Ever since I hit my 30s, I’ve made it a practice to make younger friends (in a non-creepy way of course). I was glad when people like Ramit Sethi or Ben Casnocha came into my life. (Conversely, I was also glad to meet older friends like my friend Don Yates.)

At the time, I was primarily interested in meeting more smart and interesting people regardless of their age, and secondarily interested in learning what young people thought, since their openness to new ideas makes them more likely to be early adopters. But tonight, I realized that there is another important reason.

Another of my (slightly older) friends was relating the story of his own father, who lived to quite a ripe old age. He described comforting his father after accompanying him to the funeral of one of his longtime friends.

“It must be tough to lose such a good friend,” he said to his dad.

“You don’t understand,” his grieving father said, “He was my last friend. All of my other friends had already passed away.”

I can’t imagine living life without friends. You might be surrounded by loving family members, but you still need other friends. And if you don’t make younger friends, and you live into your 90s or 100s, that’s the situation you’ll face unless you went to college with a couple of Methuselahs.

I remember that Don used to refer to me as his “young friend.” I think I only just realized how much those words meant.