Like most others here, I needed the second nudge - as I didn't know there were non-verbal gestures for HANG LOOSE and wasn't even familiar with the phrase PEACE OUT much less know that it had a hand gesture. I had to look up the ASL sign for I LOVE YOU. (I of course knew the thumb sign for HITCHHIKING as I'm from a generation where that was still a mode of transport.)
Once I realized that the signs were all hand signs involving different fingers, my first thought was to use the positions to generate binary numbesr, but that wasn't getting me anywhere. So then I thought of the fingers as grid entry positions on the theme words, but that didn't work either.
I puzzled over the third nudge, and came back at bedtime for another look, and realizing the other grid entry on each theme entry line was five letter long, I just for the heck of it decided to apply the finger positions to these words and BINGO! That's two nights in a row that I've had late night AHA moments.
Very ingenious, and I know that I would never have come close to solving the meta without the nudges.