Originally written .
What is the doorbell for? Well, it's for someone to announce their visit to your domicile. It's louder than a simple knock, which makes it easier to be heard, and thus makes it easier for you, the person living there, to answer the door.
But who actually rings the doorbell? Maybe this is just me being too Gen Z, but the answer is universally 'people I don't want to talk to'. If I'm expecting company, I'll just leave the door open and people will let themselves in. Or they'll send me a message telling me to come outside for whatever reason.
If I'm not expecting company, but company does show up, it's universally not someone I want to talk to. I haven't had an unexpected visit from someone I already knew, who then would have a need to ring the doorbell, in probably about 8 years. The last time this happened, it was someone who forgot their phone in my car and came to pick it up the day after. And even then, they messaged me before they came! The last time it happened completely unannounced must have been in primary school or something.
So unannounced visits from friends just aren't a thing that happens to me. Thus, all visits that are unannounced are from not-friends, that is, sales people, people pushing their religion, that kind of thing. Not even the neighbour needing to borrow some sugar is a thing that happens any more.
This means that all unannounced visits ends up going unanswered, since they're all from people I have no intention or desire to talk to. And since this is the flow of actions, I'm considering not having a doorbell at all. In the cases where the visit is unannounced, I'm not going to answer it anyway, and the doorbell is just there for the visitor to annoy me. In cases where the visits are announced, they don't need the doorbell to begin with and can just come in by themselves. An exception to this would, I guess, be people delivering food, but even then, the better option is to prepay and have them leave the food by the door. Same goes for the FedEx driver who's probably mandated to try the doorbell first rather than just leave the package on the doorstep as instructed.
The unwelcome visitors will probably just knock on the door instead, since that's what one does if there is no doorbell, but that's a lot easier to ignore.
I've been trying to think about this from the opposite perspective, that is, what do I do when I visit someone's domicile? Well, if I'm invited or we've otherwise planned a visit, the answer is I come in and announce my arrival. No doorbell, barring apartment buildings, where you need to use the doorbell to open the door. If I were to be a pizza delivery man, the answer is leave it outside if they've pre-paid (prefered), and the doorbell if not. Doorbell only if I must. If there is no prearranged agreement, then the answer is I don't visit, barring one exception, my grandma who lives next door. I guess we kind of have an unspoken agreement there.
In a way, the doorbell has a lot of similarities to the ringing of a phone call. Both are essentially someone saying 'Talk to me!'. With a phone call though, that's kind of necessary even with people you know, since there's no other reasonable way to establish that line of communication. With a visit to your home though, the visit itself will already have been planned and negotiated through some other channel, so the negotiation of the doorbell and the opening of the door for them is just an extra step with no clear benefit. And I don't even want that negotiation to even be available to random people. If they just leave without disturbing me, that'd be the ideal outcome.
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