I have three goals in my life right now: clean out the condo I´m living in, apply for my Spanish visa, and make friends. The first two deserve a separate post, so I´ll save them for another time. I am not naturally talented at making friends, unlike my nephew and my best friend. But I am a keen observer of social patterns and a project manager to the Nth degree. So I´m pretty good at making friends by following rules (that are research-based!).
I figure that the first step to making friends is meeting people. My rules for this part are: (1) go to 2-3 group per week, (2) stay to talk to people afterwards, (3) accept as many invitations as I can, and (4) issue my own invitations. It has been challenging to find groups, as Gainesville is 1/20th the size of DC. But in my two weeks here, I have managed to start a weekly volunteer gig, attend several group meetings, and get invited to (and attend) two dinners at people´s houses. In DC I could find groups by searching Meetup.com and the Internet for my interests. Here it is working much better to just tell people I am looking to make friends, ask what activities they know about, and then get added to personal email lists.
I know it will take time to actually make friends, because that comes from sharing experiences and knowing people well enough to reveal feelings and thoughts beyond the superficial. But simultaneously I know that the only way to make this happen is to show up and keep trying. I´m also working hard to maintain my connections to older friends in DC and other places, so that I don´t feel too alone during this transition. So far, I have met lots of interesting and welcoming people. I am amazed at how nice people can be and also at how much energy I can spend on socialization when I am not using it for work purposes. Retirement has many benefits.
3 comments:
I had never thought about friend making in a process kind of way. Very interesting.
I am very much interested in seeing how this goes, as I could use some more friends.
I think most adults are rubbish at making friends but most of us are not as self-aware as you are to actually realize it. I definitely think this is an approach when I don't have as much job and kids time commitments that I will try to adopt, or in nearer-term, at least try to do a lower-key version.
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