They say that socializing is healthy. When working in an office environment, there is almost no way to avoid. Yes, sometimes you have to tolerate talking to people you might rather not; but there are also those people you don’t mind talking to.

Sometimes these chats are by the water cooler, or in the break room, or in the hallway, or in a cubicle, but they are still socializing. The stories of the weekend, a game, family, event, not working, or, sadly, work. Sometimes there is the socializing outside the office at a company event such as a picnic.

But again, these are all socializing. When not working, one has to try to find a way to still socialize. Chatting with a random stranger, while some can do so more easily than others, while shopping for groceries or plywood isn’t really that likely, keeping an active social circle remains important.

But this interaction still is a manual process that needs to be – for lack of a better term – worked on. (I thought this was a blog about retirement?) As a retiree would have hours during the day to fill, retirees tend to socialize with other retirees. Considering that pre-retirement friends and acquaintances have to work during the day, what else is a retiree to do?

If a retiree can be busy enough during the day, maybe the socializing can be addressed in the evenings with a sport league, or volunteering, or some other activity. Or spend more time socializing on the weekends because, if scheduled right, the retiree can use the weekends to NOT do chores. But the non-retiree will likely have to use the weekends to get things done that they couldn’t do during the week because, well, they have to work.

As a whole, I’ll miss some – if not most – of the socializing. Especially with those that I WANT to socialize with. At least that’s one thing a retiree can probably have a little more control over: who they socialize with.