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Old 06-14-2012, 11:47 AM
 
Location: Tampa, FL
27,798 posts, read 32,330,602 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by LauraC View Post
One of the things you might do when you visit a potential new location is attend a church service to see if you are compatible. I would also look on their website for social events scheduled and talk to the pastor.

I don't know how old you are but I retired at 55 and the other retirees were all from the generation before mine (the non-tech generation) mostly 68 and up. I figure it will be at least until I'm 65, when more people my age are retired before I meet people with shared interests. I'm in contact with people through clubs, groups and classes but I don't really have daytime "hang out" friends. I'm pretty much a loner, though, so it doesn't bother me as much. Had I stayed where I was it would have been the same scenario. People my age were still in the workforce and when you are retired you become more active in the daytime (when they are all working).

The other problem I see is couples attached at the hip in retirement. People I know who had their own outside interests apart from their spouses when in the workforce now don't make a move without each other. You know, I don't mind hanging out with Jane Doe but if she won't make a move without her husband tagging along, UGH.
Early retiree here as well, a little younger than you and have the same deal w/ not much contact during the day except for a few social contacts playing sports. Probably will need to volunteer or work part time for more contact. Not many early retirees where I live.

Finding the same issue w/ couples - your entire post is spot on.
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Old 06-15-2012, 05:12 AM
 
9,313 posts, read 16,622,517 times
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In my experience, I found in many organized groups, like a church, people are in a forced social situation. They get along because they are tied to a specic group doing a common thing, but to break into sub groups of friends can be difficult because they lose the common focus. I belonged to a church group, whom we socialized within the church, had a few friends whom we did things outside of the church, but always with the common denominator of the church. Sadly when I divorced, the church group basically broke all ties with me.

A friend, lives in a 55+ community and absolutely hates it. She says it is like being back in middle school with the little cliques and back stabbing.

I have found the best way to socialize is volunteering. You can pick and choose what you want to do and do not have to "find a best friend" in any specific group. You will have acquaintances but rarely find that "best friend" who you knew years ago. I have a therapy dog and meet lots of people, also volunteer fire man and great neighbors. At this age I don't need that "togetherness" all the time.

We have an RV and met a couple from another state. We travel with them at times during the year and spend a few months together in the winter. When we met it was like we knew each other all our lives. It would be nice to live closer, but it is what it is.
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Old 06-15-2012, 05:25 AM
 
1,463 posts, read 3,260,559 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Prairieparson View Post
My title pretty much says it. One of my biggest concerns when we retire, is that we end up moving, but the people in the area are not friendly, and we end up with no friends and feeling isolated.
We've never had a problem with this because, as a pastor, I've normally had people in the congregation that were friendly and we had a social life with them. This has been a blessing for us, because our experience is that most people, when you move to a new location make friends either with the childrens parents, or maybe through church. But we've been members of churches where people were not friendly. Our kids are grown, and I will no longer be "the pastor" once I retire. People living in subdivisions tend not to be friendly, and people in small towns tend NOT to be friendly. Oftentimes, they have friends. They've had the same friends for decades. They're not interested in new friends.
So anyhow, I'd be interested in comments from anyone who moved in retirement. How was it making friends?
I am retired but was able to do so right here in our hometown. I did at one time in my life move up to Maine and was a total stranger to everyone up there. It was tough to make friends as they don't seem to trust easily way up there. I am an outgoing, friendly person so I had to work really hard to gain trust and make friends. As a pastor, you already have the skills to make friends no matter where you go so that shouldn't be an issue with you. Use those pastor skills and you will be fine.
A few suggestions for after you retire...find some Senior activities. There are so many of them out there now. I see all kinds of Seniors on the golf course, my 83 year old mother in law is one of them. She is amazing. She golfs just about every day, walks for exercise, goes to the movies in the afternoons with her gal pals, goes out to eat, visits neighbors..she is a true example of how to keep busy after retirement.
I truly think people are always open to making new friends and if they are not, you can tell in an instant but trust me as someone who talks to EVERYONE, EVERYWHERE..you will find new friends! You just made one right here!
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Old 06-15-2012, 08:44 AM
 
