I haven’t had the chance to hang out with friends in person that much over the past year. For most of the past year, I have had to restrict hangouts to be with friends that I know are isolating as much as I am or doing something outside when we feel safe that there wouldn’t be a crowd. But since it felt so risky, even with the options I had, I rarely saw people in person and instead did things over Zoom. And even though the CDC says it’s safe for me to hang out with a friend since I’m fully vaccinated (and some of my friends are starting to be vaccinated too), I’m still being very cautious. I’m trying to ease my way back into normal life, but I’m hesitant too. But I’m really trying.
And a big part of trying is planning more hangouts with friends in person. I’m still being careful with which friends I’m seeing in person, but fortunately, I do have friends who live nearby that I can see that I know are being safe too. So earlier this week, my friend Dani and I planned a hangout. We’ve been able to see each other a few times in person over the past year since she’s one of the few people I know who is being cautious at a similar level as I have been. And most of the time we’ve been hanging out, we say we are going to watch a movie or order in food. Something simple, but something that feels like a treat these days.
So when we decided to hang out this week, that was pretty much our plan. Watch a movie and order some delivery food. But somehow, our evening didn’t go the way we planned and that almost made it better.
When Dani was trying to leave her place to come over, there was some police activity on her street. There was no way for her to leave. This was something serious, but at the same time, it made me laugh because it was so crazy and something that somehow felt like it was exactly like how some of our adventures in the past have started. Everything was ok and she was able to leave, but I think it started the evening off on a weird note and that just continued.
When she got to my house, we were going to figure out what movie to watch but also spent time catching up on our lives. Both of us had things to update the other on, and I randomly remembered something while we were talking. I have started to watch things on TikTok. They are random and weird at times, but I’ve been enjoying them too. Sometimes I learn something really cool, but for the most part, it’s just entertainment. And there was something on TikTok the night before that reminded me of Dani. It was this toy called Mini Brands, which had perfect miniatures of brand-name grocery products. The way you purchased them, what you got was a mystery. So collecting all the different items was something a lot of people were into. I had a feeling Dani would like seeing them, and I was right! And then we decided we needed to find some!
We found that they were available at Target, so she ordered a few online and said that we’d go to Target to pick them up. While waiting for the Target order to be ready, we ordered in dinner (we got dinner from one restaurant and dessert from another, which felt really fancy). And she got the notification from Target right when we were done eating, so we got into my car to head over there.
On the drive home, we were talking about what items we hoped would be inside. Neither of us knew what all the options were, so we were guessing a lot of random things. And as soon as we were back at my house, Dani opened everything up. Fortunately, there was a checklist in there so I was able to check off each one that she got and we could make better guesses about what else might be in there.
Opening up mystery mini grocery items sounds really odd, but honestly it was so much fun. And it was beyond random and weird, but that’s something I haven’t gotten to do in a long time. I miss having a plan to do something and it turn into something totally different but equally awesome. I miss having something outside the norm happening in my life. So often I’ve had random adventures and I didn’t realize until the other day how normal the randomness became in my life in the past. I’ve missed so much over the past year, and this was something I didn’t realize I was missing until I got to experience it again. But it made me so happy.
All of the mini things that Dani got were super cute, and she only got 2 duplicates. And somehow a lot of the things we were randomly guessing she’d get were things that she ended up getting!
We kept saying how these were so pointless but so amazing, and I think that’s the best description of them. But these amazing pointless things also brought us both so much joy, so I think that makes them totally worth it!
Even though the original plan was to watch a movie, we didn’t end up watching anything. We were busy being silly with the Mini Brand things and just talking and hanging out. But it was exactly what I needed. For a lot of the hangouts I’ve had over the past year, they have almost felt like an event. They were for something specific that felt special or I had to do things to be prepared first. But this hangout was so normal and casual. As much as I need more in-person hangouts with friends, I need them to be random nights like this one was just as much. I need hanging out with others to not feel like a big deal. It’s something normal to do and I need to be back in that mindset.
I do have a few more things planned with friends that are a bit more of event type hangouts, but this random hangout has also motivated me to continue to find out who else I can hang out with so I can have more normal friend time like this.
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Seeing Friends In Random Places (or Unscheduled Hangouts)
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Remembering To Have Some Fun (or Hangouts Don’t Always Have To Be Events)
Such An LA Night (or Just Having Some Fun With A Friend)
Remembering To See My Friends (or Actually Scheduling Hangouts)
