In a world of overbooked calendars, the most radical thing we can do is flop on a couch with a friend and do absolutely nothing.

Everyone is booked, busy, burnt out and just a bit too “on their grind” to loiter on a couch for three hours with friends, collectively accomplishing absolutely nothing. We have exchanged spontaneous Tuesday night hangs for colour-coded Google Calendars, replaced cozy half-silences with “quick FaceTime updates” and turned our social lives into a series of meticulously planned events that require group chats, Doodles, and a committee. It is time to bring back the casual hang.

The casual hang was a vibe, not a planned ordeal. You would roll into your friend’s place unannounced, bringing chips you half ate on the walk over and collapse on the couch like a Victorian widow. Sometimes you would just scroll beside each other in silence, occasionally holding up a meme that popped up on your feed. There was no agenda, dress code, or pressure. 

Somewhere along the way, we lost the plot. Maybe it was the pandemic, which surgically removed all spontaneity from our lives and made “just hanging out” feel like an Olympic event involving health declarations and risk assessments. Maybe it was the productivity mentality blasting about how every hour must be optimized, monetized or turned into content. Maybe we just forgot how to be boring together — and how lovely that can be.

Do not get me wrong, I live for a good dinner reservation or game night. Sometimes, what your soul needs is not another calendar invite — it is someone who will watch three hours of meme compilations with you in pajama pants and not ask you how your thesis is going.

The casual hang is a radical act of anti-performativity. It says, “I like being around you even when we have nothing to say.” It lets you unspool from the performative pressure of having an update every time you see someone, allowing friendships to exist in the in-between moments, not just at parties or planned outings. Hanging out for the sake of hanging out is a reminder that being together is the point — not the activity, not the location, not the Instagram story afterward.

The casual hang does not demand anything from you, as you do not need to be witty or interesting. You just need to show up, flop and vibe. Maybe you will order takeout and spiral about life, or rewatch a movie you’ve both seen ten times. Maybe you’ll sit in silence for forty minutes while one of you plays the same three chords on a ukulele and the other does a dumb online personality quiz. You are not wasting time, you are watering the roots of your friendship.

This form of low-stakes intimacy is especially crucial in university, when everything else in your life feels like it comes with a grade, a due date or a resume bullet point. Your time is already sliced into lectures, readings, jobs, volunteering and the ever-looming anxiety of your future. You need a space where time melts a little and no one is keeping score. Where you can exhale and be a person, not a student.

The casual hang is not just for extroverts. In fact, it might be the shy person’s favorite love language. There is no need to perform for a group or mingle with strangers. It is the intimacy of being seen without the glare of social expectations. Just a couch, a friend and maybe a half-dead houseplant watching you from the corner like a silent third roommate. The casual hang is recession-proof, as you do not need to spend money. You do not need to go anywhere in particular — these hangouts thrive in imperfect spaces. 

Bringing it back will take some courage, as it requires us to deprogram ourselves from thinking that every interaction must have a purpose. We must stop treating our friends like colleagues we need to schedule meetings with three weeks in advance. We must stop apologizing for our messy homes, our low energy and our lack of productivity. We must show up exactly as we are, and trust that that is enough.

We also need to romanticize the mundane again. Light a candle and just sit on the floor. Make a weird little snack plate with one sad pickle, half a block of cheese, and stale crackers. Play a stupid game you made up on the spot. Tell your friend to bring over whatever thing they have been meaning to return for six months. Wear your ugliest hoodie. Be a teenager again and be soft.

What is ironic is that casual hangs are where the magic happens. They are where inside jokes are born, where real talks sneak in under the guise of goofiness, where you remember that life does not need to be “going well” to be good. They are where you learn the shape of your friends’ silences, and the soundtrack of their laugh when they are not trying to be funny. They are where friendship stops being something you “maintain” and starts being something you live in. It is time to normalize hanging out without plans, without makeup, without a reason.