“Mean Girl Syndrome” or “Ephebiphobia” in retirement.

I have been retired for a year now, which I can hardly believe myself!  So I decided it was time to branch out and participate in some additional clubs, looking to make new friends who have similar interests, and trying to enjoy my life to the fullest.  It seems to me, retirement is a time to enjoy all the things you never had time to do when you worked, right? Retirement is wonderful to me; it’s doing nothing without worrying about getting caught at it! <Grin>

I am still in the honeymoon stage; I drive through the gates and can’t believe I live here. It’s like living full time at a vacation resort; seriously we really do love it here.  I think that the three grand essentials to happiness in this life are something to do, something to love, and something to hope for.

Those of you who follow my blog, or in the very least have read it a few times, know I truly enjoy people watching and observing the people in my community, in whatever social environment I find myself.  I have to say that this months topic I personally experienced, which both hurt and fascinated me: Mean Girls, or cliques, in retirement.  Really! <Grin> It made me shiver as my Spidey senses were once again proven right; here's a secret, I have discovered this place is full of cliques.  Yes really, with 60,70, 80 and 90 year old's.  It seems even women in retirement continue to try and reinvent themselves, and they either let you into the inner circle or they don’t.  I have no idea what makes them decide you are in or out, the only thing I can figure is perhaps you are an outsider because you are not the original people who moved here 10-25 years ago.   I have also noticed that the same people seem to be in a lot of clubs, and the leader of the pack in each seems to be from one of these cliques, and they are always at the center of the club making all the rules etc.

I am so sad to report to you some of them are just unkind, thoughtless women who appear to have a selfish pattern of behavior; you know the kind who band together leaving others out entirely.  One good thing (?) I noticed is that they don’t seem to discriminate between men and women; it appears that no one is off limits to them!

For some reason, I have become fascinated in observing these women within these social situations and within their cliques.  Always shaking my head and ginning to myself as I watch these senior/grown women, vying to be the center of attention.  Reality check, OMG its High School all over again!  

The more I researched this subject, the more puzzled I became, perhaps the experts are correct and we may just be neurologically hardwired to seek out people like ourselves.  It certainly appears so to me, people seem to start forming cliques as soon as they’re old enough to know what acceptance feels like. They bond together based on anything that they have in common; such as music preference, sports, race, gender, the block that they grew up on, or in the case of retirement, the clubs. 

I can attest from my personal experiences that women are naturally competitive, (Ya think?) <Grin> and that may be what motivates women to form cliques at an early age.  With the cliques in high school the only thing harder than getting in, was staying in. Not so with the senior cliques - the hard part is getting in; once you’re in, I am thinking you’re there for life. <Grin>

As you can tell I am trying to approach this with humor, as I am inclined to do, yet I must confess  there are other times, when I am more inclined to be more introspective; the times that I find things like this sad and hurtful, especially when observing the faces of the people they have been mean to. What truly surprises me is that at this age, 60, 70, 80, or 90-years old, well I’m thinkin’ that they should be more worried about what they will have to answer for in heaven than what people here think of them? Just sayin’ (Grin).  It seems to me that they of all people should be aware that life is really short and you should be kind to others.  But alas, not the case, and let me tell you this was an eye opener; these ladies really show rude exclusivity and thoughtless cliquishness every day!  Phew, what is going on here, you may well ask?  Is this reminding anyone of the movie Mean Girls, if so you are spot on!

OK, OK, some of you are saying or asking yourself what is a Mean Girl? It’s hard to pinpoint an exact definition, but I think most of us can agree on the idea that they are “women, who use passive-aggressive or outright aggressive tactics to shame, humiliate, ostracize, or hurt other women, often with the intention of making themselves look better by comparison,” I think it certainly fits the Mean Girl stereotype.  In my opinion mean girls are in short, bullies whose target is primarily other women!

I saw this on the Internet and thought it fitting-here are some signs that you may be a grown up Mean Girl:

• You're never pleased - no matter what happens in your life.
• You always have something to be mad or complain about. 
• You're just never happy with anything. 
• 80-90 percent of your conversation consists of talking about other people. 
•  The past was always the best times of your life. 
•  You find it physically painful to compliment other women. 
•  You look for weakness in others…and you pounce.

It does cause me to laugh when I see senior ladies (I use the term oldies, or seniors with love as I too am amongst their number whether they acknowledge me or not) acting and behaving like they are still in high school.  Seriously, when I worked I found gossip to be entertaining; occasionally I heard the most fascinating things about myself that I never knew. <Grin> Now it’s just darn right sad to see it still going on at this stage of my life.

