I know my own limits. I need a certain amount of social contact to avoid the black fog. Although I didn’t really like meetings and chatter in my old job, those conversations contributed towards my social wellbeing. As such, I miss them, and I need to compensate for their loss.
I am attached, and don’t see that finishing until one (or both) of us gets a visit from Binky’s rider. I volunteer for some activities where I live, and, obviously, will keep doing so, especially since these activities are all about socialising with others. However, I need more. That’s why I’m making an effort to rebuild some of my ‘ancient’ social activities, to reestablish hellos. It’s also why I keep talking to myself here.
I should give a bit of context. Like many people, I’ve always had a number of separate social lives. I have my poetry social life, I had a political social life, I have my greater family social life, I am slowly building a photographic social life here. I had school & village social lives, I had a poly social life, I had workplace social lives. I also had an online social life, but sharp business practices in the US took that away (the board was bought out and shut down, despite promises). These social lives had little contact with each other.
Family is family, & my larger family is not too insane, fortunately, so that social life continues.
Poetry is complicated but ongoing: it has two halves, Cambridge (town) and Ireland. These social lives are not dead, but sputtering: I live abroad to both.
My political social life was pretty dead, but I maintained contact with some people, and now I’m going to try to rebuild some of it: next month, I’ll go to a party (as in fun) and a party (as in conference), with the specific goal of reconnecting with old friends.
In general, I did not keep in touch with people with whom I worked: when I was out, I really really wanted out (such are the joys of contracting). The exception were French colleagues who became friends: it appears to be the norm in French culture to continue that contact, and they made the effort to do so. This subsequently worked in my favour, since it later got me work by word of mouth.
I failed to keep in touch with people from my school, but now the school has contacted me and I find myself slowly rebuilding contact with fellow ex-pupils. I’ve had one meeting that went extremely well, and have another planned. I will follow up. I am hopeful this will snowball.
I kept in touch with a couple of friends from poly, but, regretfully, they both died during covid, although not of covid. However, the poly, now a university, has recently reached out to me, to ask me to mentor a student. I think I may be able to use this to lever myself back into their old students networks. Note the problem here was not the poly, but me!
Some things I don’t think I can rebuild: those other old job colleagues, fellow pub customers, citroën car club friends.
Oddly, I seem to be, in some ways, revisiting my old upper middle class identity. It’s as though it was never lost, just simply dreaming. When I was a student, I chose, rightly, to try to become classless, and I succeeded, to some extent. Of course, one never loses one’s childhood, and quite a lot of that was spent at that thoroughly upper middle class school, giving me that old identity.
I have heard stories of people, once they retire, becoming deeply lonely. I hope my attempts to kybosh that will work; if they don’t, it won’t be for the lack of trying.