Is there anybody home?

This Daily Mash article popped up on my Facebook feed today, and made remember a train of thought I'd had, in my head, a few weeks ago.  When exactly did we start needing to plan playdates, coffee dates, trips to the park ... replacing just meeting up in an ad hoc way with our friends and family? 

I'm not talking about meeting up for elaborate dinners, nights out or fancy activities, which, in all honesty do need to be planned to a certain degree.  But those impromptu, random drop-in visitis, that sometimes lasted less than 10 minutes, but other times expanded into hours of unplanned fun.  

I grew up in a house, where the front door was knocked by both my friends, and those of my brother and my parents, as well as our family.  Some expected, some not.  Sometimes those unexpected visits were short ... because we really were just on our way out, we were about to sit down to dinner or the visitor was just dropping something off.  

But, other times, those unexpected visits led to unexpected fun ... tree climbing, picnics, water fights, ... seeing family and friends we might not otherwise ahve seen for far longer.  

There are many days when I wonder whether it was where I grew up that played a part in that way of life.  Whether, had I stayed closer to home, it would still happen today.

I actually miss those days, when meeting up didn't have to involve a detailed plan of timings and locations.  Because, for me, the energy required to organise meeting up, inevitably involves more than just turning up and joining in with whatever happens to be going on at the other person's house.  However hard we try, it always seems to be more formal, less relaxed than those I grew up with.  

Why?  Because if someone knocks on your door and says hello, they are coming to see you, no need to worry that you haven't prepared properly.  Because how can you prepare when you don't know they're coming?  But now, when we only meet up when we've organised it in advance, the strain of planning takes away some of the fun ... because we (well at least I) feel that as I know someone is coming round, then I have to make an effort ... with food, snacks and drinks, as well as planning activities and thinking of things to entertain children.  

While our schedules might be more heavily packed than those of previous generations, planning every single social meet-up for us and our children only seems to add to that.  

So maybe, sometimes, we just need to pop-in and see our friends for 20 minutes ... and accept the fact that that might be all that it is.  

I grew up watching cups of tea consumed around the dining table, to shouts of 'Hello, it's only me' from both the front and back doors ...  and I'm starting to think that shifting to organising everything on a calendar is contributing to us not engaging with the people around us.  That without the ad-hoc interactions, our physical social networks decrease, and we become isolated from our surroundings.  

I'd like to give my LG a taste of stress-free, disorganised social time, but I'm not sure the rest of the 21st century is on my wavelength.