Examples Of Various Ways To Invite People To Hang Out

To form a social life an important step is to take the initiative to try to make plans with potential friends, and not to wait around and hope they'll invite you out first. Some people say they're not exactly sure how to ask someone to hang out. This article will give a bunch of examples of different ways to do that.

Things to know beforehand

Don't stress too much over the phrasing of your invitations

Some people who are new to inviting people out worry that they'll get rejected and be seen as creepy or desperate if they don't word their request in the exact right way. The specific phrasing you use is a small factor in whether someone will accept or not. What's more important is if they like your company, and if the get together you're proposing works for them.

Similarly, don't fret if some of the examples below seem like something you could never say. For one, conversation examples often seem clumsy. If you find yourself reading the dialogue below and thinking, "Oh, I couldn't say that. That wouldn't work. That's too forward/presumptuous/needy" then it might be more of a reflection of your overall discomfort with inviting people out and risking rejection, or your doubts about whether it would work out with a particular person. People have successfully invited friends out using all the variations I lay out below. You may want to check out this article:

Worries People Often Have About Making Friends And Plans

Methods of inviting people out

You can invite people out face to face, over the phone, by texting, by email/app message, or through a chat window. If you're arranging a larger gathering you can naturally also use a mix of these methods. I'd say one isn't better than the others. Of course, text messages can hit more people at once, and creating an event thread on a social networking app creates a spot where people can discuss and coordinate the plan. Again, what will really determine whether people accept is if they think they activity will be fun and it fits their schedule, not if you invite them out in person vs. through a text message.

The tone of the invitation

However you invite someone out, ask in a tone that suggests, "It'd be great if you came, but if not, no worries." Basically, don't come across as too pressuring. This isn't to say you need to be paranoid about seeming desperate and needy. Inviting people out is just a friendly social thing to do. But still, phrase your invitation in a casual way.

How many times should you try to invite someone out before giving up?

If you invite someone to hang out and they aren't interested they'll usually make a polite excuse each time you ask, rather than directly reject you. If it's a group event they may vaguely imply they might attend, then back out at the last second. Of course, sometimes they would be down to get together, but they truly have other plans on the day you suggested. You don't want to prematurely throw in the towel the first time they say they can't make it, but you also don't want to be oblivious and endlessly ask out someone who's giving you the runaround.

Give it about three tries, especially if they haven't made any effort to invite you to anything themselves. If you ask 3-4 times and they haven't accepted you can conclude they either aren't feeling it or they're legitimately too busy. It's a bit aggrevating, but you may never know exactly what the truth is. Either way, you should direct your friend-making energy elsewhere. Not everyone you seem to click with will be up for a closer relationship.

The "about three tries" rule is simplistic and sometimes accidentally screens out people who could have been friends, but just happened to have other plans each time you invited them out. However, if someone really wanted to befriend you they'd find a way. Most of the time the rule keeps you from wasting too much time on people who aren't a good fit.

Note that just because someone isn't up for a closer friendship with you, it doesn't necessarily mean they totally hate you. They may like chatting to you at work or at larger get togethers, but just don't think you have quite enough in common to be tighter one-on-one buddies. You don't have to start avoiding them completely. You can stay friendly on a more casual level.

The exception, where it's fine to invite someone out more often even though they rarely accept, is when you're on good terms with a busy acquaintance and you let them know about your group's get togethers. You understand they usually can't show up, but will pop into the odd party. You're fine with them not being there most of the time, but it's nice when you can catch up. You're doing them a courtesy by keeping them in the loop.

The examples

Inviting a single person out to do something one-on-one

Even though it's a really common way for two friends to spend time together, inviting someone to hang out one-on-one for the first time often makes people the most nervous. What if they say no? What if the person agrees to go out, but then things are awkward and you struggle to make conversation with each other? What if you think you'll get along with them, but aren't entirely sure? Should you risk hanging out with them anyway to find out, or just play it safe and not ask in the first place?

If you do go ahead and invite them out, here are some examples of ways you could do it. Assuming the other person is inclined to accept your invitation, each way probably works as well as the others. It depends more on the context you've gotten to know them in than anything. If I had to pick one way though, I'd go with the Suggesting A Specific Plan option. That puts it all on the table right away, and the other person has to accept or bow out.

What you ask them to do will depend on what you sense they'd be interested in doing. Like for one person, in one situation, it may seem totally natural to invite them over to your place to hang out the first time you get together. With someone else you may get the feeling that wouldn't be as appropriate:

Open-ended invitation

Here you're gauging their interest in hanging out. If they say yes, then you can work out the details soon after (one mistake to avoid is getting a "yes", and then leaving them hanging by not following through).

Open-ended, but a little more specific

Here you're presenting a somewhat more solid plan, but you're still leaving it a bit open about when you'll do it.

