Hanging Out Takes Effort Now

July 19, 2023

There's a version of hanging out that used to just happen. You'd end up at a friend's place. Someone would put something on TV. Nobody had a plan. A few hours would pass.

That kind of spontaneous time with friends has mostly disappeared — not because anyone decided it should, but because modern life quietly crowded it out.

How maintaining friendships got harder

Writer Sheila Liming, in her book Hanging Out: The Radical Power of Killing Time, points to a shift that happened roughly 15 years ago. Casual socializing went from something that emerged naturally to something that requires coordination, calendar-checking, and a reason.

The numbers back it up. In 1990, 63% of Americans reported having five or more close friends. By 2021, that figure had fallen to 38%. Daily socialization with friends dropped from 38% to 28% over the same period.

Nobody opted out. Adult life just filled in.

Unstructured time is doing something

The best moments with friends rarely come from elaborate plans. They come from reading in the same room, watching something neither of you really chose, staying at the kitchen table longer than you meant to.

Liming's argument — and it holds up — is that this kind of unstructured time isn't idle. It's building the relationship, slowly and without agenda. It's where the actual social connection happens.

Your social muscles need reps

"Social skills have slackened like unused muscles," Liming writes. The less you hang out, the harder hanging out gets. The friction builds. The asks feel bigger than they should.

But the fix is simple. "A person does not excel or fail at hanging out so much as they do it or they don't."

Set the time aside. See who shows up.