Location: Bella Vista, Ark
77,772 posts, read 104,433,328 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Pammyd View Post
I am retired but was able to do so right here in our hometown. I did at one time in my life move up to Maine and was a total stranger to everyone up there. It was tough to make friends as they don't seem to trust easily way up there. I am an outgoing, friendly person so I had to work really hard to gain trust and make friends. As a pastor, you already have the skills to make friends no matter where you go so that shouldn't be an issue with you. Use those pastor skills and you will be fine.
A few suggestions for after you retire...find some Senior activities. There are so many of them out there now. I see all kinds of Seniors on the golf course, my 83 year old mother in law is one of them. She is amazing. She golfs just about every day, walks for exercise, goes to the movies in the afternoons with her gal pals, goes out to eat, visits neighbors..she is a true example of how to keep busy after retirement.
I truly think people are always open to making new friends and if they are not, you can tell in an instant but trust me as someone who talks to EVERYONE, EVERYWHERE..you will find new friends! You just made one right here!
It is important, as you say, to be a friend if you want to make friends. I don't care where you live, retirement community, big city, rural America, etc, you will always find a certain number of cliques. As much as we love where we live we found it here, 1st in the original church we attended. Especially for my husband, if you didn't golf you didn't live in a real world and then, believe it or not it was a welcome club. Many had belonged to the group for so many years, they didn't know how to welcome new people. What did we do? We moved on, found other groups, made sure we were outgoing and interested in others lives. Now, we have so many friends and acquaintanes we are getting too busy. We realized just how wonderful our friends could be when my husband started his cancer battle a few years ago.

Nita
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Old 06-15-2012, 10:03 AM
 
Location: Ponte Vedra Beach FL
14,617 posts, read 21,434,279 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Prairieparson View Post
Right now we're considering eastern Oklahoma or NW Arkansas. We have aversions to high taxes, high crime areas, and cold weather. We like trees, rivers and lakes. We have children in Iowa, an autistic son, a wife with serious allergy problem. Florida's out, not enough medical for all the present and growing population of baby boomers. Texas is pretty bad with allergies, as is Tenn. OK and Ark. both have affordable land and housing, low taxes, and enough medical care, so that's where we're looking now.

BTW, some of you wondered what denomination I am, and I am a pastor in the Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod. What a lot of people don't understand is that for the most part, even Christians don't want to be friends with pastors. My guess is that they don't feel they can be themselves, that they have to put on their church face, they can't be real, and so there's a kind of wall in most cases. My guess is that the same will be true as a retired pastor. Most of the time, when we travel, I don't tell people what I do unless they ask, and even then I might just say, "I'm self employed". It depends on the people and the situation. I don't blame a lot of people for that. Lots of pastors can be a bore and a real pain in the a**. One of my profs. at the seminary discribed it this way. "You get too many pastors in a room, it starts to smell." I heard a joke one time from a Baptist preacher. "In what way is a Baptist preacher like a spermatazoa? Answer: They both have a 1 in 1,000,000 chance of becoming a human being."
When you say Lutheran - first place that comes to mind is Minnesota. Not exactly a place that would be attractive to people who are trying to avoid cold weather. The area where I live (NE Florida) is pretty religious - but really wouldn't work for someone with serious allergy problems (we have a miserable pollen season). Robyn
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Old 06-15-2012, 10:13 AM
 
Location: State of Being
35,879 posts, read 77,258,797 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Prairieparson View Post
Right now we're considering eastern Oklahoma or NW Arkansas. We have aversions to high taxes, high crime areas, and cold weather. We like trees, rivers and lakes. We have children in Iowa, an autistic son, a wife with serious allergy problem. Florida's out, not enough medical for all the present and growing population of baby boomers. Texas is pretty bad with allergies, as is Tenn. OK and Ark. both have affordable land and housing, low taxes, and enough medical care, so that's where we're looking now.

BTW, some of you wondered what denomination I am, and I am a pastor in the Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod. What a lot of people don't understand is that for the most part, even Christians don't want to be friends with pastors. My guess is that they don't feel they can be themselves, that they have to put on their church face, they can't be real, and so there's a kind of wall in most cases. My guess is that the same will be true as a retired pastor. Most of the time, when we travel, I don't tell people what I do unless they ask, and even then I might just say, "I'm self employed". It depends on the people and the situation. I don't blame a lot of people for that. Lots of pastors can be a bore and a real pain in the a**. One of my profs. at the seminary discribed it this way. "You get too many pastors in a room, it starts to smell." I heard a joke one time from a Baptist preacher. "In what way is a Baptist preacher like a spermatazoa? Answer: They both have a 1 in 1,000,000 chance of becoming a human being."
My father is a retired Lutheran minister (ELCA). It IS different when you are a minister and it will always be different as far as the people who will be drawn to you and those who won't. My parents formed a few close ties with parishioners over the 60 years of my Dad's service, but those have been rare occurrences. They remain "friendly" with dozens of couples, but it isn't as tho folks invite them to events outside church activities, save a rare lunch or dinner when someone "is in town." As they have aged, I have noticed they have become more involved with folks who they grew up with, as they retired to the area where their families were both from originally (and where they went to high school). Therefore, they had built-in ties with a large extended family of close as well as distant cousins. They joined a church in the community, and some of the members are relatives, some are folks they knew from their earlier ministry.

