Most people don’t think about making a plan for their social life.  So, here are seven steps that will make the effort not such a big effort after all.

 Steps

 1. To help you plan, consider these questions: 

•  What do I feel like doing this week or weekend?
•  What  is happening that interests me?
•  Who do I want to see, or who haven’t I seen for a long  time?

2.        It helps to have a system for keeping track of upcoming events.  For instance,you could make a two-month calendar and tape announcements of upcoming events that come through the mail, newspaper articles, or you find on line. If not a calendar, then perhaps folders or envelops.  Find a system that works for you.

 3.       People sometimes get in a rut, relying on the same few people to see each week.  Make a list of people you know, their interests, and their phone numbers.  Then, on those times you don’t have a lot of energy and might just stay home out of laziness, you can pull out the list.  

 4.       Here is another idea for thinking about your social activities.  Draw a vertical line down the middle of a large piece of paper.  On the left-hand side, list the things you used to do when married or imagine you would do if you were married.  Would you be having small dinner parties at home, going to foreign films, getting a subscription to the POPS, taking dance lessons.

 5.      Now, on the right-hand side of the paper, next to each item, write ideas of how you could handle each one of these ideas now, in your current single life.

6.       Then, in another color ink, write in the name of one or more friends who might like doing this with you.  Don’t assume because someone has never done line dancing, they wouldn’t want to try it.

 7.       In planning your social life, it is also important to plan time to be on your own.  Allow for evenings, days, whole weekends when you’ll need to be by yourself.  Honor that need, but be sure to know the difference between needing time for yourself and hiding out!

 Adapted from Workbook for With or Without A Man: Single Women Taking Control of Their Lives.