If you make a more general offer to hang out, and the other person isn't interested, they may say something like, "Yeah sure, maybe we could do that sometime soon", but then they'll change the subject and won't follow up later. They'll be "busy" if you try to nail them down in the future. The other way they could turn you down would be to say, "Hm, maybe... I don't know. I'm kind of busy these days" when you initially ask.

On the other hand, they may actually be up for hanging out, but you've just caught them in a hectic patch of their lives. You could always try again later. Usually you'll have a clearer answer once you've asked about three times. You can ask a second time fairly soon, then if they still say no, give it some time before trying once or twice more. If they still can't make it either they're politely brushing you off, or they've shown they've got too much going on to have time for new or closer friends.

Specific

This is when your suggestion is pretty solid. The other person has to consider your invitation and let you know their answer fairly soon.

Here the person may turn you down by pointing out some aspect of the proposed plan that doesn't work for them ("Oh, I have to work that night", "I've got plans to see that movie with my boyfriend", "I don't know... I don't have much money to spend on concerts these days.") Of course, this is totally confusing because their excuse may be legitimate. Again, you'll get a better sense of their intentions once you've invited them to hang out a couple of times.

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Immediate / spontaneous

This is when you ask them to do something with you right now, or fairly soon. It can feel a little less nerve-racking to invite someone out this way. When you suggest something spontaneously you can't always expect they'll be available to go, so it doesn't sting as much if they say no. You can also save face because you can play the whole thing off like it was some idea that just popped into your head, rather than that you've been planning for two weeks to ask them to hang out, and you ever so hope they like you.

What not to do: Asking if someone is free at a certain time without telling them what you have in mind

For example, "Are you free this Sunday?", "Yep", "Do you want to see a movie?" This approach can make people act cagey and evasive. They figure you want to invite them out, but don't know if it's to something they'd be interested in, so they'll hesitate to say they're free for fear of feeling "trapped" into accepting if they admit they're available. At worst they'll get flustered and lie about being busy, just to guard against the off chance that you'll try to corner them into an event they don't want to go to. It's better to lead off with the activity you have in mind.

Inviting a group of people to hang out

The group you're inviting out could be close friends, and you're trying to join their clique. Or everyone could be fairly new to each other, and you're doing your part to try to form a new social circle. The actual act of inviting a group out is similar to asking a single person. Some people also find trying to organize a group event less scary, since if it doesn't work out the rejection is more diffuse. It feels like the suggestion itself fizzled, rather than one person specifically declining to spend time with you. Everyone wasn't just turning you down either, they were also saying they didn't want to spend time with each other (you can even phrase invitations as "We're doing X, want to come?"). Alternatively, some people find extending an invitation to a group more stressful, since if their suggestion goes nowhere they feel like a whole bunch of people is passing judgment on them.

What's different with group invitations is what happens after they start considering the plan. When you invite one person out they either say yes or no. If they say yes then you've only go to work out the specifics of the get together with them. When you invite a group more goes into getting the plan fleshed out. Some people may say yes, some might say no. The plan may go through a few different permutations before everyone agrees on it.

Open-ended

Semi-specific

Specific

Immediate / Spontaneous

Inviting one or more people to do something with your existing friends

If you don't have much of an existing social circle you can't do this. However, if you have this option it's probably the lowest stakes way to extend someone an invitation. You're not asking from any kind of position of neediness. If anything you're the one offering them an opportunity. If they say no, you were still going to hang out with your other friends anyway. If you're not sure if you'll click with someone you're also not stuck with them one-on-one if it turns out you really don't have much chemistry. They may even feel the same way, and know they can chat to your friends if the two of don't have much to say to each other as you might have thought.

If you go this route, someone may turn you down just because they're not comfortable with the idea of meeting a whole bunch of people they don't know. Not everyone's good at that kind of thing.

Inviting an existing friend who you haven't seen in a while to hang out

Once they've hung out with someone a few times, and the new friendship feels more solid, I think most people are okay with making further invitations. One place where they can get nervous is if they haven't talked to someone in a while. Even after as little as a few weeks they may feel weird contacting them again and seeing if they want to do something. They may worry about whether the relationship has changed, or if the pause in contact has had a negative effect. Most of those worries don't amount to much though, and inviting them to hang out again is pretty straightforward. You can quickly acknowledge you haven't spoken in a bit, then ask them to do something like you normally would.

This article covers a similar topic:

How To Get Back In Touch With An Old Friend Or Acquaintance

Inviting yourself to someone's event

It's mainly in another article that I cover the tricky issue of inviting yourself to things. Basically, you've got to be careful, but there are times when it can be okay to do it. For example, if you've been getting along with someone in one of your classes, and he mentions often getting together with some friends to play card games every week, and gives the impression it's an "everybody is welcome" kind of thing, you could say something like, "So you and your friends play cards every Saturday, right? I'm actually into that too. Would it be okay if I joined you one day?"