I once had a professor very kindly say to me, “We all know, at his core, Ricky is a 70-year-old man.” Since I was little, I’ve always had a tendency to befriend people who were much older than I was – people who were already adults during the Bill Clinton administration.

My tendency to befriend people older than me began because when I was younger, I always felt different than my peers for a wide range of reasons. Since I felt I was so different from my peers, I found there was an easy group of people to connect with, people who were much different than me: Generation X and older. 

Befriending folks much older than you can be a wonderful gift in your life and can enriched it in many ways, one of which is that you learn lessons.   

For example, when one of my coworkers was going through a rough time, we declared, “We take care of each other.” Or when another coworker taught me a change of perspective on the bad days by saying, “Good days, bad moments.” 

Additionally, you see life through new eyes. On a Saturday night when you drive an 88-year-old friend to dinner since her access-a-ride never showed, you watch, listen and learn from these folks. As a result, you start to look at your own life differently. 

You think about it in a weird way: if you were 88 years old and had no way of getting home, how would that make you feel? I do, at least. The same person also makes me laugh. For example, she wrote a memoir and I said, “Oh I’d love to read it,” the response I got was, “And for $22, you can.” Same with my friends at work, we share lots of laughs making fun of the customers we serve, people in our personal lives and, dare I say it, the people we work with.

Every older person I have befriended in my life has made me a more empathetic person, taught me something I have applied to my own life and made me laugh. I always felt that my Generation Z peers would laugh at me for a million different reasons: my voice, my appearance and my “old soul” references to 20th century pop culture. 

This fear of Gen Z terrified me when going to college, or as I call it on occasion, “Gen Z Camp.” Strangely enough, some of the older folks I have befriended while at Hofstra University have strengthened my relationships with my Gen Z peers. For example, classmates of mine have become closer since we both talk to the adults on campus such as Sergio, the janitor, or Eileen, a volunteer at the Hofstra radio station. This builds to more time spent with my peers beyond our interactions with the older folks in our lives.

By being surrounded Gen Z folk, you are pushed to meet more of them, and in my time studying my generation, I once again learned something. My Gen Z friends had a major similarity with my older friends, they, too, made me a more empathetic person, taught me something I applied to my own life and made me laugh.

My Gen Z friends and I also have stories to share, jokes to tell and, yes, have “Good days, bad moments.” My friends in my generation are also here to “take care of each other.” My Gen Z friends rally around each other, try to give advice, make their friends laugh, give love and feel love, all while seizing each day we have together – no different than my older friends. 

For years, I was afraid I could never connect with my generation. Most times I let anxiety win, but I was wrong. I’m not as “different” as I thought since I share many genuine friendships with my contemporaries the same way I have with my friends much older than me. After all, whether Gen X or Gen Z, we’re all people who want the same things. At least for me, it took an old soul to teach me how to be a young one.