People at work — friends at work — have begun to retire. It’s all made me think about my retirement as a real impending thing.
My template for retirement: my Mom retired 12 years younger than I am now, and her friends slowly followed her into retirement until only one friend was left at the old job (and none too happy about it). They had breakfast together at Mom’s house once a month. The ones who still worked would bring new people into the fold. Mom bumped into a grade school friend and she started coming. Like a salon hosted by a famed French courtesan. The Mom salon.
I’ve never seen another woman retire, so I have no other example to follow. Well, I’ve seen grandmothers retire, and they spend time with their grandchildren, and I’ve seen people retire to develop a better relationship with their television sets, but I don’t like either path for me.
I see two downsides to instituting my own Mom salon when I retire.
1) Discretion is going to go out the window. I remember Mom’s friends discussing old gossip, personal clashes, all the things you keep to yourself at work. I’ve bottled decades worth of work dramas I’ve kept to myself. How long before that’s all decanted?
2) No men allowed at the Mom salon. I know Mom had men friends she was close to. One of her best friends was a man she worked with. He vanished, or it seemed that way to me. There’s just no easy way to have an uncomplicated heart-to-heart with a man if there’s a wife and no work relationship. So, no more male attention. Men supply 50% of the attention in the world. It’s my favorite type of attention. That’s going to leave a huge gap.
I see why people volunteer, just to get themselves back into a familiar work situation. Where can I volunteer where there are smart people and chatty men?
3 responses to “Retirement”
… this is quite possibly entirely insane, but if you do not care about the age/theoretical-eligibility of the men, have you considered college or community college tutoring? Young men you tutor will, if you are helping with the football program, be predominately The Dumb Ones; if helping out in the regular tutoring center, they will be a mix of Dumb Ones and The Smart Ones, because the Dumb Ones get forced to go to the tutoring center *but* if you go to the tutoring center on your own because you do in fact want to improve your work, you are most likely a Smart One, and your fellow tutors will be smart (but mostly female).
(I tutored at an academically-well-ranked community college when I was young and the facet breakdown was interesting; also a lot of international students of all ages. My sister worked as a football student tutor at her university and… uh. They have to have a 2.0 GPA to stay on the football team, and the school REALLY WANTS them to remain on the football team even if they otherwise have intelligence equivalent to a sack of potatoes, so 1. they put them in the easiest possible classes and still 2. her job was gently dragging each reluctant learner through their assignments and other absolutely-necessary-to-pass-the-class learning. I do not know if the ones who are competent to do college still take any tutoring – it did not sound like it. But at least they’re all male…)
Another option would be to investigate makerspaces or computer repair for charity programs in your area. and the third: bluegrass jam sessions, which tilt male, from what I understand. and a bonus fourth: if you can volunteer to help out the actually-elderly, then you do get some chatty men!
KC – That is an interesting prospect. Teachers gotta teach. However, I couldn’t mix male attention and teaching. Unless I could teach older men. Then you get into egos. I can see getting attention in something like a pottery class, though.
Salon-Style Pottery Class would be hilarious. and you could do it at home if you bought a kiln…
(for Chatty Elderly Men, Meals on Wheels and similar (our local library teams up with Meals on Wheels to deliver/retrieve library books, from what I understand) might work without invoking the Older Male Ego regarding being taught something, but yes, egos *are* a tricky bit from many older males I have known.)(if only they knew how *stupid* it looks)