We should hang out sometime. We must catch up soon. Let us grab a coffee one of these days. Adults say these sentences constantly and act on them almost never. The phrase feels warm and friendly, and it is precisely designed to fail. Understanding why is the key to actually seeing people.
Vague plans commit no one
The core problem is that sometime is not a time. A vague plan asks nothing of either person, points to no calendar, and creates no obligation, so it drifts indefinitely with nothing to anchor it. Both people leave feeling good about the warm intention, and both quietly assume the other will make it concrete, and so it never happens. The vagueness that makes it easy to say is exactly what makes it impossible to keep.
The diffusion of responsibility
There is a second trap. When a plan is left open, neither person is clearly responsible for making it real, and shared responsibility tends to become nobody's responsibility. Each waits for the other to follow up. In a Mumsnet thread on feeling friendless, people describe exactly this, endless we-should-meet-up energy that dissolves because no one ever proposes an actual date, and the fix everyone lands on is to be the one who names a specific plan.
Specific plans get kept
The remedy is almost embarrassingly simple: replace the vague with the concrete. Instead of we should grab coffee sometime, say are you free for coffee Thursday after class? A specific day, time, and activity gives the other person something real to say yes or no to, and it assigns the responsibility clearly, to you, the person proposing. Concrete plans get kept because they exist; vague ones do not because they never quite do.
Why this matters for friendship
It is not just etiquette. Friendship is built on accumulated hours together, and University of Kansas research suggests it takes around 50 hours to reach casual friendship and far more to get close. Those hours only accumulate through plans that actually happen. Every vague non-plan is an hour that never gets banked, which is why people who traffic only in sometime end up wondering why their friendships never deepen.
Make it easy to say yes
A specific plan works even better when it is small and low-friction: a concrete time, a convenient place, a modest ask. Coffee near your office on Friday morning is easier to accept than a vague grand outing, and easier plans get kept. Pair the specific with the small, and your invitations become the ones people actually follow through on.
When you get a vague reply
Sometimes you propose something and the other person answers with a vague that would be lovely, we should sort something. Do not take that as a plan; take it as your cue to pin it down. Great, how about next Tuesday? often turns a polite deflection into an actual meeting, because many people default to vagueness and just need someone to supply the specifics.
Why we default to vagueness
It is worth understanding why the vague version is so tempting, because that helps you resist it. Saying we should hang out sometime feels warm while risking nothing, since there is no specific ask to be turned down. A concrete are you free Thursday? exposes you to a possible no, and the fear of that small rejection is exactly what keeps people hiding behind sometime. The vagueness is a shield.
But the shield is also a wall. By protecting yourself from the tiny sting of a declined coffee, you guarantee the coffee never happens, which is the larger loss. Naming a specific time takes a little courage precisely because it makes the invitation real, and real is the only kind that turns into friendship.
Once you see the vague plan for what it is, a friendly-sounding way of never actually meeting, it becomes much easier to catch yourself mid-sentence and swap in a real proposal. That small habit, repeated, quietly transforms how often you actually see the people you like.
So retire we should hang out sometime from your friendship vocabulary and replace it with a day and a time. It is one of the smallest changes with the biggest effect on your social life. The American Psychological Association notes that friendships can be made at any age, but only through plans that become real. For getting the first ask right, see the first invitation, and for making plans stick, read how to make plans people show up for. Turning intentions into real time together is central to How to Make Friends as a Grown-Up.
Want the full, step-by-step version?
Everything here is drawn from How to Make Friends as a Grown-Up and its four companions: the plan, the message vault, reading the room, and deepening friendships.
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