The joys of May-December friendships

UNITED STATES – After her son died by suicide nine years ago, Ms Roslyn Scharf, a lifelong fitness devotee, began searching for a trainer who could not only help her build physical strength, but also understood the emotional release she needed from her workouts at the time.

She found that in Mr Omid Malekan, who was more than 40 years her junior and a relative stranger. He had lost a friend to suicide years before, and was not afraid to hold her as she wept through reps.

“He dried my tears,” said Ms Scharf, 83. “And he made sure I did my squats.”

Three days a week, every week, they worked out. “When Roz makes a commitment, she shows up,” said Mr Malekan, 42. The more time they spent together, the more they realised what they had in common.

“Here I am, a grandma, and here he is, a young man still single and trying to find himself, but we fell in love with so many of the same things,” Ms Scharf said.

Both are devoted New York Mets baseball fans who text or call each other over wins and losses, and both are avid readers. Ms Scharf, who lives in Manhasset, New York, on Long Island, invited Mr Malekan, who goes back and forth between Queens and Long Island, to join her book club, which has met monthly for more than 20 years. He is the only middle-aged man among “a dozen octogenarian women who love him”, she said.

This kind of exchange of perspectives and life experiences is a hallmark of cross-generational friendship, which experts said could be an antidote to social isolation – an issue particularly pervasive among older Americans – and ageism. It may also help to boost life satisfaction and learning.

A 2021 report from Generations United, a non-profit that promotes policies that connect generations, cited data suggesting that older adults in intergenerational programmes may experience a reduction of falls and frailty and an increase in strength and balance.

In a 2019 survey by advocacy group AARP, more than 90 per cent of respondents who had an older or younger friend said they provided things their other friendships could not deliver – namely, a new perspective, inspiration and a greater appreciation of their experiences.

When neighbours become ‘framily’

Mrs Aarti Veernala, 38, believes the age difference between herself, her husband Rahul, 43, and the couple’s neighbourhood friends Joe Hunter, 76, and his wife Judy, 81, helped them connect on a deeper level right from the start.

The foursome met in 2017, when the Hunters were on an evening stroll through their neighbourhood in Aurora, Illinois, while the Veernalas were on their porch. The older couple stopped to tell Mr Veernala that he had dropped a piece of mail, which led to some friendly small talk. Mrs Hunter asked whether the couple had children, and Mr Veernala surprised them all by letting it slip that his wife was about five weeks pregnant – the first time the Veernalas had told anyone other than their parents.

Since that fateful overshare, the families have made an effort to really get to know each other, Mrs Veernala said. “That’s something you usually don’t see in people your own age, because we’re all in a hurry,” she added. “There’s always a bit of haste in our actions. But Joe and Judy take the time to understand us.”

Now, the two couples are closer than friends, joking that they’re “framily”, Mr Veernala said. The Veernalas’ two children call the Hunters, who have four sons of their own, “grandma” and “grandpa” and have had sleepovers at their house.

Curiosity and generosity

The desire to stay active and socially engaged has led to a special friendship that Ms Judy O’Meara, 80, and Ms Bowen Kim, 29, did not see coming. When Ms O’Meara reached out to her neighbourhood community Listserv to organise a crafting group about a year ago, Ms Kim, who is non-binary and uses she/they pronouns, was the only person who responded. She had learnt to knit during the pandemic and thought the crafting group sounded like fun.

A few months later, the pair sat together on the lawn of their apartment complex in the Bronx borough of New York City, realising they had lived one floor apart for six years, but never interacted. They knitted for an hour – and have done so nearly every Friday afternoon since.

Ms O’Meara, dressed in brightly coloured clothing and tie-dyes, encourages her friend to be bolder with her knitting, giving her colourful yarn. And after Ms Kim mentioned that her New Year’s resolution was to learn to cook a few Korean dishes, Ms O’Meara showed up with a beginner’s cookbook in hand – all gestures that have shown Ms Kim what it means to move through life with a sense of curiosity and generosity.

“This has really been my only experience getting to know somebody who is so much older than me,” Ms Kim said. “Seeing her live in such an authentic, fun way, I have just been inspired to think more about how I want to live and be.” NYTIMES