Sad, but not interested in old friends.

[street]

Since I retired a little over 3 years ago, I have no interest in doing things with past co-workers. When working we all had great times together and worked well together. I truly like them and would help and do anything for them but have more fun enjoying other people.

I see a few once in awhile and some text now and again, but really not interested in doing things with them or even keeping in touch. I enjoy meeting new people and starting new relationships with other people now.

So, my question is, is this a normal thing and have you experienced these feelings?

 

[LRDave]

I categorize friends as either "lifelong friends" & "friends of the road". The great majority of my "friends" fall into the latter category (as I am sure they do for most people). I think only one work friend (in my whole working career) will end up being a lifelong friend.

 

[joeea]

So, my question is, is this a normal thing and have you experienced these feelings?

Yes and yes.

 

[marko]

It's a bit like high school isn't it?

"Friends for life" until graduation and by the time September rolls around you never see them again.

As far as work, the people I worked with for 20+ years and thought were real friends I never heard from again and those who I thought didn't care either way still call me. Odd.

 

[Red Badger]

Yes and yes.

+1.

I had many work colleagues but only one friend through work. He left mega* several years back. I retired about 2 years ago. We still get together for shooting, a few beers, cooking out, etc. The rest? Zip.

Point of order: shooting first, then drinks....

 

[razztazz]

Yes and yes.

Same here. There's a few I still talk to ... briefly now and then... bullet statements or a few short paragraphs, only thru the "miracle" of the interweb and Facebook. But I have no interest in visiting or receiving visitors and doing stuff.

 

[Bir48die]

If it wasn’t for other people bugging me I’d be down about 50% on he people I see. I will say we have a pretty broad social network. However I’m starting to want to trim it down because it’s natural as time goes on to drop work and other relationships. However unless I become a total curmudgeon I will continue to try and satisfy the needs of my loving public

 

[street]

Well, I guess I'm not the only one. Lol

 

[pacergal]

I keep up with former co workers on FB. I have a couple I consider "friends", one I have lunch with about every month, one I see a couple times a year for a day or weekend visit.

 

[Clone]

There are friends, and their are people I worked with. There is some overlap in those two groups.

We recently went on a big road trip. One of the days was spent passing through a town where we had 3 sets of work acquaintances. These are folks that I have traveled the world with, raised kids together, mentored, etc. Two of the parties were available, and it was good to catch up. We have plans to spend a few days with one of the couples in the future, touring their part of the US. The third couple did not show. So maybe they had a conflict, or maybe they just wanted nothing to do with us or the others. Either way is fine.

We are not 'needy' in trying to hang on to old situations and cling to the past. But we still make the offer to remain in contact if it resonates with others. I do not care to discuss 'the old work days' as the only topic of discussion. We had a lot of good times, and plenty of challenges, but life does not revolve around the past. There is some sort of balance here, and relationships will continue to ebb and flow over time.

 

[Dtail]

Since I retired, I have cut off all past working relationships. Yes a little difficult, but just not interested in that part of my life anymore. Don't want to hear the office politics, who is being treated unfair, etc.

It is a new stage of life for me and wish to go forward with no regrets or what ifs.....

 

[Winemaker]

I married my best friend. I have other acquaintances but do not maintain daily, weekly, monthly, annual communication with them. Everybody is close, at an arms length. The other day, a couple that fit in that category asked if we wanted to go to Europe with them for 10 days. Trip was booked at the end of the day.

 

[kcowan]

I categorize friends as either "lifelong friends" & "friends of the road". The great majority of my "friends" fall into the latter category (as I am sure they do for most people). I think only one work friend (in my whole working career) will end up being a lifelong friend.

Yes I have three that have survived the test of time (after 19 years of retirement).

But I count many new ones from my current endeavours. And 2 of the 3 also come to PV each winter (after being invited by us initially and now with their own places).

 

[Teacher Terry]

I had a few friends at work that I thought would last in retirement because we were so close for so many years but it didn’t happen. It didn’t matter because we still have a large group of friends and have made some new friends also.

 

[easysurfer]

The dynamics change as now you are an ex to them and they to you.

 

[ExFlyBoy5]

It's a bit like high school isn't it?

