Do we ever stop feeling anxious, angry or sad about relationships? Not if my older friends are any guide | Emma Beddington

The generations are more segregated than ever. Yet we have so much in common

I've always felt a bit pathetic for not having a proper peer group. In dark moments, it feels like a moral failing and an indictment of my social skills. In kinder moments I recognise it's also partly a product of being sick and sad at university, then successively too pregnant, too preoccupied with babies and too peripatetic to make or maintain ties. In calmer times, I've forged slightly more of a social life, but mostly it's not made up of my gen X peers, but rather people who are occasionally younger, usually significantly older. Now I'm wondering - am I lucky?

This thought was prompted by an Atlantic podcast discussing the demographic moment we're living in - the usual pyramidal population structure is becoming squarer, with similar numbers of older and younger people - and asking whether we're making the most of it. The conclusion was we probably aren't.