The generation three and generation one connection of individuals not related by blood or marriage is predicted to increase in incidence in the coming decades. This will occur regardless of public policy or the concerns of family members who yearn for connectedness within the institutional family. These non-family nexi have the potential to provide participants with memorable experiences and knowledge within less than a lifetime frame, or they may be of long duration where individuals have a deep commitment to each other. The development of multiple "special" friendships between older adults, children, and youth may be the insurance for aloneness in old age and its devastating morbidic consequences. Geographic mobility, fertility rates, and dual worker families add up to a scarcity of family members who can connect with older family members for sociability, services, and other activities. There is a need for a conceptual approach which will provide understanding and meaning to the non-family dyadic generational connection, a harbinger of a normal event in the coming years. This development has begun by providing a contrast between family and non-family relationships on a number of connectedness variables. (ABL)