NC. You can post it anywhere and remix it however you want, just include my name somewhere, and don't sell it.

~Sor

[tolkienkookad.livejournal.com]

Always interesting to see the different ways we got trained as kids. I don't see "can I come over" (or a more tactful variant) as rude in the slightest and I'm totally baffled to hear that mom does. Guess I never said it in earshot of her. At any rate, we both seem to have done pretty well with our social lives.

[tolkienkookad.livejournal.com]

Thinking about it, I'm pretty sure my usual phrase is "Is there a good time today for me to come hang?" and they're all quite outspoken enough to offer up my room instead if that's just what they want.

Also check out this ballin userpic I didn't know I had.

[mneme]

As adults, yeah, we do occasionally need "Hey, can I come over?" I have far too many friends who I only see when I call to ask if they're up to anything at the moment (many friends who used to be this way I see more often, but sometimes it's cyclical).

If you're coming down to NYC, tell me and you can totally base yourself out of our place presuming it's not otherwise occupied.