Remember when making plans didn’t feel like a Google Calendar invite?
There was a time, not too long ago, when hanging out with friends meant simply showing up. We’d gather near the garden below our society, show up at someone’s door, or spontaneously decide that 11 PM was the perfect time to walk around and maybe get some McDonald’s. There were no agendas, no “Are we still meeting?” five-step confirmations, and definitely no pressure to curate a perfect moment for Instagram stories.
But somewhere between growing up and growing apart, the casual hangout started to die.
Making plans today feels like navigating an international trip. Everyone is busy, burnt out, or balancing five different responsibilities. Our friendships now adapt to the tight gaps between college, internships, gym hours, and the constant need to “be productive” and achieve something (mostly leading to doom scrolling, but that’s a different conversation). If time is money, spontaneity has become an expense no one feels they can afford.
A casual hangout used to be comfortable. Now, it’s more of a performance.
“Is the café aesthetic enough?”
“Do we need an activity to justify meeting up?”
“What outfit fits the vibe?”
When did simply sitting together become not enough?
We obsess over documenting the moment instead of living inside it, taking multiple photos before actually catching up, rehearsing our lives instead of sharing them. The hangout has shifted from presence to presentation.
Ironically enough, we’ve never been more connected. We send memes, react to stories, and track each other’s lives through screens, which gives us the illusion that we’re still close. But digital closeness lacks the warmth of real laughter, messy conversations, and unfiltered silence.
As we grow older, we are naturally introduced to new and more serious priorities. Relationships shift. Friend circles shrink. The friend you used to bike around with every evening now takes three weeks to schedule lunch with. And it isn’t anyone’s fault; life just happens faster now.
Still, it hurts when the people who once knew every detail of our day suddenly become chaptered memories in our heads.
Despite everything, the schedules, the screens, the curated lives, we still long for the kind of friendship that feels easy. The kind where you don’t clean before someone visits. Where time isn’t divided into hours but stretched into a feeling. Where you’re not performing, just existing.
The casual hangout isn’t dead, it’s endangered.
But maybe we can revive it if we just learn to be in the moment for a bit and set the perfectionism aside instead of constantly worrying about what we have to accomplish next. In the end, friendship isn’t built on planned events; It’s built on stolen minutes, unfiltered emotions, and showing up, even when calendar alarms don’t remind us to.
Maybe it’s time to bring back the ordinary. Because sometimes, the most meaningful memories are made when we’re not trying to make them at all.