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An old friend of my wife retired to The Villages in Florida and my wife went down there and stayed for a long weekend. Her impression was it was one of the str

An old friend of my wife retired to The Villages in Florida and my wife went down there and stayed for a long weekend. Her impression was it was one of the strangest places she'd ever been - on the surface everything looked perfect. But the general vibe of the residents was classic 7th grade angst. Everyone talking about everyone, very critical and petty. I highly recommend the movie "Some Kind of Heaven" for a look at The Villages in particular, and Florida retirement cities in general.

majormajor 5y ago
I'm not sure if that's good or bad. "The only thing worse than being talked about is not being talked about" comes to mind. Retirement, like middle school, sounds like it will likely be very low-stakes (you're not significantly driving the overall course of your life) so for many people, socializing and jockeying for position might be all there is. Sounds better than living in a neighborhood or building where you no longer know anyone.
- sha256sum 5y ago
  If you consider that historically elders would play community role, assist in rearing children, etc., it would be bad. Given this generation though I don’t think there’s much to offer in those. So it’s probably better to see them amass in Florida and gossip amongst themselves.
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xscott 5y ago
It's a long article, but the author does make a point to contrast how much this place is not like The Villages.
busterarm 5y ago
Hilton Head is the same way. Especially the plantation. One thing I'll never understand is spending 10s of millions on a house with a 20 minute long drive from the community entrance before you see any houses and then all of the houses are right on top of each other and every one of your neighbors is the nastiest, most entitled person you've ever met. I would rather blow my brains out than spend any more time there.

majormajor 5y ago

I'm not sure if that's good or bad. "The only thing worse than being talked about is not being talked about" comes to mind. Retirement, like middle school, sounds like it will likely be very low-stakes (you're not significantly driving the overall course of your life) so for many people, socializing and jockeying for position might be all there is. Sounds better than living in a neighborhood or building where you no longer know anyone.

sha256sum 5y ago
If you consider that historically elders would play community role, assist in rearing children, etc., it would be bad. Given this generation though I don’t think there’s much to offer in those. So it’s probably better to see them amass in Florida and gossip amongst themselves.

deleted 5y ago

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xscott 5y ago

It's a long article, but the author does make a point to contrast how much this place is not like The Villages.

busterarm 5y ago

Hilton Head is the same way. Especially the plantation. One thing I'll never understand is spending 10s of millions on a house with a 20 minute long drive from the community entrance before you see any houses and then all of the houses are right on top of each other and every one of your neighbors is the nastiest, most entitled person you've ever met. I would rather blow my brains out than spend any more time there.