My Dad at 82 continues as a supply pastor for ministers who are on vacation or ill.

Have you considered moving to a place where you DO have some connections and continue serving the Synod as a supply/on-call pastor? Or moving to a new area and still staying as a pastor-on-call (whatever the term may be in your Synod) . . . which would mean meeting new folks while occasionally filling in?

Here's the thing . . . if you don't reveal that you are a retired minister, people WILL eventually find out and when they do, they will assume that you must have hidden that fact b/c you were de-frocked or were a bad boy in some way. I am so serious.

Your concerns are well-founded and realistic. My parents and I have talked about this on many occasions. In fact, we were discussing how interesting to see that many of the retired Lutheran ministers in western NC have retired to one particular little housing development in a small town (near where I grew up). These folks are all over 75, and some are nearly 90. None of them were actually from the area originally. It is not a retirement community - but there is a strong Lutheran parish there. And of course, we have Lenoir-Rhyne College in Hickory, so there is that tie, also . . . and an active ministerial association in the area. I have no clue if any of those retired ministers attend the ministerial association meetings any longer . . . but it is interesting to note that there is the opportunity to stay in touch w/ other ministers.

My advice would be to seriously consider staying connected to the Synod and to choose a strong Lutheran community.

I guess my message is . . . you are a Lutheran minister. You will be a retired Lutheran minister. That is who you are and that is how people will always see you. Perhaps you are thinking - "I would like to BE part of the community, not be seen as someone whose 24/7 retirement life is in SERVING the community." You can be a part of the community without leading the service every Sunday . . . but you will always be an elder in the church, b/c that IS who you are. If you are good-natured, accessible, contribute to the community where you settle . . you WILL find couples who will include you. This will be much easier if you go into retirement using what tools you have that connect you to others.

Just my thoughts after watching 60 plus years of my Dad's ministry and that of other ministers throughout the state. I literally began my Dad's ministry with him, as I was born a few days before my dad entered college on the GI bill. :-)
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Old 06-15-2012, 11:09 AM
 
Location: Cody, WY
10,420 posts, read 14,560,595 times
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Find a church with your kind of believers, then start a Bible Study Group. You'll immediately become the authority and be able to put yourself socially where you were before, where you are now comfortable. But you won't need to worry about fundraising or pleasing the church board. You can interpret the Bible your way. You might even want to add courses in Greek and Hebrew. You could start discussing various church issues. What about a seminar on on Transsubstantiation or Martin Luther's views on Jews? You can do the things that a preacher wants to do.

Call yourself Preacher Bill (or whatever your name is). Be one of the folks. Just remember to always be the teacher, never the student. You'll be one of the few to have his cake and eat it too. You lucky rascal.
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Old 06-15-2012, 01:21 PM
 
Location: We_tside PNW (Columbia Gorge) / CO / SA TX / Thailand
34,660 posts, read 57,778,624 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Prairieparson View Post
...We have aversions to high taxes, high crime areas, and cold weather. We like trees, rivers and lakes. We have children in Iowa, an autistic son, a wife with serious allergy problem. ...I am a pastor in the Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod. ... even Christians don't want to be friends with pastors. ....
Plenty of places will suit your fancy, and I think your choices are reasonble. You will find a friendly area, you might need to 'lighten-up'.

I met a Luthern pastor in a small town in WA, He said "Flip over my business card... I'm a Luthern pastor at 8:30AM and a Presbyterian at 11AM !!! " The small town was able to split the costs and housing and they joined together at 10AM for Sunday School... He claimed it really brought the community together and much more benefit than they had imagined. He was a puppeteer in his free time, a REAL hit at the local 'Senior Home'

The churches switched schedules every 5 months so they could rotate the advantages of early / late service times.
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Old 06-15-2012, 05:50 PM
 
9,471 posts, read 9,345,383 times
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Default Best Friend

Quote:
Originally Posted by Ellwood View Post
I have found the best way to socialize is volunteering. You can pick and choose what you want to do and do not have to "find a best friend" in any specific group. You will have acquaintances but rarely find that "best friend" who you knew years ago. I have a therapy dog and meet lots of people, also volunteer fire man and great neighbors. At this age I don't need that "togetherness" all the time.

We have an RV and met a couple from another state. We travel with them at times during the year and spend a few months together in the winter. When we met it was like we knew each other all our lives. It would be nice to live closer, but it is what it is.
But I want to find a best friend. I miss that--mine died 5 yrs. ago. You are very lucky to find the RV couple and enjoy them so much. I hear RV people really have a good time.
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Old 06-15-2012, 10:32 PM
 
Location: Northern Wisconsin
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I'm enjoying all your observations. I hate to respond to all your comments, as it would take too long, but its all interesting reading.
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