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It occurred to me that, as an adult, I feel I need a reason to invite friends over. My wife thinks this is pitiful. I invited a couple of friends over for a curry and a boardgame night - it was a fine evening - but without that reason of having a shared activity, I'd never have done it.
Jusy wondered if I'm alone in this, and if there's any men out there who DO invite male friends over with no plans or expectations for the evening?
Pic unrelated.
I suppose it depends on your definitions of reason and plan. You don't need to have something very formal, but you need to be able to answer the question "what are we doing?". That way, they can decide if they want to be part of it. You also don't want obvious boredom, where everyone's sitting around with nothing to do.
Your "plan" can be as simple as inviting the guys over to hang out and drink beer. You let the night go wherever it does. If everyone wants to play a board game, or go to the bar, or get Taco Bell, or go to a strip club, just let it happen. And if everyone is happy hanging out and drinking beer, that's great too.
My friend: “So, what are we doing?”
Me: “Niksen”
Friend: “Count me in!”
Boredom is not in itself a bad thing. Stop being chronically amused.
Yup, I do.
Mind you, I tend to know that when I do so, there's going to be some kind of group activity, even if that's most sitting around and complaining about shit lol. Normally, it also means I'll cook something up, so there's the assumption on my part, and my friends' parts that it's also an invite to a meal. Enough so that I only bring food up when I'm not going to be cooking.
Hell, 99% of the time, there's an exchange of, "yeah, of course! Want me to bring anything?", "Nah, just your appetite and any booze you want." Not always word for word, but it'll be close.
But, fuck yeah. I'll send out a group text, or e-mails, and ask if they want to hang at my place. No plans at the time, just wanting to enjoy the company of a friend group. Any plans get made after that. Like, maybe someone will bring a movie, or a game or whatever, but it's about being together, not the activity. The activity just serves to keep us in one place instead of roaming the house and yard the way we do when we aren't doing a single thing as a group.
But my three main friend groups (and they do include women, except for one of those, but I think it still fits), we're fine just ambling through the back yard, sipping whatever, and bullshitting.
Same with individual friends too.
Now, when me and my wife are hosting another couple, it's almost always a planned thing where they're invited specifically for a meal, followed by the chatting and whatever. Dunno why, but that's the way it happens lol.
This is why the British have tea.
"Comin over for a brew?" Is an invitation to come over with zero plans. Might be video games, might be TV and chat, might end up having a BBQ. Could be whatever, just come hang out.
This is how it was for me in college, but "brew" meant beer. At some point it seems me and my friends all mutually decided we can only hang out if we're doing something specific, and I think we've all suffered for that.
In Finland it's coffee. So a Finn inviting you over for coffee is actually an invitation to just hang casually, not an euphemism for some afternoon delight.
I've started asking my friends if they wanna run errands with me. Sometimes they do, sometimes they don't.
In reverse, I'd gladly run errands with them as an excuse to hang out.
That's what we did when we were younger. Idk why it stopped. Friends would just be like
"Want to hang out today?"
"Well, I have to run some errands. Want to come?"
"Sounds good."
"Okay, come over and we'll go do something."
And that was that. You'd just do whatever, and it was fun.
yeah it was fun
Fuck
I feel like this is just semantics?
Your wife has friends over surely - what do they come for? "a chat", "a coffee", a "catch up"? Isn't that an event and expectation too? It's just vaguer.
It's no different - it's just you hang yours around activities or shared experiences because that's how you and your friends operate.
it is how we operate, but also there's little expectation of a catch up. We can talk all evening and be none the wiser as to what's up in each others lives, much to the chagrin of the women in my life who ask for such details
We didn't need the pic as a reason to read your post.
App I'm using insisted I upload a pic to be able to post, and that one was just my most recent one with nobody's face in.
I was just trying to make a joke by highlighting the mirror between your statement that you need a reason to invite friends over, and the unrelated picture being an additional "reason" to read your post.
I'm terrible at jokes though, but I amuse myself. Carry on.
I did
You don't need a reason, but if you insist: Did it ever occur to you that "I feel like partying" is a valid reason?
Honestly, no. It didn't occur to me!
I call them up to just hang out, just like I did 20+ years ago. Virtually unchanged. Having a reason always adds the pressure of needing to be prepared for whatever. Sometimes I'm not in the mood to do jack shit, but still want company. Luckily my friends all aged very gracefully, so we all have plenty of time next to work and family commitments in our 40s.
I'm jealous... I'm no longer even contact with any of my school-friends, bar one who lives abroad. There's an occasional reunion when we all travel to London for drinks and dinner, but that's it
They are not necessarily the same people, I just maintained the general approach to contacting new folks just like I did back in school, and so far it's working out nicely.