My work continues to lead me into retirement research, specifically, how to make retirement fruitful and productive. One of the leading causes of an unhappy retirements is too few friends or no friends at all. Referred to as “social isolation,” the US Surgeon General said that social isolation is as unhealthy as smoking fifteen cigarettes a day. I find it interesting that being alone is as unhealthy as repeatedly inhaling smoke into your lungs. They seem dramatically different to me. Oddly, there are times I need social isolation to stay healthy or at least to stay sane. I guess too much isolation is the issue.
This research on retirement led me to something called “Men’s Sheds.” Not Man Caves, which are for a man and maybe his buddies to drink and watch sports in spaces painted in testosterone. This is a Men’s Shed. I first heard about them in Australia, and now they’ve grown to Canada. They’re destinations for retired men to gather and do something together, more than watch sports and drink. They’re places that retired men gather to work on things with their hands. It seems a lot of them involve wood working and fixing things made from wood. One retired person has the tools and knows how to use them and opens up his shed for everyone to come and mess around with the woodworking or hang out while other people are messing around. Men around the community join them and they gather in the Men’s Shed regularly to build and fix things. It gives them purpose and camaraderie, which, if I read all this correctly, men seem be on the search for more so than women. It doesn’t say why.
Furthermore, and this interested me, men develop friendships shoulder to shoulder. They watch things together next to one another or do things together next to one another, and friendships develop. I think about the number of fathers I’ve come to know over the years as we stand together facing the ball field or the volleyball court watching our kids play. We had great friendships, and I only got to know them and come to like them when we stood side by side. I think that’s kinda interesting.
Last thing, and I’ll get off this topic - is the many fewer places for men to gather. Having a “men’s only” space is taboo. In fact, many things “men’s only” is taboo. I mentioned to a friend in Oregon that I’m a member of a male-only Mardi Gras organization. He wondered what kind of misogynistic world I live in down here in south Alabama. He wondered how civilization has passed us by. How could I possibly be a member of such a thing? I let it go, but later in the same conversation he quietly admitted he had no real friends where he lives. He has to travel to see his friends. I felt for him, so I sent him a picture of me and my buddy standing side by side on a Mardi Gras float wearing big grins and throwing beads with the note: “Looks like hell, doesn’t it?”
I’m Cam Marston, just trying to Keep it Real.
