Here’s a Conversation I Can’t Stop Thinking About

A conversation has been sitting with me for days.

Not because anything dramatic happened. In fact, it was an ordinary conversation. But sometimes those are the ones that tell us the most about ourselves.

A dear friend of mine lost his wife more than twenty years ago. He’s bright, interesting, active, and still working. Over the years he’s dated. Some relationships lasted for a while, others didn’t. Life kept moving.

The other day he was at the gym when another man walked over to him.

The man had recently lost his wife.

He didn’t come over to talk about exercise. He came over because he needed someone to talk to.

My friend was in the middle of his workout. He could have smiled politely and gone back to lifting weights. Instead, he stopped and listened.

What struck me wasn’t what either man said.

It was what they never said.

Neither one used the word lonely.

Instead they talked about something else.

They talked about having no one to meet for coffee.

No one to call with an idea.

No one who really wondered how their day was going.

No one to simply share an ordinary Tuesday.

As I listened, I realized they weren’t looking for romance.

They were looking for companionship.

Those are two very different things.

That conversation wouldn’t leave me because it reminded me of so many people I’ve met while researching Rethink Retirement and leading workshops over the past year.

One man retired and went through a divorce almost simultaneously. He discovered something he had never expected. Most of his friendships had actually belonged to the marriage. When the marriage ended, so did many of the relationships. Then retirement took away the people he saw every day at work. Suddenly he had no workplace, no couple friends, and no idea where new friendships were supposed to come from.

Another woman spent more than thirty years as a successful financial advisor. She assumed the people she worked with were her friends.

Then she retired.

She discovered they had really been wonderful companions at work.

That’s different.

Once she left the office, she had to learn something entirely new: how to build friendships outside the workplace. She later told me that making new friends took far more effort than she had imagined. As a single mother for decades, work had consumed most of her time. She had become highly skilled at building a career, but not at building new friendships in later life.

As a corporate anthropologist, I’ve spent decades studying people in organizations. Looking back, I realize that work quietly solves a problem we rarely notice.

It gives us community.

You don’t have to think about who you’ll have lunch with.

You don’t have to wonder who you’ll see tomorrow.

You don’t have to organize conversations.

They’re simply built into the rhythm of the day.

Then one day they aren’t.

That made me ask another question.

When did we stop teaching people how to make friends?

Or perhaps we never did.

As children we learned on playgrounds, baseball fields, in classrooms, youth groups, churches, synagogues, and neighborhood parks. Friendship was almost part of growing up.

Later, work took over.

Without realizing it, many of us outsourced friendship to our careers.

When the career ends—or a spouse dies, or a move takes us somewhere new—we suddenly discover we haven’t practiced making friends for decades.

Old friends remain precious. My college roommate and I can pick up the phone and continue a conversation as if no time has passed.

Building new old friends is something entirely different.

Nobody really teaches us how.

I’ve been watching this play out all around me.

At our golf club people gather around tennis, canasta, mahjong, and golf. Some become acquaintances. A few slowly become real friends. It happens, but it doesn’t happen automatically.

It requires showing up.

Again.

And again.

One gentleman I interviewed told me it took nearly ten years to feel that he truly belonged in his church community. He intentionally invited people to dinner, stayed after services, joined committees, and had conversations that reached beyond church itself. By the time he moved away, he realized he had learned something valuable. Friendship wasn’t accidental. It was something he had practiced.

Another woman became the membership chair for a community association around the lake where she spent her summers. She hardly knew anyone. Ironically, her job became introducing herself to everyone else. The role gave her a reason to reach out, and over time she built genuine relationships.

A retired schoolteacher volunteered for an organization that needed help. The first assignment wasn’t glamorous. Nobody else wanted it. She accepted anyway. In doing the work, she found purpose—and eventually, people.

Another executive who unexpectedly lost her job made a conscious decision to devote the next stage of her life to nonprofit organizations she had only dabbled in while she was working. She eventually chose one organization where she could contribute deeply. What she found wasn’t simply meaningful work. She found structure, purpose, and a new community. She also admitted something many people quietly feel: she still missed the identity that came with being an executive.

Perhaps that’s the lesson I’ve been learning.

People don’t simply retire from work.

Sometimes they retire from community.

Sometimes they lose it through widowhood.

Sometimes through divorce.

Sometimes simply because life changes.

The challenge isn’t only finding something to do.

It’s finding people with whom to do life.

When I think back to my friend at the gym, I don’t think he or the other gentleman need another dating app.

They need places where conversations can begin naturally.

A hiking club.

A cycling group.

A volunteer organization.

A faith community.

A nonprofit board.

A neighborhood committee.

Somewhere that gives them a reason to keep showing up until strangers become familiar faces—and familiar faces slowly become companions.

There isn’t a shortcut.

But there is hope.

Every person I’ve interviewed who eventually found community said essentially the same thing.

It took longer than they expected.

It felt awkward at first.

And it was worth every bit of the effort.

That conversation at the gym reminded me of something I hope we all remember.

Human beings don’t simply need something to do.

We need someone to do life with.

Perhaps that’s one of the most important things we can build in this next chapter of our lives.

Your thoughts, always appreciated!