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As we became empty nester I find our social circle has become very small. Mostly we do things just the two of us and once in a while we ask a couple of friends to join us. We have a party once or twice a year. We travel quite a bit and some of the trip are tours where we meet people we have traveled with before, which is nice, but mostly we organize our own trips and do it just the 2 of us.
How about you?
I tried to create a poll for this but wasn't sure how to do that.
We are pretty social since we retired and relocated to Florida. I play kickball twice a week. Hubby and I play pickleball at least five times per week. My friends and I have movie night each Friday. I play Bunco once a month, have game day at least once a month, and do a lunch outing once a month. We try to host a neighborhood potluck, snack and yack, or some other party once a month, as well.
Choosing the options in making a poll is always tough for the creator of the poll. I voted once a week, but wish you had included one more category (twice a month) which would be closer to my average. I was torn between once a month and once a week in voting. It's not an important matter, of course. Your poll will give an interesting general idea. I'll bet some folks will wish for "two or three times a week" as an alternative to either "daily" or "once a week".
I'll bet lots of people, even before retirement, weren't all that social. I don't mean they were anti-social and didn't enjoy meeting with friends, but that they might have been, like me, in the once a month to once a week range.
I'm not sure if it's our state of mind, or our age, or a little of both, but my wife and I find that as the years go by, we only want to enjoy other people's company in measured doses. We aren't recluses, and do have neighbors and friends we associate with, but have found, over the years that we enjoy doing things, just us two. In our younger years, maybe we were more resilient, and the formalities that are associated with having activities with others didn't seem to be of any concern to us. Now, though, it seems so easy, so comfortable to be with someone that you can be completely at ease with. We still visit with our neighbors, and call those that are far away, and that suits our lifestyle.
I chose daily, although 4-5 times per week is more typical. There are some days I don't leave the house, but not that often. FWIW, I'm counting things like going to my tai class and other weekly meetups, since that's where I do a lot of my socializing. If you want to count how often I have close friends over to the house, it would be much less often.
I chose daily, although 4-5 times per week is more typical. There are some days I don't leave the house, but not that often. FWIW, I'm counting things like going to my tai class and other weekly meetups, since that's where I do a lot of my socializing. If you want to count how often I have close friends over to the house, it would be much less often.
Good point about group activities. Affinity clubs, such as model airplane flying clubs, bicycle clubs, motorcycle clubs, and more are often highly social in nature and we consider many fellow club members to be our friends. Some of the friendships even survive when both parties are no longer club members and no longer do the activity, although that would be a very small percentage, in my experience.
I generally go drinking with other ex-pat friends 4-5 days a week,go for coffee with a friend everyday. Weekends are usually just my wife,son and I down by the beach or park,strolling among the tourists and locals or taking in a movie. Today we saw Rapido & Furiouso 6 and loved it! Can't get the theme song "We own it" out of my head.
I also chose daily as 4 or 5 times a week wasn't available. We aren't empty nesters. (Far from it as my kids are both very young). But I keep a really active social life meeting up with various friends at least 5 times a week. When the kids are in school I meet up with friends almost daily for a coffee/lunch or sometimes dinners.
Many of my friends and I have set days of the week that we meet up each week for lunch. I live in a gated community where we have on-site cafe and restaurant so it makes meeting up with friends for coffee/lunch quite easy.
At least 4 to 5 times a week....sometimes more....lunch, gardening and sometimes shopping with friends, movies or dinner with other couples, visiting and doing service with people who are ill, garden tours with friends.....talking with my neighbors (this is a favored passtime for both genders where I live)......attending meetings and socials with my women's groups and church social groups that meet monthly. Church is quite social and we attend every week or more often sometimes.
My church is social, too. We have a group that usually goes out to eat afterwards, so that's one more bit of socializing that gets done at least once a week. Same goes for volunteer activities--last weekend I helped out with the 10K for the fire department. Basically, it was 2 hours of hanging out at a booth socializing (and selling things from time to time).
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