"Friends for life" until graduation and by the time September rolls around you never see them again.

Except for me, the closest "life long" friends have actually been the ones I did go to school with. I had 4 really close friends in HS and am still very close with 3 of them. As far as folks I w*rked with...well, since I was on the road A LOT with them...well, let's just say we probably had enough of one another.

DW and I also have a couple of couples that she/we met through her w*rk and we travel/visit with them often.

I don't look it as sad...it's just how life goes. Even being retired, I just don't have the time or energy to try and maintain a bunch of relationships.

 

[scrabbler1]

None of my coworkers live near me, so I lost interest in maintaining any contact with nearly all of them. A few I swapped a few emails with over the years, but even those faded. Only one coworker, who I did manage to be friends with outside the office, has stayed in touch. He retired last year and moved back to Pittsburgh, so it's just a phone call now and then.


Other friends I had over the years moved (far) away, and my desire to travel has disappeared compared to my more go-getter days of the 1980s and 1990s and early 2000s. No big deal.

 

[skipro33]

If more people realized that co-workers are rarely friends and even more rare after retiring, they would pull the plug sooner. So many folks asked me about that; leaving friends behind. I reminded them, I've done that with every worker who retired before me in the past 45 years of my working life; from high school, military, all my jobs. Not one person have I stayed in contact with more than a few years.

Do not let 'friends' at work keep you from enjoying an early retirement!

 

[W2R]

Since I retired a little over 3 years ago, I have no interest in doing things with past co-workers. When working we all had great times together and worked well together. I truly like them and would help and do anything for them but have more fun enjoying other people.

I see a few once in awhile and some text now and again, but really not interested in doing things with them or even keeping in touch. I enjoy meeting new people and starting new relationships with other people now.

So, my question is, is this a normal thing and have you experienced these feelings?

I haven't gone back to see my former co-workers since the day I retired. I intended to, but between an unavoidable environmental event that swamped them with work, and a huge agency wide re-organization, it never seemed like a good time to just pop in and ask to be escorted inside the secure areas. Luckily, due to the nature of my job, I can Google any of my former co-workers and find out what they've been up to at work.

My thoughts after Googling:

"What, they gave THAT responsibility to HER?" And,

"He doesn't seem to have done nearly as much since I retired, as he did before. Did he think he was retiring too?"

But really I don't care. These were work friends, not social friends.

 

[JoeWras]

Yes and yes.

Ditto.

I don't have interest in work or the career I was in. I'm currently volunteering a few days a month with a hurricane relief organization. I meet a lot of people there that share a my interests much better. New friendships are starting.

 

[JoeWras]

Hmmm. It occurred to me that my most recent "work friends" were mostly of a different generation and different culture. That may be part of the reason it was easy to cut ties. But not the only reason for sure.

 

[ncbill]

Never saw any of them again after I left MegaBank.

Saw one guy I liked a few years afterwards (I had worked for him in a different department)

 

[trumpeting_angel]

I'm still in touch with a work friend from the 1990s, but only occasionally, and not in person (we are three states apart and in different life stages). I left my second-to-last workplace two years ago, and moved away. I'm back in the area about once a month, and every so often I drop in and we catch up. Close to one friend from there, and it's always good to get together with any of them.

I was invited to a retirement party for one of these coworkers. He made a speech about knowing one of us for 45 years. I was marveling at this, and realized that *I* had known him for 43! Yikes.

I am a forensic psychologist, and although we usually worked in different courts, I think we were all pretty close. It's work that a colleague called "the lunatic fringe of psychiatry," and there are some stories you can only share with your colleagues. If you tell them to other people, they might pass out or run from the room. Maybe that strengthened the bond, although I've been in other workplaces where people feel similarly different from the "outside world."

 

[Moemg]

I had several friends that I stayed in touch with for several years. We partied together and went out to dinner occasionally but this has been drifting off in the last two years .

 

[UnrealizedPotential]

I think losing contact with ex coworkers is common. Sharing the same work place is the glue that held you together, when that's interrupted things change.

The other thing is when one leaves a job your priorities change. For ex coworkers it is still mostly all about work. When one leaves work, do they want to deal with all that anymore at even a small level? No. Time to move on.