Fraternities and Sororities for Retirees

Getting older? Join the club. Every Wednesday at 11:30, Bruce Friedman, 75, has lunch with eight to 10 other retirees in Tucson, Ariz. The decade-old group of seniors ages 65 to 89 calls itself the Romeo Club, which stands for Retired Old Men Eating Out. Weekly E-mails are sent to each member (except for two members who do not use E-mail and instead get printouts) indicating the upcoming restaurant and requesting an RSVP. The talk is about news or politics and everyone pays his own check.

The Red Hat Society is more like a sorority than a dinner club.

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Finding peers.Retired workers often lose touch with former coworkers. "We have defined ourselves by our careers, and when it ends we are kind of lost," says Herb Gliick, 71, a retired magazine publisher in Wellesley, Mass. He began auditing courses at Wellesley College when he sold his business in 1999 and formed a Romeo group with other senior students who wanted to socialize outside class with "non-text messagers" at restaurants "that are too expensive at dinnertime." Now about a dozen 70- and 80-year-olds and two 60-somethings meet once a month at a restaurant selected by a different member.

Getting organized. Most Romeo groups charge no dues, but some keep rosters and E-mail lists. Harvey Pierman, 57, a retired engineer in Payson, Ariz., formed a website in 2004 to aggregate all the Romeo clubs. "Groups formed helter-skelter all over the U.S. after World War II," he says. "My goal was to bring them all together for the next generation that will retire rather than just let them fall by the wayside and die out." So far, he knows of 66 Romeo clubs, 18 of which have Web pages he links to.

Attracting attention. A women's social club, the Red Hat Society, is more like a sorority than a dinner club. Women age 50 and over wear red hats and purple outfits to gatherings. Junior members who have not yet reached "the birthday" are required to wear pink and lavender. "It takes a little bit of guts to walk into a restaurant with a feather boa that lights up and blinks," admits the red-haired Jo Elliot, 61, who goes by Lady Cranberry when acting as the "queen" or chapter head of two clubs in Orange, Calif. And yet the 10-year-old, for-profit nationwide club has approximately 40,000 chapters in 25 countries, according to CEO Debra Granich. The "red hat ladies" group also has a branded MasterCard, a line of merchandise sold online, a series of bestselling books, and even had a musical written and performed about the often ostentatious ladies: Hats! A New Musical for the Rest of Your Life. Dues range from free for some members to $39 per year for chapter heads.

Leaving the house. In retirement, you're suddenly confronted with being around your spouse all day long. It can be useful to have a plan to get out of the house with friends. "We do things that [my husband] doesn't normally want to do so he can stay home and do his thing while I am out playing with all the girlfriends," says Bettye Barnes, 72, a retired second grade teacher who calls herself the queen of her Red Hat chapter in Knoxville, Tenn., the Scarlett Flooscies. Now that she's done with working and child rearing, "This is a new life for us now. We are free to run around and play and shop," she says. Her group of age 60-plus retirees has attended teas, movies, conventions, Halloween parties, flower gardens, and even gone to London for the New Year's Day parade, at each event dressed in the signature regalia.

Starting a conversation. Jobs, grandchildren, and health problems are generally not talked about. Friedman says Romeo Club members are retired engineers, salesman, lawyers, bankers, clergy, teachers, dentists, and doctors, but almost no one mentions a former career unless it comes up over the course of the conversation. "More often than not, people have no idea what anyone else did beforehand," he says. Also, saving seats is discouraged. "There's nothing worse than coming into a room and finding there is an open seat and you can't have it," he says.

Elliot, whose Red Hat club has danced in a movie theater, worn sparkly costume jewelry in public, and sometimes eats desserts instead of dinner, likes to keep the conversation lively. "We rarely talk about work or our aches and pains," she says. "We meet for a couple of hours, and it's simple, easy, and fun."