Chapter 8: Yoohoo… anybody home…??

In Retirement 101, one of the first things they tell you is that you must prepare to lose the work-based community that has likely been the core of your social identity for many years. All those people in your office and your organization - the ones who know who you are, where you fit in, and how many coffees you have before 10am -  will fade away, faster than you can imagine. And even as you raise your last paper-cup toasts, and make your yearbook promises - “drinks soon!” - you know that without the daily intimacies of dull staff meetings, memo re-writes and glorious victories against the mad edicts of ministerial staff, there may be little left to your acquaintance. 

A steady job gives structure to your life; a 32-year career can define your entire social network, as it does mine (with some jealousy for friends who have had school and parenting circles to draw upon). Nearly every friend I have comes from my work. All my best stories. Most of the memorable snogs. 

Who will be my new little friends in retirement? Will anyone want to come out to play with me, when, let’s face it, most of my social skills have been built around my ability to make amusing quips about shoddy powerpoints during executive committee (a 12-bullet slide with no scalable graphics? Have they lost their minds??). True, as a diplomat, I have learned to make cheery small talk with any person, in any circumstance. Work-me is gregarious and can beguile any boardroom, zoom chat or dining table with undue fascination for local weather, trans-Atlantic travel mishaps or where to get the best morning scones in London (the answer is in the tea rooms of the Victoria & Albert Museum. Just delightful. Trust me.)

Real-me is the is Myers-Briggs card-carrying introvert, who is never entirely certain why anyone would want to talk with me. And the greater absurdity is that I have spent decades shunning invitations and plotting early escapes from dinners and parties, disappointing friends whose kindness I just haven’t always had the energy to accept. These very same wonderful - extraordinary, generous, hilarious and brilliant - friends who I now fear will drift away when they realize that real-me has much less entertainment or accomplishment to offer. 

I know this is irrational - an exaggerated self-effacement - but it is rooted in a reasonable thought: a career of doing interesting things does not necessarily make you an interesting person, and once you’ve bored acquaintances with your tales of exotic glories past, what are the qualities that you have to offer in friendship in this new retired world where nobody gives a shit about that time you shared a magnificent chocolate pie with Condeleezza Rice in the State Department executive dining room (which I totally did. And it was awesome. Do you want to be my friend??). 

You are now a 50-something year old kid, plunked into a vast playground with only your wits and monkey bar skills to rely upon. You may warily eye the clusters of ex-colleagues, strangers and neighbours and even your dearest, oldest friends, and wonder who will invite you to come to play. 

Or maybe some will see me - real-me, at last - swinging merrily up on my monkey bars, watching the world at a placid pace, and choose to be there too.

🐒🐒🐒