I observed a group openly talking about going somewhere, they asked me to go, and I promptly declined, while this other lady kept asking when they were going, only to be ignored. I have viewed this type of scenario more times than I would like to tell you about. Then on another instance I observed a group sitting at a table, and the lady asked politely if the seat was taken, and they said yes, when in actuality it wasn’t, I kept an eye on it and no one ever took that seat.  Then there was the lady who stopped by to say Hi, only to have them say Hi, and abruptly turn their backs on her and continue their conversation. So rude!

On another instance I noted that one person really wanted to be on a committee, well first she was in, then she was out; it seemed one of the committee women had a friend that wanted in, or they decided they didn't like this particular candidate.  It was sad to watch the disappointment and hurt of the lady who was originally in only to be told she didn’t make it. Whether you call this politics, cliquishness, it still seems to be prevalent in the world of senior citizens.

So what do you do if you come into this "Mean Girl” adult syndrome?  Well you remind yourself that confident, secure people do not act in a thoughtless and exclusionary way; and that these kinds of people gravitate to one another. When you get right down to it, their behavior is self-hexing, as in Karma.  How you treat people, and what you do to people will always come back to you. And I prefer to live by the rule that no one can hurt me without my permission. I won’t let them taint me, as  I believe that who I am is measured by my kindness; my education and intellect by my modesty; and my real caliber, the who I am inside, is measured by the consideration and tolerance I have for others.  

One last thought that I explored, was, could this be a generational thing, after all the majority of the people could be my parents, maybe much the same as   Ephebiphobia; the fear of youth. First coined as the "fear or loathing of teenagers," today the phenomenon is recognized as the "inaccurate, exaggerated and sensational characterization of young people" in a range of settings around the world. Seriously if you are in your early 60's they refer to you as a kid LOL. 

I think that about covers things. <Breathe and Grin>. My take away on this is: I choose not to socialize with the Mean Girls, giving them very little fodder for their gossip. If this means I am not a participant, then so be it. As with any kind of mean girl, or anyone who bullies anyone, there’s always a reason for it. There is that sadness in them or insecurity that makes them feel the need to exclude, gossip or hurt other people.  The fact is people gossip, because people are inherently insecure, and as a result of their insecurities they talk about other people.  They point out flaws in other people to feel good about themselves.   

It seems this is present at any age or social class. My guess is that no matter where you are in your life, or whatever set of people you’re with, it all still breaks down like high school does. You have social cliques, you have the people you get along with, the people you don’t and the people you are ambivalent about.  I choose to remember that life is short and we never have enough time for gladdening the hearts of those who travel the way with us, so I say “make haste to be kind.”

And so I leave you with the words of Gandhi, “First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win.” I thank you again for taking this retirement journey with me, or as I refer to it, “my longest coffee break."  I'm just sayin’…

Humor is the best ingredient for survival!

I was sitting at my computer contemplating what to write for a blog, when this popped into my head; from my perspective, humor is society’s way of protecting themselves, only with a smile.    So what the heck, I thought to myself, why am I really writing a blog? Well self, I said, I think you wanted to go to a place where you felt important and where people just might listen and be interested in what you have to say. (Now I was getting excited, so I continued down this path.) Being a mother, wife and a boss hadn’t done that ... and yet, wouldn't it be ironic if my blog yielded the most important commodity being grown today, the elderly and the understanding that retired people are still well, viable, and what if I had hundreds of followers?  I promptly began to grin and laugh hysterically at myself, and hence came up with this month’s blog topic, humor. 

Why humor?  Because I like people who make me laugh. I honestly think it’s the thing I enjoy most, to laugh. It cures a multitude of ills, and I am of the opinion it might just be one of the most important things in a person.  I realize that humor isn’t for everyone; it’s only for people who want to have fun and enjoy life, and feel alive. <Grin> On the serious side of humor, I find some humor can be offensive, almost a form of bullying, like the kind that is at the other person’s expense. There is really a thin line that separates laughter and pain, comedy and tragedy, humor and hurt. 

So that was where my mind was going and I thought to myself that I have been a bit too serious of late in my blogging, that I needed to stop and smell the roses and get back to my core, finding the humor in all things. Get back to observing my fellow retirees.  I was certain I could find some humor somewhere, as after all there are 3000 homes and almost twice that many people in this community and to quote Dr. Seuss: “From there to here, and here to there, funny things are everywhere.”

