This is a composite, illustrative example, not a single named individual's account.
By her mid-80s, one solo ager had outlived nearly all of her closest lifelong friends. Rather than accepting isolation as inevitable, she joined an intergenerational mentoring program, building new relationships with people decades younger — a deliberate choice to widen the age range of her circle going forward.
The lesson: friend circles built entirely within one age group are more vulnerable to this exact compounding loss — some age diversity adds resilience.