How To Make Friends in Retirement
Friends are the spice of retirement life! But it's gonna take some effort...
One of the great joys of retirement is that you can do whatever you want, whenever you want! It can also be a curse, especially if you have nobody there to do it with. We’ve also learned that isolation can be as deadly as smoking a pack of cigarettes a day. Connections boost your immune system and stave off most of the ugly metabolic diseases. So cuddle up, people! Your life depends on it.
The best way to ensure you have lots of connections and people to enjoy your Third Act with is to bring them along with you from your working days. As you wind down your career, reach out to a few folks you have connected with at work and enjoyed, and see if you can bridge that relationship into a personal one. Find common interests and explore them. Go to coffee together. Ask them about their life outside of work and tell them about yours.
With the power of social media - or just Ma Bell or the Post office - you can also reconnect with old buddies. Reach out. Catch up. Meet up. Rekindle those old friendships.
But what if you’re already retired, or you’ve moved to a new town, or you just didn’t have time to “connect” in a personal way with anyone because of life that was being thrown at you in your working years? Well, then my friends, you have a new job. Your job is to find those connections and save your life - and maybe theirs. Sounds pretty noble, right? But how?
One of the reasons I say it is your new "job” is because you’re gonna have to show up and work for it. No more coasting on those work happy hours and kids’ play dates. Now, it’s up to you to create the momentum and opportunities. And, like with anything in life that’s worth doing, you’re going to have to practice over and over again and not give up. It’s going to feel like it’s all on you for a while, but, hey, you’re saving your skin, so maybe it’s worth a little extra personal effort.
Let’s start with the nuts and bolts
Where do you find these fabulous people who are worthy of your friendship? This article from VeryWell has some great ideas. The key is to go someplace that you’ll go again and again and see the same people over and over. That will help you determine which of them you are interested in getting to know better and it will help with familiarity from them when you finally do reach out to initiate a connection. Here are some of VeryWell’s suggestions: 1) Start with people that you already know but may have lost contact with on social media; 2) reach out to your neighbors; 3) join a gym, sports league or fitness class; 4) attend a MeetUp group; 5) join a club; 6) get involved at your place of worship; 7) volunteer. And I’m going to add an eighth - ask your family and friends to invite someone along when you invite them to go somewhere. I’ve found several folks that I connect with well through my friends. It makes sense. If you’re friends with them, their friends will likely have many of the same interests and values you do.
Put that ego away
Once you find a few people you’d like to be friends with, it will be on you to initiate, initiate, initiate. Maybe forever. You might start to get annoyed, or even wonder if you are bothering people, if you are the only one initiating. It may help to know that studies show that the person who gets the biggest health boost from a friendship (or any endeavor, really) is the one that puts in the effort. That’s right. In a rare instance of cosmic justice, the one who puts in the work is the one that gets the reward. So, when you are making the effort for the seventh or twelfth or 436th time, thank your tennis partner or niece (yes, family counts, too) or yoga instructor for allowing you to reach out. I’ve known most of my friends for many years and, still, I’d say I initiate at least 80% of the time - and I’m grateful for it, because my friends are still receptive to whatever I want to do and gracious about accepting those interactions.
A word to my introverted friends: I am probably one of the most introverted people I know. The best advice I have for myself (and for you) is to get over it. I know that sounds trite, but you just have to push yourself for that first initiation. Once you do that, it gets easier. And the more you practice, the easier it gets. Put it on your calendar and don’t do that thing you really want to do until you initiate contact with the person you want to talk with. Start with whatever way is easiest for you. Is it PM on Facebook? Email? Phone call? Dropping by where you know they’ll be? Whatever is the smallest hump, go over it, again and again. Sorry, but that’s the price for living a long and fruitful life.
Default to yes
Speaking of being grateful that my friends are up for whatever I want to do… sometimes when others initiate, it’s not as much fun as we thought it would be. That’s because they’re going to initiate something they want to do. What if you’re not all that keen to try Moroccan food, or hike around a lake or check out that new glass exhibit at the museum, but that’s what they want to do? The best advice I have here is default to yes. First, you’re going to get a connection boost to your immune system. Secondly, your brain likes new things. You may be helping stave off dementia. But the real reason? You don’t know what you like until you try it! Maybe Moroccan spices are your cup of “tea!” And then you’ll find yet another thing in common with this uncommon person who made the effort to ask you out.
Patience is a virtue and you want people to see your virtues, right?
You’re signing up for a marathon. Just know that going in. A researcher out of the University of Kansas did a couple of studies. Based on the results, he estimated that it takes between 40 and 60 hours to form a casual friendship, 80-100 hours to transition to being a friend and more than 200 hours together to become good friends!
So, first you have to find a few people that you have a feeling of connection with. Then you have to become acquaintances. Then you have to become friends and then, hundreds of hours later, maybe one or two become good friends. DANG! That’s a LOT of work and time and effort.
It’s soooo worth it!
I can tell you that I am having the time of my life in retirement! Just this summer, alone, I’ve done a bike race to a vineyard, a beautiful progressive dinner through an old town village, hiked some gorgeous waterfall trails, paddled out to see the bats fly from under a local bridge at dusk, hiked inn to inn, watched the sunset over the Pacific from multiple spots along the coast, and thrown an ax at some zombies. And they were all ridiculously fun activities - not only because they were amazing places and things to do, but because I did them all with amazing people! (And I think I initiated more than 80% of them.) From this side of the retirement line, I can tell you that connections absolutely make or break the time I now find myself to have. Put the work in to get ‘em! You’ll be sooooo glad you did!