Has anyone restarted their social life at 60?

[Roiesin57]

If so, have you found it easy? Me & dh used to have a great social life. Now, since lockdown our social circle has really shrunk
Also, people have got older, moved away or split up. We have a couple of couple friends but the ladies of the two couples don't really get on; and that's it. As much as I love them we used to have a big crowd.
At new-year our closest couple stayed in cos of illness & their dogs. The other couple went out with friends in their own area. We didn't feel like going out anyway as we were under the weather ourselves.
However, most of the time we don't seem to mind being on our own! We are both still very work focused, have 1 grandson who we are quite happy to babysit often & my elderly mother. I feel we have enough on our plates. We enjoy our trips & holidays on our own, meals out & coming straight home & seeing our couple friends. A lot of the time we are doing these things on our own though and are quite happy. I still have fomo and worry we are cutting ourselves off a bit and will regret it.
As we are approaching 60 & since lockdowns we've become tired, lazy & introverted. Will it be easy to restart our lives as we get older, or do you find the older people get the less they want to mix & make new friends?
Sorry for the rambling long post, just interested in other people's experiences of starting again, as a couple, as retirement looms

I’m younger so I can’t comment on the age thing specifically, but I do think a lot of people younger than 60 feel like their social lives shrunk in one way or another after lockdown. I’ve seen several posts on here, although maybe fewer recently, complaining that friends had become more likely to flake on plans and in general people just became a bit more insular and likely to stay at home. Not sure this is helpful but just to say I don’t think you’re alone in having this experience. Though no doubt several posters will be along shortly to say how buzzing their social lives are and that the pandemic didn’t affect them at all, that is also true for some people I think…

Yes you have FOMO. You sound like you have a great balance of down time as a couple; family time and social time.
I've added volunteering and more unusual hobbies I've always fancied into my personal activities and definitely don't give a monkeys what other people are up to.

I'm 60, a single mum, and within a year or two my ds will head off to university. I'm starting to rebuild my social life now so I don't feel his loss quite as much. Not quite like you because I will be on my own

I've joined a class, an archery club and starting to volunteer for a community group.

I think it can be done but it will take some focus.

I have. What little social life I had died when I moved interstate to a small country town five years ago. Three years ago I moved back to my state, to a major regional city. I'm in a retirement village, so there are people to say hello to or have a chat (never had neighbours like that before) and I found a knitting group to join. I don't see any of them outside our weekly knitting day - tbh I don't know that we'd have enough in common for that - but it is very enjoyable. Can't comment on the couples side of things, I'm single. Have either of you interests or hobbies you could find groups for? Might do you good to socialise separately some of the time. I need to do so to get one guaranteed respite day a week - I am my mother's full time carer.

I'd love to know how to make some new friends. I have a couple of couple friends I see occasionally and wish we saw more of, and one pushy friend who I'd like to see a lot less of as I don't really enjoy their company but find it really difficult to get past the 'acquaintance' stage with new people.

I think your 60s should be a great time to build a new social life. People are often scaling back work a bit and have less family responsibilities. Am a few years off but planning to look at what U3A has to offer and join some local groups in the future.

I'm only 50 BTW and still work full time. I've looked at local groups I'm interested in like Rock Choir, Art Society etc. but they all seemed to be aimed at older people and meet during the working day.

I decided to look into trying new activities last year.
I joined a book club- only once a month, but met nice people. Also Yoga classes twice a week, and an Arts Society group that meets monthly.
I also tried the WI, but didn’t get on with it, so going to drop that.
I still work 3 days a week, so for now , that’s enough.

My social life started picking up again from the times when my youngest could be left alone for a few hours.

If you have a Grandchild, presumably that was some years ago for you.

But that doesn't mean we reverted back to doing the same things we did in our 20s, just that we no longer had to get babysitters or make sure the other one was in before one of us could go out.
We don't tend to go "out out" particularly, but both do things (volunteering, hobbies that we enjoy) and the other people we do these things with become friends. Then you find that someone from one of these friendship groups might have a BBQ or a party for a big birthday, or someone in the group suggests all going to X or Y and your social circle expands and there are more opportunities to go out.

Now, we are all different, and not everyone wants to, but I think if people choose to just stay in and watch TV or read or do a solo hobby or pay Scrabble with their partner all the time, it can leave them very, very isolated when they are widowed or when one or the other needs to become a carer for a while and they find they have no-one else at a time when a phone call or a coffee or a walk can make all the difference.

I've found that making 'me' friends in my late 50s and early 60's has been (continues to be) quite easy. Things that are my own interests, meeting like minded people - some older, some younger. In the last 10 years I've met other women (and even men) who are likely to be life-long pals for as long as our lives last

What is challenging is meeting new 'couple friends'. When we were young newly weds, our neighbours became couple friends. When we had little children, other parents became couple friends. The adversities we were facing, in common, seemed to neutralise the differences in personalities.

Now, in our 60's we are less tolerant of 'my new friend Janet's racist husband' or 'Peter from the golf club's over-opinionated wife'. I'll meet Janet on her own. He'll pay golf with Peter.

Maybe we are less tolerant, maybe we are more discriminating. But the 'couple friends' has not been easy. But there are always exceptions. A new 80 year old neighbour was delighted to introduce us to to his new-ish girlfriend. Their families were struggling with the realtionship as both were recently widowed. As new friends we had none of the background and could accept them and enjoy their company at face value.