At age 66, South Carolina physician Paul Rousseau decided to retire after tending for decades to the suffering of people who were seriously ill or dying. It was a difficult and emotionally fraught transition. “I didn’t know what I was going to do, where I was going to go,” he told me, describing a period of crisis that began in 2017.
Seeking a change of venue, Rousseau moved to the mountains of North Carolina, the start of an extended period of wandering. Soon, a sense of emptiness enveloped him. He had no friends or hobbies — his work as a doctor had been all-consuming.
Former colleagues didn’t get in touch, nor did he reach out. His wife had passed away after a painful illness a decade earlier. Rousseau was estranged from one adult daughter and in only occasional contact with another.
His isolation mounted as his three dogs, his most reliable companions, died. Rousseau was completely alone — without friends, family, or a professional identity — and overcome by a sense of loss. “I was a somewhat distinguished physician with a 60-page resume,” Rousseau, now 73, wrote in the Journal of the American Geriatrics Society in May.
“Now, I’m ‘no one,’ a retired, forgotten old man who dithers away the days.” In some ways, older men living alone are disadvantaged compared with older women in similar circumstances. Research shows that men tend to have fewer friends than women and be less inclined to make new friends.
Often, they’re reluctant to ask for help.
