Unexpected company: Is that even a thing when you live alone?

What if someone knocks on your door?

older woman knocking on the door of a house

I often fantasize about someone I love showing up at my door. It rarely happens.

A surprise visitor means I don’t have to stress about it. If they find me in my pajamas with papers spread from hither to yon and not a morsel of food to serve them, so be it. I didn’t know they were coming.

I’m not of my mother’s generation with a pie or cake waiting in the freezer just in case. But when I was growing up, before people had mobile phones to call or text a warning, people did drop in to visit. Neighbors came by to chat, and aunts, uncles, and cousins stopped by. If it was suppertime, Dad ran out to the deli for raviolis and salads. At other times, Mom brought out the pastries. She was not always thrilled, to be honest. She’d look out the window, see certain people pull up at the curb, and say a rare Catholic-mom “Damn it.” But she was ready.

I am not prepared like that. If you normally cook for a family of four, you have a lot more food around, but if you only have single servings of whatever weird thing you like to eat, you don’t have much to offer. I have tea, orange juice, dusty bottles of wine, and well-aged beer I bought for some occasion in the past. Maybe, if you’re lucky, I have some cookies or something I just baked, but don’t count on it.

There are no soft drinks because I don’t drink them, and I don’t dare have a cake around because I will eat it all. My freezer is full of ice, bread and portioned-out leftovers.

It’s a different story when you know company is coming, when they call in advance or you invite them for a meal. You can go all Martha Stewart, but I find it exhausting. I have to get dressed, clean the house, plan a menu, buy the ingredients, prepare the food, and serve it in actual serving bowls and platters. Afterwards, I have to clean up. It’s a lot.

I need to rest for two days afterward.

Yes, I know I could host a potluck and let people take the house as it is. But it still requires some planning.

When my husband was around, we hosted quite a few big parties for friends and co-workers. It was hard work, but I had help. Fred would set up tables and help with clean-up. He would tend the bar and amuse the guests while I finished preparing the food.

I have lived alone for many years. Long gone are the days when I woke up worrying about what I would make for dinner, making sure I defrosted, chilled, or marinated something to be ready for the big meal at the end of the day. Menus were designed to please my husband and stepson. Do I miss that? I do not. I miss my guys but not the stress about providing food.

Living solo, I might have a plan, but not every day. Many days, my plan is “I’ll figure something out later.”

I’m not alone in that. Lots of my single friends grab “whatever” whenever.

I do cook well for myself, but it’s not like I have a pot simmering on the stove for whoever shows up. If my family ever surprises me with a visit (ha), my plan will be, “Let’s go out.”

It goes against how I was raised, but I want to have company on my own terms. I have a sign I put on the door when I’m involved in a meeting online. “Zooming. Do Not Disturb.” I am tempted to put it up when I’m not Zooming, when I just want to be alone, but this house has too many windows. People can see me buzzing around doing non-Zoom things that might be work but don’t look like it to them.

What people? Good point. It has been at least six months since anyone except Jehovah’s Witnesses and repairmen have shown up at my door.

It doesn’t help that my friends are scared away by my busyness. “Oh, you’re always working,” they say. I am. Come over anyway.

Maybe we should be like the society ladies in Jane Austin novels. We’d specify times when we were “receiving” guests. The servants would provide tea and madeleines as we sat with our white-gloved hands folded in our laps. To drop in at another time would be rude. Just leave your card on the silver tray.

We should keep in mind our unexpected visitors might just want to make sure we’re alive and not on the floor unable to get up. We should be grateful they care enough to check.

We should also be careful about opening the door to people we don’t know. If we can’t see them through a window or peephole, it’s all right to demand that they identify themselves.

I bought a motion detector porch light that goes on when anyone is there. So far, it has only lit up for neighborhood cats, but it’s bright enough to scare people who shouldn’t be there. A scary-looking dog is also a good deterrent.

In my last post and the comments that followed, we talked about having groups of friends who drop in all the time. Most of us don’t have that. Some had “posses” when they were young and had fewer commitments. Now that our lives are more complicated, do we really want our friends dropping in and making themselves at home?

I want to say yes and no because it really is both. How about you?

Should You Drop Everything for Drop-in Guests? Etiquette expert Candace Smith, who writes The Etiquette Blog, says when people drop by, we don’t have to let them in. It’s perfectly all right to tell them if it’s a bad time–you’re working, napping, or doing something else you’d rather not have interrupted.

Of course, when visitors are so rare . . .

It’s up to you. You can hang a sign that says “visiting hours from two to four” or whatever suits you. Or welcome friends day or night with a big hug and figure out the rest later.

My brother won’t like me saying this, but when he was a popular kid and the neighbor boys came to our door to invite him to play, sometimes he just opened the door a crack and barked, “No. I don’t want to.”

That’s an option for us too, but we should be more polite if we want to keep our grownup friends.

You can drop in on me between 1 and 5 p.m. Pacific time. Bring cookies. I hope I’m dressed and not in the bathroom when the doorbell rings.

P.S. My friend Pat and I dropped in on my neighbor Cheryl last night. She didn’t seem to mind at all, and we had a great visit. Her cat Charlie, on the other hand, was not thrilled to have his nap interrupted by cat-loving ladies wanting to pet him.

Let’s talk

• Do you ever have unannounced visitors? Are you prepared?

• Are unexpected guests rude or a nice surprise? Would you be comfortable telling them you’re not up to it that day?

• Do you invite people over? Is that something you enjoy, or do you dread the work?

• Do you drop in on your friends or family?

---

NPR’s 1A show has an interesting new series called “In Good Company: The U.S. Loneliness Epidemic,” about loneliness and being alone.

---

How did I end up alone? My first marriage ended in divorce. My second husband died of Alzheimer’s after we had moved to the Oregon coast, far from family. I never had any kids, only dogs. Now I live by myself in a big house in the woods. You can read our story in my memoir, No Way Out of This: Loving a Partner with Alzheimer’s, available at your favorite bookseller. Visit https://www.suelick.com for information on all of my books.