Number 5 Social Connections | Real Life Retirement

There are two previous posts in this series about living much longer: One about your genes and Another about food and exercise. So that brings us to…

Step 5. Social Connections

Having a good social network adds to your life as study after study has proven. This, however, can sometimes become difficult as the years go by and people in your circle move away or pass away. And for many people COVID brought even more isolation. (I know this to be a fact all too well.)

Zoom to the rescue

After the COVID epidemic reached Tucson I became a total recluse and Twitter doom-scroller. One day I received an email from a woman I went to college with. She was launching a Zoom group for 15 of us who lived in the same house and graduated the same year. After graduation we had scattered across the country into new lives and had only occasionally kept in touch. Everyone of us said “Yes” to the invitation and it turned out to be simple–-easy-peasy—especially since the woman who organized it set up the meeting and all we did was click through on the email she sent notifying us of day and time.

Now four years later, we meet every six weeks or so and chatter about everything and nothing in particular. Sometimes we talk about aging issues such as moving into a senior living housing, but mostly it’s just fun. No politics, of course.

A few months after the college reunion Zoom group started I joined another Zoom group: an online book club with about a dozen members. A group that small meant we all could talk every month. Some online book clubs are so huge that they are really lectures about a book or interviews with the author, rather than a group discussion where you actually participate and get to know other people. You might want to search for “book clubs online near [your city/town].

A year later I attended a Zoom reunion with my cousins in the Pacific Northwest, some of whom I hadn’t seen since we were teenagers. And I was the one who set up the online meeting this time! It was much simpler than I thought it would be. And if I can do it, so can you!

As COVID abated I moved back out to my real life community here in Tucson for volunteer work, my blog about Tucson, and other community involvement. The Zoom meetings continue now as an expansion of my once-narrowing social circle.

Take steps to making new friends

So if you are feeling that your social world is becoming smaller and narrower, start your search online today for online classes to take in person or online, for book clubs in your area to join, for networking groups like those sponsored by the Senior organizations—just make sure they are free. If they ask for money go instead to the AARP’s Senior Planet site for free classes. It is excellent and a good place to begin. (You don’t have to learn Zoom to attend their classes!!)

I was going to include Step 6 today, but this is becoming long-ish, so it will be two days from now.