My daughter’s college a Capella group sings this song called Just Friends – maybe you know it. It’s about a guy who wants to get to know a girl, and in the refrain he says —

You ain’t even really gotta be my girlfriend
I just wanna know your name and maybe some time
We can hook up, hang out, just chill

That’s nice. If he can’t have her as a girlfriend, he just wants to spend time with her (well, and also hook up with her, but skip that part for now – I’m talking about the other part). You know, he just wants to hang out together, as friends. He values being with her, just chillin’.

Those were the days. I remember those days and I miss them – the social part I mean – in college (and to a degree early adulthood) – when social life was dominated by just hanging out together. The whole thing happened organically, a product (I surmise), of a somewhat unique confluence of environmental conditions and the developmental traits of college students.

First, dorm living placed us in very close proximity to one another. That made it ridiculously easy to socialize with others. It also imposed an intimacy that quickly forced us beyond first impressions or appearances – let’s face it, once someone has seen you stumble to the bathroom at 7 a.m. donning ratty sleeping-sweats and raging bedhead, you can’t really impress them anymore.

We adults on the other hand, live in increasing isolation from one another, cordoned off in the privacy of our claimed personal spaces – our homes – where chance encounters with others are few and far between. We, instead, must intentionally plan and orchestrate most of our social experiences, and we usually don’t schedule them to take place until we’ve at least showered.

Second, we were (most of us) very busy. Socializing was something that had to be squeezed into already packed academic, extracurricular, exercise, and other schedules. It was a priority, but had to be achieved with efficiency. Hanging out is an extremely efficient way to socialize.

Wait a minute. Our adult selves are just as busy – no, way more busy than our college selves. That’s interesting. More on that later.

Third, we had no money, no space, and no stuff. College kids are generally cash-poor, have no access to well-equipped kitchens or dining rooms, and mostly rely on paper plates and plastic forks for food presentation and service. Aside from on-campus parties, the social experience was notably simple and sparse – we just hung out. No one was going to plan and prepare some gourmet feast, meticulously presented on chi chi china in some perfectly appointed house-and-garden setting because, well, we had no money, no space, and no stuff.

Compared to our younger selves, we adults have more money, more space and more stuff. Hmm. Also very interesting. A clue, I would say.

Fourth, we were unattached. The only significant relationships vying for our time on a day to day basis, were with our friends.

As adults, if we’re married, our spouses (and later, our children), occupy the center of our emotional and social lives.   Choosing to hang out informally with friends suddenly involves a negotiation concerning the needs of others and the demands of family life. The informality and spontaneity of social life as it existed before, just becomes more difficult in the context of a family unit.

Finally, we were still basically kids when we were in college. Developmentally, college kids remain largely unadulterated . . . literally. By this I mean, they haven’t yet been exposed to, let alone absorbed the unwritten social canon that operates in the mental backgrounds of most adults. They just get out there and engage, for the sake of mutual social pleasure, period. They’ve not yet succumbed to adult ideas and patterns of social life – patterns that seem sometimes to value the trappings of the social experience more so than the quantity or quality of the experience.

When did we learn this? Why do we feel we have to plan and prepare, perhaps seek to impress, or at the very least meet some imagined standard that typically involves an offering of well-prepared food, a variety of alcoholic and non-alcoholic beverage options, a spic and span house, and a thoughtfully (if not fashionably) put-together outfit? When did hanging out somehow turn into entertaining?

I don’t know about you, but I don’t want to entertain my friends. I don’t want to impress them. I just want to be with them.

(Note: This is not a knock on entertaining. Entertaining can be great fun, for hosts and guests. But entertainment does not cultivate real intimacy, and therefore cannot form the backbone of a truly fulfilling social life. Hanging out, on the other hand, very much can.)

So I do yearn (in these ways), for the social life of my youth — the way it was before busy, complicated, adult life came along. I yearn for the time when we had neither the means nor the inclination to entertain, but we did have every inclination to hang out.

And therein lays the irony . . . that just as our lives become more demanding, we compound the problem by assuming even more demanding social habits. If you’re like me, you then end up socializing less, because the whole thing sometimes feels like just too much effort. We would be much better served by sticking to our original approach, because hanging out is super simple and way less demanding than entertaining is. It’s perfect for busy, time-strapped people. It requires no preparation, no cash, and no real work. Just time together — talking, laughing, complaining, catching up . . . minimally-planned, always underdressed. Food? Sure, all I have right now are these potato chips and some carrots. House a mess? I’ll move this stuff off the couch so you have a place to sit. You’re tired so you might not stay long? No worries, I can relate. Glad you stopped by.

This is honest, in-the-moment, no expectations socializing . . . a.k.a. hanging out. It’s not about getting it just so, or feeling obligated, or living up to anything . . . it’s about the fact of being together. Period.

That’s a beautiful thing.

We adults, (some of us anyway) somehow lose this essential concept as we navigate adult life, and it’s a whopper of a loss. But while we may not be able to exactly replicate the special situational chemistry that led to hanging out in college, we can get there another way — by making intentional choices to do things differently.

If you are among the very fortunate who have figured out how to maintain the spontaneity and informality of a college-like social life in your adult years, I congratulate you. Keep it up and treasure it, as I’m sure you do.

If you are like me, and have lost touch with the art of hanging out, I hope you (and I) can, as the song goes, get ourselves back to the garden. It’s where real living lives, and where real friendship has the opportunity to bloom.