Young Woman Meets 89-Year-Old Man at Job — They’re Now Best Friends for 9 Years

A young Scottish woman named Aofie and her 98-year-old friend, Tommy are going viral again after she shared a nine-year timeline of their friendship in a viral TikTok detailing how they first met and the heartwarming friendship they've maintained over the years.

"The slightly bizarre story of how I became friends with an 89 (now 98) year old man," Aoife writes in a text overlay of the first screenshot of her TikTok montage.

Her story begins with her moving to Scotland and looking for a job to help her make ends meet.

"When I was 19 I moved to a small town in Scotland to study fashion. A girl's gotta eat and the job opps were limited, so I started working in a bookies." She included a picture of the front of the business where she worked.

The next picture was of the elderly friend in question. "A man called Tommy would come in multiple times a day. It was obvious he was really lonely. His wife had died the year before and he was coming into the bookies for some company."

Aoife went on, "After a few days of working there and seeing him come in so many times during my shift I asked him if I could join him at the bingo that night. He was delighted and got all dressed up for the occasion."

The TikToker's friends were a bit wary at first of her meeting up with Tommy at night just to go to a bingo hall

"Some of my uni friends came with me (because they were like why are you meeting some random man at night??). Tommy walking into the bingo with four young ones on his arm was the talk of the town that week."

The fashion student said that her and Tommy soon started hanging out every single day at work and they'd often go out to eat together or check out the movies.

"That night at the bingo was the start of a beautiful friendship! I'd see Tommy when I was at work every day and I'd go to this house a few times a week, he'd cook me dinner at his house or I'd take him out for dinner or the cinema — the pictures as he calls it."

She'd even drag him along out to thrift stores to find new outfit inspirations, snapping shared selfies along the way. "I dragged him to the charity shops a lot too," Aoife penned in another slide.

Turns out that Tom was even thrilled to help her out with her homework assignments, too. Another portion of her TikTok video shows the older man in a series of headshots and photographs where he modeled a suit. The name of her assignment? "You're only as old as you feel."

"He even modeled for me for one of my uni projects. Killed it tbh," she wrote in another overlay.

In another picture, she shared how Mr.Tommy Houston showed her how to drive a car. "He started to teach me how to drive and I ended up passing my test in his car," she wrote.

"I'd had instructors back home in Belfast but if Tommy hadn't have taken me out to practice nearly every day for months I'd never have passed," she wrote.

Another image shows Aoife and her friends sitting with Tommy at a surprise birthday party they threw for the man. "After our first year of uni, my besties and I moved to Edinburgh and started to commute to uni."

"Tommy would meet us at the station everyday and drive us to uni. He became good friends with all of my friends & we'd take him out for dinner, watch the six nations at his house and even had a surprise birthday party for him one year."

In another picture, she shared more photos of herself hanging out with Tommy. She said that even after she moved away, the two kept in contact with one another. "When I moved to Edinburgh Tommy would come to visit every few weeks. He met all of my work friends in the pub I worked in and then would come to the shop I worked in. We'd go for dinner & sometimes go see a show which he always loved."

"Over the years he met pretty much all of my friends & my family too. He met my brothers & cousins in2018," she added, showing yet another picture of Tommy hanging out with Aoife and her pals followed by a snapshot of him standing with her family.

Aoife then added another picture of Tommy standing beside her mother outside of what looks like a cathedral. He was my mum's +1 at my graduation in 2019.

In the following photo, she can be seen standing close to Tommy while looking at the camera, he has an arm around her shoulder.

Although they're both smiling, she writes that the circumstances attached to the photo were a bit sadder. "Not long after I graduated I found out I'd gotten a job in NYC. We spent our last night sitting on a bench in St Andrews Sq in Edinburgh sharing earphones, listening to Frank Sinatra lol."

She went on to write: "I wasn't sure how long I'd be in America so I was scared I wouldn't see him for years and I'd say he felt the same."

In the following slide, she revealed that she and Frank were separated around the same time stay-at-home mandates were issued in response to COVID-19.

"When I Was in NYC COVID hit and I started calling him every day to make sure he was doing OK. Being even more isolated was hard for him and he missed being out and about."

That's when she decided to do something for her friend, referring to the time she asked for a bunch of people to send him a card for his 95th birthday, which ended up going viral.

The two ended up sharing their story on one of Tommy's favorite programs: This Morning, which ended up making him very happy. After she had moved back from the US, she introduced Tommy to her boyfriend, Anton.

In another selfie with the two she wrote that over the years, Tommy has taught her a lot and helped her navigate life, break ups, and her time at university.

In her final slide she says that on the eve of his 99th birthday that Tommy is "still as sharp the day [she] first met him."

These days, Aofie writes that she only gets to see Tommy every six weeks and that he's living in a care facility.