Posted on:Aug 21 2020
On a recent Saturday afternoon, I was reminded in the most delightful way of the sublime, somewhat forgotten, custom of social visiting. J and S had a beautiful summer afternoon stretching in front of them, their 2- and 5-yo kids on a precious sleepover with grandparents, and of all the things they could’ve chosen to do with their time, they chose the good old-fashioned social visit.
And I was the lucky person they chose to visit! What a buzzy feeling!
So buzzy I want to write about it, not least to stretch its savor-fulness. 😊
What is it about this experience that made it feel so different from, say, randomly bumping into a friend at the coffee shop or having dinner with friends?
The difference is in the unplanned, informal aspect...and in the feelings around both choosing and being chosen for a visit...it just generates a different flavor of connection and belonging. Even the relaxed, meandering conversation - stemming from no purpose other than “hey, thought we’d pop by” - is so genuinely non-transactional. It’s like floating down a lazy river on a hot August day...simple, carefree, easy, time slooooows down.
So what exactly is a social visit? Aside from remembering both sets of grandparents doing it, and the vague knowledge that it used to be more of a thing, I googled around and came across an article in an online journal, The Imaginative Conservative (“for those who seek the True, the Good, and the Beautiful”), and this is the definition I found :
“Social visits are done for their own sake, for disinterested reasons, for the pleasure of others, and as a gracious act of thoughtfulness that dignifies both the visitor and the visited.”
*NOTE : ”Disinterested” has a couple of definitions; it can mean you have or feel no interest in something, but in the case of the social visit, disinterested means not influenced by considerations of personal advantage.
Which is why J and S’s serendipitous drop-by felt so refreshing - it was all about the sociable aspect of ordinary life.
It used to be that visitors were expected, especially on Sundays or holidays. Visitors felt naturally welcomed on arrival, and hosts were delighted and honored to receive visitors. Time devoted to planning and preparing was woven into the family fabric.
Imagine the matters of simple civility that are cultivated around welcoming guests with hospitality and paying visits without asking prior permission. (That's right, no advance text message, just show up and figure it out from there.)
What a way to encourage friendships and establish solidarity among friends and family.
What a way to cultivate sociable virtues and overcome loneliness and isolation.
In more modern times, it seems private life has displaced social life, solitary activity has supplanted hospitable occasions. “Hanging out together” is more like a bunch of people doing their own thing, parallel play on screens, than actually having a real conversation. Plus, now we have FOMO, and doesn’t a social visit sound so, well, unfashionable?
Hopefully it’s clear that, by definition, fashionable is utterly beside the point and you don’t instagram a social visit !
Indeed, by Robin’s definition, phones are tucked out of sight for the duration.
For my two young-adult sons, who came and went while J, S, and I were visiting, a lasting impression was made.
They were somewhat primed, though, because they’d had their own experience with a slightly modified but nonetheless potent social visit. A few weeks ago, I was on a Zoom meeting when my friend D - someone my sons really like and look up to - stopped by unannounced to drop something off for me. My sons were hanging out on the front porch swing when he arrived. D totally could’ve dropped off the paperwork and left in the name of Busyness, or Whatever, at the end of a Long Day. But he stayed. For over an hour.
To visit.
To be visited.
Unannounced.
Simply for its own sake.
Add a touch of grace and civility to your life. In the midst of a slew of distressing pandemic side effects and pre-election mistrust, give the social visit a try.
