Preface, nothing against those that do.
Its increasingly difficult to ever do fun things with my current friends. Now that I’m to the point where I have the space and the money and time to do pretty much anything I want, no one else has any time to hang out. I get ignored a lot, which I get, they care about their family more. But I’m the type of person who likes to host stuff and do things.
Not a huge deal to me, I’m fine being alone, but its like, man, its really fun hanging out and playing some IRL video games or just cruising or walking around outdoors etc. I guess nobody really has time as they get old though. Or maybe I need to find a younger crowd 😆 I have no idea.
I retired young, at 38 years old, and moved back to my old hometown. All my childhood friends have since moved away from this place, so I had no local friends when I came home.
I’m now 42. In those past 4 years, I’ve made exactly 3 friends. None of which live close to me. None of which I visit more than once or twice a year.
My wife has made no friends in that time. She’s a bigger introvert than me, choosing to stay in bed 60-70% of the day and going weeks without ever leaving the house. She laments not having any friends, but then won’t make the effort to get to know anyone.
Trying to make friends later in life without kids is hard. Especially as an introvert. And it’s not like I just sit around the house all day like my wife. I’m actively going into town and doing stuff. But it’s hard to strike up conversations with strangers and find common interests.
Wait, why would you move back to a town everyone left? If i retired at 38 I’d be traveling and not living anywhere near my home town.
I feel like it is harder for women to make friends. Idk why that is.
Buy yeah its hard. I also feel like I scare people off by being too friendly, especially in today’s “stare at your phone all the time” world.
I spent 20 years traveling the world and living abroad with the US military. I’ve explored most of Europe, Asia, a little of Africa, and a brief visit to the Middle East (that last one was not fun travel), and as much as I enjoyed it, I realized I was starting to miss my hometown.
My hometown is nearby to a massive US city, so most people here just move to the city. Or get their college education there and then move on to another large metropolitan area in the US. My hometown is a beautiful place to settle down, but most people my age aren’t ready for that yet. Hence why all of my friends have left town.
My wife and I still have plans to travel, but we’re waiting for our elderly dog to finally pass away. He gets stressed with us just being gone for a day, so leaving him in a kennel while we go on vacation might kill him.
We paid for an expensive kennel where he got his own “suite” with a soft bed, tons of toys, TV playing doggy films all day, and multiple one-on-one play sessions with employees outdoors, and he still lost 5 lbs from stress in a week! And it’s a place he’s familiar with; we used to send him and our other dog there before she passed away. Since losing his partner, he just can’t handle being away from my wife and I for extended stretches of time. He’s extremely needy and anxious.
So one day we’ll get back out and revisit some of the wonderful places we lived abroad again. But for now, we’re just enjoying the quiet life back home.
The military was stressful for us, always having to be somewhere, accomplishing something, and adhering to a strict schedule. Our personal lives were always secondary to our jobs and you couldn’t just quit. You were locked into a multi-year contract that could only be broken by doing something illegal and going to jail. So having the freedom to plan my own schedule and do whatever I want with my life is kind of nice.
Your wife sounds like my wife and I. Mine has medical issues though so has a bit of an excuse. You know I think one thing is we introverts were a bit dependent on extroverts to get us to do a few things and since covid the extroverts have a hard time even getting other extroverts together much less looking around for people they have to work hard to get to go out. If the person is not married its going to be even harder becuase the married folks are less motivated to go out.
Same here, we’re both 100% disabled according to the VA. Doesn’t mean we’re immobile, but our mobility is a bit restricted at times and my wife uses that as an excuse to avoid doing things. The less she moves, the less likely she’s going to be in pain that day.
I personally just fight through the pain to be productive, and if I need to take a rest day to recover, oh well. It’s not like I have to be anywhere.
basically my wife can move around for an hour without much consequence but like 2 and she will have to recover a bit and 4 or more she will be laid up the next day. Mainly from her back. If she has good enough chairs and can go from sitting to standing the times can go a bit longer. So like we have a minivan which is actually a very good seat. don’t have to climb into it but don’t fall into it either. so if she is driving and going to places and the driving is not to long and the places are not to long in one place it works out. Does make it darn hard to be social.
That sounds very similar to my wife’s situation. Except the few times she’s feeling good, she’ll just bail on social plans as we’re trying to leave the door. I end up attending social events by myself a lot.
yeah we don’t really try as I know that will be the case. Again I don’t blame her but she can’t handle it. She does a fair amount though around the house and shopping so she does what she can within her capacity.