Here's your sign to find a cross-generation friendship in Salt Lake City - Axios Salt Lake CityLog InLog InAxios Salt Lake City is an Axios company.

Find a cross-generation friendship in Salt Lake City

Erin and her neighbor, Gwynne, chill on a porch swing and talk about bugs. Photo: Erin Alberty/Axios A conversation with my neighbor about bugs (more on that later) got me thinking about cross-generational friendships. Driving the news: I went a long time without many friends outside my own age group.Without religious or family ties in Utah, my social vectors mostly pointed toward fellow Xennials.Then COVID cut me off from my older and younger work friends. Why it matters: A lot of us are yearning for more intergenerational connections, according to a by the generation-bridging nonprofit Encore.Psychologists say those friendships are young and older people.In 2019, an AARP found that cross-generational friendships were particularly likely to be long-lasting and involve frequent in-person contact. By the numbers: Gen Z and Gen X were most keen to unite with other generations, according to the Encore study.Nearly 90% of Hispanic and Black respondents hoped to work for social progress with people at least 25 years older than themselves. The good news (for me): COVID actually strengthened friendships within my neighborhood, since it was easy to visit outdoors. So about those bugs: Yesterday, I, a 43-year-old, was walking with my 74-year-old neighbor, Gwynne, when we began listing the insects we've seen this week.Gwynne is a backyard naturalist, and I'm a gardener, so it's really not weird.But as he described a wasp attacking a katydid, and I shared deets about my latest grasshopper encounter, I realized we probably sounded like a couple of 8-year-olds. The bottom line: You're never too old or young to have a best bug friend.And bug friends are never too old or young, either. Get more local stories in your inbox with .Subscribe Support local journalism by becoming a member.

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