Strong social connections are vital to our overall wellbeing, but meeting people and making new friends in our later years is harder than when we were young. Read on for practical tips and ideas for growing and maintaining your social network in retirement.
How your social portfolio impacts your retirement wellbeing discussed the growing loneliness problem and the importance of a well-rounded social portfolio on our health and happiness in retirement. It also outlined steps in a social portfolio review.
How making new friends changes with age
Think back to your childhood best friend. How did you meet? Chances are you went to school together, lived on the same street, or met through a shared activity like a sports team or music lessons.
When you’re a child, most friendships arise out of proximity. Life puts you in regular contact with people you have things in common with.
I met my childhood bestie when she sat beside me in school because our names were next to each other alphabetically. We had to sit together every day, so we soon became friends. It was so easy.
As we get older, it’s not so easy to meet people and make new friends. In her book The Let Them Theory, Mel Robbins suggests adult friendships don’t just happen. You have to create them. But how do you do that?
Robbins suggests building the habit of going first. Her tips include complimenting people everywhere you go, or smiling and saying hello when you’re out and about, and doing this with no expectations.
Robbins makes it sound simple, and it might be for the more extroverted among us. On the other hand, people who are naturally shy or introverted like my husband and daughter would rather die than approach a complete stranger.
Side-by-side or face-to-face connections
I recently attended a session on social connection at a workplace wellbeing conference. Speaker Brett Powell of the American Institute for Preventative Medicine discussed how social connections have shrunk dramatically over a generation, largely because the structure and institutions that once facilitated them have disappeared.
A generation ago, people made friends through clubs, churches, and union halls. These institutions no longer hold the same importance in our world that they once did.
Powell suggested that men connect more naturally side by side over a shared activity, game or task. That shared experience opens the door to emotional depth and connection. Women, on the other hand, connect face to face, through conversation, and don’t necessarily need a shared task to bring them together.
Reflecting on Powell’s observations, I believe that the preference for connecting through side-by-side activity extends beyond the male population. Gender aside, introverts—and even some extroverts—may need a shared activity or task to break the ice.
With that in mind, let’s look at some ideas for making new friends.
Tips for making new friends
You won’t make friends sitting at home alone. It might be difficult, but you need to make an effort to get out where people are. Here are five tips for making new friends.
Start saying yes to invitations
A good place to start is saying yes to invitations and social events. If work lunches, neighbourhood gatherings, and parties intimidate you or bore you to death, think of them as an opportunity to meet new people.
Seek out activities that interest you
Libraries, community centres, churches, community colleges and universities offer a regular schedule of events, and many of them are free. Find something that interests you and sign up.
Volunteering for a cause you care about is another terrific way to meet people with common interests.
Plan some icebreaker questions
When you arrive at an event or activity, step outside your comfort zone and talk to people. Introduce yourself. Ask open-ended questions to get them talking. Most people love to talk about themselves.
If conversation isn’t naturally easy for you, plan ahead with some questions you can ask. This terrific article has 148 ideas for icebreaker questions to get the conversation started.
Take the next step
After you break the ice, if there’s someone you feel you’re making a connection with, invite them for coffee, or suggest signing up for another similar event. This isn’t easy, but what have you got to lose?
It may help to keep the statistics about loneliness in mind. There’s a good chance people you meet are in the same situation as you.
Keep trying
Rejection is tough. If you don’t connect with the first (or second, or third…) person you meet, don’t give up. Find another event and keep trying.
Making new friends takes time. A University of Kansas study found it takes about 50 hours of time together to make a casual friend, and 200 hours to form a close friendship. That’s why many of us put social connections on the back burner amid the busyness of adult life.
One of the greatest gifts of retirement is the gift of time. Invest some of your newfound time in making new friends. The payback in health and wellbeing will be worth the investment!
If you’re ready to get started on creating a retirement filled with meaning, purpose and connection, contact me to learn more about my workshops and retirement coaching packages.
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