It used to be thought that friendships were based on similar ages. During childhood, this was true. Same school, same exams, same rush. Life placed friends side by side and relationships emerged from spatial and temporal proximity. But as we move toward adulthood, we realize age is no longer a determining factor. Most cases point out that the most meaningful friendships often arise from significant age differences. This has also been true in my life; most of my close friends were older and this created a feeling that was "complementary rather than strange.”

Modern developmental psychology confirms that until the age of 20, friendships are often peer-centered because they facilitate identity formation. However, after our 20s, people seek changes such as emotional clarity, intellectual breadth and existential flexibility. The subtle rivalry that often exists among peers shifts to clearer, non-judgmental communication with someone older. At this point, what matters is not the age gap itself but a shared rhythm of understanding.

The most distinctive gift of friendships with older people is the quiet discipline they cultivate without you even noticing. This discipline is not an academic curriculum; it is more like an "emotional grammar” learned in the shadows of someone else’s life experience. One of the deepest changes I noticed in myself over the years was my loosening attachment to anger. I could never have achieved this alone; I learned it through friends who showed me that while the years are expected to harden us, they often soften us instead. When a close friend once said, "Anger is such an outdated emotion,” I did not hear it as irony. There was a deeper truth behind it: we were becoming people capable of empathizing with "bears whose spirits are too restless for hibernation,” instead of being consumed by anger.

This shift was more than emotional softening; it redefined what adulthood meant. It was not about forgetting anger, but about no longer using anger as a mode of connection. This subtle insight, refined through the noise of life, is the silent teaching of great friendships.

Another lesson was realizing how meaningless it is to separate people into "good” or "bad.” A friend once said something simple yet profound: "People are a little good in some circumstances and a little bad in others.” That single sentence collapsed the black-and-white boundaries of my ethical world. We all have different faces, animalistic sides that emerge unpredictably, sensitivities that demand different kinds of care. Instead of categorizing someone, it becomes far more helpful to understand which aspect of them we are trying to educate.

This awareness revealed another confusion: mistaking approval for love. We live in a society where being liked is often equated with being loved, to the point where we sometimes tailor our pleasures to satisfy an invisible jury. Yet being able to enjoy something solely for yourself is one of the clearest signs of maturity. One evening, a dear friend phrased it perfectly: "Freeing yourself from the desire for approval is the purest space a person can open for themselves.” That was the moment I understood. Maturity begins with the ability to create joy for oneself.

In some cultures, friendships with large age differences are still viewed with suspicion: "Why do you always befriend older people?” "Do you not have anyone your own age?”

But these questions rely on an outdated assumption that age and emotional capacity are interchangeable.

Social psychology research suggests the opposite. The depth of a friendship depends on openness and vulnerability, mutual respect, the ability to hold each other’s truth, mental compatibility and sincerity. None of these qualities is tied to age.

The idea of "age-appropriate friendship” is a relic of an older social order. Life stages are no longer linear; everyone moves at a personal pace, on a personal path. Friendships follow this diversity, not as disorder, but as freedom.

Perhaps intergenerational friendships feel so powerful because age has ceased to be purely biological. Modern sociology sees relationships not as "time shared,” but as "values shared.” Being born in the same year does not mean we perceive the same world. Sometimes a sentence from someone decades older reaches us more deeply than a conversation with someone our age; sometimes a question from someone younger unravels a knot we have carried for years.

Time spent with people younger than me has been equally instructive. Their questions, their urgency, their enthusiasm, and even their occasional excess revealed when I was taking myself too seriously or weighing life down unnecessarily. My older friends grounded me; my younger friends lightened me. One rooted me, the other stretched me. Both were essential.

It is no coincidence that friendships around the world are no longer defined by age groups. Identity today is shaped mentally and emotionally, not chronologically. As the rhythms of life intertwine, friendships adapt as well.

For me, the greatest value of friendships, especially intergenerational ones, was not that they amplified who I already was, but that they carried me beyond myself and placed me into a wider existence. From them, I learned that anger is an outdated reflex, that people cannot be reduced to a single word, that approval and love are not the same, and that crafting one’s own joy is itself a mark of maturity. Age differences have never been barriers to connection; if anything, they have enriched conversations and given silence more meaning.

Perhaps the friendship model of the future can be summed up in one sentence: people meet others their age, but they connect with those who share their rhythm. And that rhythm is often born within the age gap.