Don't Tell Me I Can't…...have A Friend Half My Age

Liz Stout and her friend Beth are defying the generational divide.

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Letting go of the rubber band, it flies across the office, hitting its target on the other side of the room – my friend Beth’s back. She jerks her head up confused, then breaks into a smile when she spies my guilty face. ‘Will you please grow up?’ she jokingly chides, to which we both fall about laughing. ‘Not with you around!’ I say shaking my head. Beth and I often joke that she brings out my youthful side, and being 24 years my junior, that’s really not surprising.

Beth and I first met in July 2017 at the communications agency where I worked. At 21, she was then just starting out in her first job, while I’d already been working freelance in the office for six months.

Beth was young and full of energy. She had a boyfriend, but was a self-confessed party animal – the complete opposite to me, a 44-year old divorced mum-of-two with a few wrinkles here and there. My son, George, was 10, and my daughter, Lula, was 12, only nine years younger than Beth.