Visitors

I know this has been addressed before in at least one other thread, but I have been forced to recognize that visitors are the bane of my existence.  I have never been a social individual, and visitors really mess up my life.  If they are not scheduled, then they unexpectedly arrive and mess up my schedule for the day.   If they are scheduled, then I have the time leading up to the visit, the visit, and the recovery time to deal with.  Yesterday, I had to deal with the worst possible option.   Someone who said they would drop by at 3:00 pm showed up at 10:30 am.  

This is not to say that I never enjoy visiting, but there are only so many exposures that I can deal with in a month.  My wife and I have successfully shut down our shopping trips to one major one a month and at most 2 more ($20 or less) to pick up odds and ends.   I am recognizing this as I bask in my new found freedom.  My wife had a routine dental appointment cancelled out for tomorrow morning.  It is amazing how much that has freed up my time and lowered my stress.  That coupled with the visitor of yesterday forces me to recognize how restrictive interacting with others can be for me.

I rarely have visitors, when someone does show up this is always an unexpected arrival.

Why would anyone drive 60 miles or more, and climb over a fence because there is a locked gate?

They don't mess up my schedule because I have no schedule.

I get it.   I'm a planner.  I plan ahead.  WAY ahead.   There are no "day of" plans made lol.   Unless there was a plan to make a 'day of" plan and keep a block of time open.  

I have blocks of time set aside for projects and for errands.   I have blocks of time set aside for "pre-visitor" blocks of time.   I want to clean, straighten up,  exercise my dogs ahead of time,  put them away before guests arrive,  and make sure that anything I would have done later in the day that I now won't be able to do is done ahead of time instead.

Not that I"m "house proud" but my house is VERY small and I have a large personal space bubble.  If more people are going to be in my space I need to make room for them.. put all projects or laundry, etc.  OUT of the space we'll be using and just carve out some room.  

As an introvert,  social time, while enjoyed, is exhausting and draining for me.   I need to PLAN to have enough energy reserves to handle it, and I need to PLAN my recovery time.  It can't happen back to back with a full 10 hour client interaction work day, for example.  

If I can get away with it, I Just won't answer my door if someone shows up unannounced/ unplanned.   I mean, aside from emergencies.  

John F Dean wrote:I know this has been addressed before in at least one other thread, but I have been forced to recognize that visitors are the bane of my existence.  I have never been a social individual, and visitors really mess up my life.  If they are not scheduled, then they unexpectedly arrive and mess up my schedule for the day.   If they are scheduled, then I have the time leading up to the visit, the visit, and the recovery time to deal with.  Yesterday, I had to deal with the worst possible option.   Someone who said they would drop by at 3:00 pm showed up at 10:30 am.  

This is not to say that I never enjoy visiting, but there are only so many exposures that I can deal with in a month.  My wife and I have successfully shut down our shopping trips to one major one a month and at most 2 more ($20 or less) to pick up odds and ends.   I am recognizing this as I bask in my new found freedom.  My wife had a routine dental appointment cancelled out for tomorrow morning.  It is amazing how much that has freed up my time and lowered my stress.  That coupled with the visitor of yesterday forces me to recognize how restrictive interacting with others can be for me.

I could have written this.  

My kids look for weapons and/ or hide when there is an unexpected knock at the door...