 As I attended one of my club meetings, I promptly began to eavesdrop (I call it research), on one of the fellas talking to a new resident.  He proceeded to tell the newbie all about the woes of being retired, then he threw out this zinger:  you want to know the real trouble with retirement? You never get a day off! Now that statement, my friends, I found hysterical.  Why was it so funny to me, you ask? Well, let me tell you that for me his statement really was true!  I have been so busy during my first retirement year it has just flown by.  My calendar is so full I long for a vacation to get things done. The good news, I found out that it slows down here during the summer months, or at least that’s what I’m told, because most of the clubs go dark due to vacations.   Hmm, interesting thought, vacation.  Seriously, when you are retired I feel you’re permanently on vacation.  Maybe instead of vacation we should call them change of scenery trips? 

Talk about coincidence, and then out of the blue my son sent me a funny text while I was writing this blog, with a picture of a dog holding a guitar.  It said: this one I wrote about licking my (expletive deleted) but it means butt. <Grin> Reminding me that what is funny is different for everyone.

So back to the funny man in the club, of course I couldn’t help laughing out loud, which he then realized gave him a larger audience, so he spoke louder and began to rattle off some one-liners starting with you know you’re retired if:  

•  You try to straighten out the wrinkles in your socks and discover you aren't wearing any.
• It takes two tries to get up from the couch.
• Your idea of a night out is sitting on the patio.
• You step off a curb and look down one more time to make sure the street is still there.
• Getting "lucky" means you remember where you left your car in the parking lot.
• Everything hurts, and what doesn't hurt, doesn't work.
• You have more hair in your ears and nose than on your head.

Ha ha, I knew if I looked and listened hard enough I would find some humor.  I should have known I could always count on the old geezers, as it seems that women, as they grow older, rely more on cosmetics, but as men grow older, they rely more on a sense of humor.  <Grin>

 

So in my quest for humor anecdotes, I decided we should go to the CC and see the Golf Comic. He was funny, but when he started out my eyes crossed, as I didn’t get any of the golf jokes. However, BFF hubby found them hysterical, so I found myself focusing on his laughter, and the laughter of others around me, which in turn made me laugh. Well, the comic finally went down a funny path for me, as he was Irish, and being an Irish Catholic he went to parochial school.  He said, “When I was in school I wanted to be cool like the public school kids, they even walked cool. But as I got older I figured out they could walk cool because they didn’t carry any books,” ta dum dum, and so the next hour went. 

I like humor, and therefore I find myself gravitating to funny people.  Humor has bailed me out of more tight situations than I can list.  I found that if you go with your instincts and keep your humor, creativity follows along with luck and success.  I think God gave us humor and imagination to compensate us for what we aren’t and to console us for what we are, imperfect humans. <Grin>

I asked one of the old geezers I seem to run into everywhere there is a large gathering (the first time at a wine tasting), why he was always so funny, to which he replied, not skipping a beat I might add, “Humor is perhaps a sense of intellectual perspective; an awareness that some things are really important, others not, and the two kinds are most oddly jumbled in our everyday lives.” Wow, now that’s deep! No wonder he is a happy, healthy 92 years young, what a brilliant statement and excellent attitude!

 As we were leaving an event, I threw out, “So how about President Obama being POTUS on Twitter.”  I wanted to see what they would say about Twitter, <Grin> to which one of the men said, “We could certainly slow down aging if we had to run it by Congress.”  Then he said, “When you are dissatisfied and long to return to your youth, think of algebra.”  Say what?? It did make me laugh but I wondered how he went there from the statement I made.  At this point I was really hoping that BFF hubby would be a while getting the car, so I could listen to these two very funny men a little while longer.  

 

All in all this was a very fun quest, I laughed a lot, wrinkles be dammed!  I learned a few new things, like a new comeback for telling your age, I’m 33 with 33 years’ experience; to not let aging get you down, because it’s hard to get back up; and just think, in dog years you would be dead. And my favorite quip was, don’t worry about wrinkles dear, they are just antique smiles. 

On that note I will leave you with my take away: Good humor is a tonic for the mind and body. It is the best antidote for anxiety and depression. It attracts and keeps friends, and it is the direct route to serenity and contentment. You may not be able to change a situation, but with humor you can change your attitude about it. 

I thank you again for taking this retirement journey with me, or as I refer to it, “my longest coffee break."  I'm just sayin’…