We should hang out sometime

At some point everyone else learned what “we should hang out soon” means. It means goodbye. It is the verbal equivalent of waving as you pull out of the driveway.

Nobody told me that.

I spent years following up. Genuinely. “Hey, you mentioned coffee — I’ve been meaning to text you.” I sent those texts. I thought that was the protocol: you say the thing, I hold the thing, I follow up. That’s how you stay connected to people. That’s how it works.

Except it doesn’t work that way. The “we should hang out” is not an invitation. It is not even a deferred invitation. It fills the end of a good conversation the way filler music fills a closing ceremony. Polite noise that means: this was nice, I’m leaving now. I wish you well.

I didn’t know. I really didn’t know.

There’s a specific embarrassment in looking back at all the times I followed up on that sentence and heard nothing. Or the kind “sounds good, maybe next month!” that also meant nothing. I learned something each time but slowly, slowly. Even now, when someone says it warmly, I feel the pull of taking it literally. She seemed like she meant it. And then she didn’t mean it.

The ones who actually mean it, I can usually tell now. They say something specific. They name a date or a place or a concrete reason. “I want to hear more about that situation — can we grab lunch?” That’s different. That’s a thing.

What I can’t do is stop minding that the vaguer version exists at all. “We should hang out!” Why say it? Why not just say “good to see you” and leave? The true version is mild and manageable. It’s the false warmth that undoes me.

I know the NT argument. Convention. Warmth. Fine.

But for forty-seven years I was handed language and took it to mean what it said. So when you hand me language that doesn’t mean what it says, I have to run the whole reverse-engineering project again. And now I’m also angry about it. And I know I’m being unreasonable. And neither of those things makes the project shorter.

It means goodbye.

I still hate it.