What makes a good hangout?

A few years post-college, during a Zoom call with two of the few friends I’d managed to keep from university, I admitted something that would’ve horrified my introverted college self: I wish I’d made more friends.

"I just want people I can text to do things with," I said, voicing a quiet realization all growing inside us—that adult friendships are hard, and we were starting to feel lonely.

College spoiled us. Proximity did all the work. People were just loitering in and around campus, and someone was always available for a quick lunch. One day, I was 19 and leaving my dorm at 3 a.m. to meet a friend crying in a 7-Eleven. Next thing you know, I was 22 pulling out my Google calendar to schedule a catch-up coffee date with the same friend two months in advance.

Hangout idea: Go to a convenience store and buy each other gifts exclusively bought in that convenience store. Set a budget cap of P100. Do a round of exchanging gifts afterwards.

Turns out, we weren’t alone. My confession coincided with a cultural reckoning that’s only grown louder these days—headlines declaring a "loneliness epidemic," Substack essays mourning the death of third spaces, and TikTok creators realizing that group chats, broadcast channels, and endlessly liking mutuals' stories on Instagram do not necessarily make communities. The infrastructure of friendships has collapsed, and people are starting to realize that we need to start rebuilding.

So now we have a run club in every city, dedicated offline hangouts organizers, and even startups fully focused on the idea of allowing people to meet and make friends.

The irony, of course, is that we’re starving for connection in a world that’s never been more “connected.” But wanting community isn’t enough. It's great that people seek community, but we often forget that community is also something we build. Like a muscle, social skills atrophy without use. The good news? We can relearn this. And it starts with resurrecting the art of the hangout.

Hangout idea: Give each other poetry writing prompts and speed-run writing poems in 15 minutes. Writing degrees or critical and literary theory knowledge are not required.

What does hanging out look like again?

We get it: Adulthood is hard. Between our jobs and trying to stay sane, maintaining friendships may feel like a chore. So often, when asked to hang out, we resort to what I call a “catch-up” hangout. That is, sitting across a cafe, trading stories and updates about each other's lives as if going through a meeting agenda. “How's your work? Are you still with the same company? How are you and your partner? Wait, where do you stay again?”

Hangout idea: Parallel play. Go to a cafe, bring whatever creative project you’re working on, and aim to work on that together, in silence. (Spoiler alert: You will likely talk to each other.)

These conversations, of course, aren't at all bad. In fact, they are necessary. But when every hangout starts to be like a debrief, we risk turning our friendships into an archive rather than a living thing.

Simply put: I refuse to be close to my 30s and still talking about issues from my youth, just because I share no recent memory with the person I'm hanging out with.

Hanging out can take a lot of forms and be a lot of different things, and it all doesn't have to be super serious. To maintain friendships, we need to go beyond the basics. The goal isn’t just to kill time, but to create time: to forge inside jokes that didn’t exist an hour ago, to stumble into stories we’ll retell for years. Good hangouts are about resisting the gravitational pull of adulthood—a time when connection becomes transactional, friendships are reduced to "networks," and we are so, so lonely.

Hangout idea: Casual game day as if you’re young kids running around in a subdivision who just met each other. Make sure to play games from your childhood: Ten-Twenty, Chinese Garter, and Jackstone recommended.

It makes you feel seen. And it makes you like what you see. A good hangout feels like finding a space perfectly molded to fit who you are. It allows you to hold up a mirror to your best self. Not the exhausted, LinkedIn-optimized version—but your authentic self, knowing full well that you are welcome. In effect, it helps you dispel self-doubt and realize: if these people like me, maybe I'm not so bad.

Hangout idea: Paint together with a prompt (we did "what's the other person's vibe?"). Best if one (or both) can't actually paint.

It makes you feel connected with the world. The best hangs don't let you retreat into your phone or your anxieties. They shove you into the messy, beautiful present, so you're not simply an audience looking in; it should make you feel like you're participating and engaging with something bigger than yourself. It's the difference between doomscrolling in your room under a blanket versus sitting on a picnic blanket in a park debating which among you would most likely win Pinoy Big Brother.

It makes you want a better world. The right kind of hang leaves you angry that the world isn’t kinder to the people you love. It should make you realize what community actually means. It should make you want to care about the world, imagine a better one, and work towards it.

Hangout idea: Journal together. Bring stickers, old magazines, or colored pens. Give each other journaling prompts, and share with the group whatever feels comfortable.

It is stupid fun. It reminds us that, maybe, this is the point. Not the email that reads urgent but actually isn't. Not your long list of adulthood milestones you've been working towards since you were a child. Adult life often feels unnecessarily serious; incorporating play into it might just be the key to making all of this worthwhile.

Making friends as an adult isn’t about finding your “tribe”—it’s about building it, one stupid, joyful, inconvenient hangout at a time. It’s about treating connection not as a scarcity crisis but as a creative practice. So DM that person. Plan the thing. Leave the house at 3 a.m. if you have to. The fun in friendship isn’t just in having it; it’s in the daily decision to keep making it, over and over again.