The question
We meet lots of great people in our day-to-day lives: colleagues at work, fellow parents, friends-of-friends. They often will say stuff like: "We should get together some time!" Or: "You should come up to our cabin one day!" We respond: "That would be great!" But it never happens. No actual invitation ever comes. Me, I cut them some slack. I treat it as an expression of approval, a statement they like me and my family. My wife, on the other hand, considers such statements as promises to be kept, commitments that, once made, should be honoured. She is miffed when people don't make the effort and keep their word. Who's right?
The answer
As a married man, it gives me an almost unholy pleasure to be able to say: You are! Sorry to your wife, but it's a rare victory for us husbands! So let's see, the score is now: Husbands: 1. Wives: [googolplex to the power of a hundred trillion]. Vague, half-meant – or even wholly un-meant – invitations are part of the grease that keeps society's wheels turning.
For many, it's the only genteel way to get off the phone, or to extricate oneself from face-to-face conversations: "Nice chatting. And – hey, we ought to get together some time!"
Some people can get extremely specific about it: "Nice chatting with you – and hey, why don't you and Pam come over for dinner Friday? We'll make clams casino!" But as the day approaches there's an odd lack of follow-through. You try to get in touch ("Hey – we still on for Friday?"), but they don't get back to you. It used to confuse me, but eventually I came to realize: All this let's-get-together guff, no matter how specific, is often just the expression of a wish, not an intention.
In your case, the subjunctive mood of the statements is your first clue: We should get together, you ought to come to our cottage, we should have you for dinner, etc. I'm sorry if this seems schoolmarmish, but as my dictionary says: "Should has, as its most common meaning in modern English, the sense ought as in I should go, but I don't see how I can." And of course the subjunctiveness of your response seals the deal: "That would be great" (i.e., "Thanks for the positive if ultimately empty verbiage: See you around").
That's why I don't see eye-to-eye with your wife: Not only have no commitments been made, they've been specifically, if implicitly, avoided.
But as you point out, your interlocutors wouldn't bother with this friendly gum-flapping if they didn't like you, so why not nudge them a little?
Past a certain age, I've found, one has to make an effort to make a friend. And if anyone even hints at a cabin invite? I pull out a little date book with an elasticized strap around it that I carry in my pocket. So it's like:
Cottage owner: "Ha-ha, great chatting, Dave. Hey, you and Pam should come up to our cab–"
Dave (whipping out date book, snapping off strap, clicking pen): "Love to. Let me check my book. Let's see, we're free – huh, that's funny, every single weekend this summer!"
Shameless? Sure. Tragic? Perhaps. But, man, do those cottage invites dry up after you have a third kid. And let me put it this way: Which would you rather do: Sip mojitos on a dock with your new friends the Hendersons or swelter in the city with your wife grumbling about how no one ever follows up on their vague invitations? To get what you want in life, sometimes you have to go strong to the hoop. Goes for jobs, for love – and it goes for friends, too.
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