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MY COLLEGE BUDDY Joe really looked forward to retirement. But in the weeks and months following his last day of work, he began to realize he didn’t have a core group of friends with whom to share his newfound freedom. Those he counted as friends were simply friendly workplace acquaintances. And several people who he thought might become deeper friends were still busy working and couldn’t “come out to play.”
So, after retiring two years ago, Joe briefly returned to work, in part for the social interaction. He also had a better understanding of the need to nurture friendships outside of work and to rethink what retirement meant to him.
The social aspect of retirement is more important than many of us assume. Loneliness is not something we want to face in our later years. Some quiet time is needed, but healthy solitude is not the same as loneliness. As author Arthur C. Brooks notes, “The kind of people who don’t know how to manage social interactions (i.e. friendships) outside of work get lonelier when they retire—and that describes a lot of successful people I know.”
You may discover once you retire that you don’t have many real friends. Instead, you have what Brooks calls “deal friends,” people you’re frequently in touch with during the course of your career, where there’s a professional bond but no deeper connection. These people aren’t part of the friend group you’d call if you were in trouble.
In May 2023, Surgeon General Dr. Vivek Murthy reported that chronic loneliness in the U.S. poses health risks as deadly as smoking up to 15 cigarettes a day, costing the health industry billions of dollars annually. In declaring the latest public health epidemic, Murthy said, “There’s really no substitute for in-person interaction. As we shifted to use technology more and more for our communication, we lost out on a lot of that in-person interaction.”
If your target age range for retirement is your mid-60s, there’s a better-than-50% chance you’ll live more than 20 to 25 years in retirement. That’s a large window of time either to face loneliness—or to take control and start cultivating deep, valuable friendships.
Start strengthening your social network now by connecting with current friends and family, engaging more frequently in activities you enjoy, and building new and deeper relationships. Here are three ideas to consider:
If you opt for a phased approach to retirement, winding down your working days gradually rather than suddenly, you should start these practices now and increase them over time.
My friend Joe is now in year two of his second attempt at retirement. This one looks like it’ll take. He’s met some wonderful people by volunteering at an education-based nonprofit. He’s part of a couple of groups that meet weekly to discuss books or just to socialize. And he’s risked exploring deeper topics and sharing more of himself, and has been rewarded with some meaningful friendships.
Dan McDermott is an information technology executive in Minneapolis. He and his wife Sarah split their time between Minnesota and Arizona. They have two grown children. Dan works hard to learn about cryptocurrency from his son and Instagram from his daughter. Going for a long, leisurely run is his precious thinking time. Check out Dan’s blog, as well as his earlier articles for HumbleDollar.
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Agree. It is very hard to keep in touch with past colleagues, particularly if you move to another location. I find my move to 55+ community made it very easy to create a new social network.
Yes, a move makes it tough as you sever some of the relationships in an area. I’ve heard from others that 55+ (or similar) communities are like starting college. No one is “from” there, many are of similar ages and interests…and everyone wants to know where you’re from, whether you’re still working, and what your interests are. You meet some friends…then you meet their friends…and so on.
Your observations are correct, but I see two factors involved.
Don’t pick an age as a target to retire, you may or may not be ready. Wait until you know it’s time regardless of age. You may be retired over a shorter, but happier number of years.
You will be the same person before and after retirement. If you need a lot of people around to make you happy, that won’t change. Personally, I don’t.
I am happy talking with strangers in a coffee shop. I take my wife’s priest out to lunch, just to talk. He calls me his token Presbyterian. I tell him his homilies are too long and urge him to talk about QCDs if he needs more revenue for the church.
Work “friends” will disappear, don’t plan otherwise.
On the plus side while we downsized to a 55+ condo community, it is less than a mile from our home of 45 years so we have all our long-time friends and acquaintances and we have made a few new friends as well.
I think you could write an entire post about how to know when “it’s time!” And you’re spot on that you’re going to be the same person pre and post-retirement. I love your examples – and it sounds like with your living arrangements you truly have the best of both worlds.
I did, stand by
This is one reason I moved to a CCRC. I moved in in October and have met lots of people, some of whom are becoming friends. I also have a small group of friends I did meet through work, although we never actually worked on the same projects. I realized well before I retired that there is a difference between a colleague and a friend.
Thanks for the comment, and the delineation of ‘colleague vs. friend.’ I’m not as familiar with Continuing Care Retirement Communities (CCRCs) so I’m glad you shared your experience – I’m going to learn more.
You might start with these HumbleDollar articles:
https://humbledollar.com/2022/03/life-care-compared/
https://humbledollar.com/2023/02/continuing-care/
Dan, thanks for an interesting and well-written article.My observations of work friendships match your article. One of the keys is making an effort to stay in touch, especially if you are out of phase with some friends. My wife and I have moved twice since in the past 3 years, and making friends is a challenge.
Ah, I appreciate that, Rick. We should strive to be the one who initiates conversations, lunches, etc. with friends. And we shouldn’t ‘keep score’ in terms of who’s being the catalyst; we should just enjoy getting together and invariably we’ll hear, “You’re so good at staying in touch with others.”
Thanks for this article, Dan. The idea that stands out to me is “the friend group you’d call if you were in trouble.” It takes time and effort to develop that group. We also have to be willing to reciprocate. A friend is a person you’re willing to let inconvenience you.
Thanks for the comment, Edmund. I’ve found that we also need to be vulnerable enough to ASK others for help. We’re so tuned to do it ourselves, and yet asking others for help can endear us and deepen the friendship.
Yes, thanks for saying that. It’s part of letting down the barriers to let a friendship deepen. It takes some humility. I’ve not always set a good example.
I’ve often thought our local church member directory, in addition to pictures of old people and their contact information, should have brief bios of what those people did in their former professional lives. This would create easy “conversation starters” for seeking out those with similar interests. As I look out over our congregation, I realize everyone there has a wonderful story to tell.
Arthur Brooks was a noted French horn player in Barcelona, I think, in an earlier life. That would be it for me.
I didn’t know that about Arthur (or forgot). I once attended the same church as him and his family. I’m thinking Barcelona may have been where he met his lovely wife (or the reason he was in Barcelona). Such an interesting and upbeat man.
I was able to nix that idea after I saw that go bad at another organization I was involved with. Some folks didn’t want to be identified by what they did, others viewed their jobs as a means to an end and didn’t identify with their job, and others used a directory like that to “rank” people by importance based on their previous job.
Maybe writing your own bio would work. Share as much or as little about yourself as you want. And certainly make it an option.