2023-11-29
31 分钟Sonja Falck was immediately attracted to Colin, the professor who was renting her a room. He was intellectual and lively, with bright eyes that drew her in. It was only after they were already dating that Sonja found out Colin’s age: He was 34 years older than her. Their age gap didn’t give them pause. Sonja and Colin got married, had kids and built a fulfilling life together. But when Colin reached his 80s, and Sonja was in her mid-40s, Sonja realized she was craving a level of physical intimacy that Colin could no longer provide. So Sonja and Colin had to make a decision: Could they transform their relationship into something that gave both partners what they wanted? Or had their age gap finally caught up to them?
Anna Martin: When Sonja Falck was 26,
she fell for a much older man named Colin,
before she even met him.
It started when Sonja rented a room in Colin's house in London,
while he was away teaching English literature in the US.
The first thing Sonja saw when she walked into his home was —
Sonja Falck: Books, books, books everywhere.
Just walls lined with bookshelves.
Poetry, novels, philosophy, psychoanalysis, sociology, linguistics.
Anna Martin: You're beaming.
Sonja Falck: Just anthropology, health.
And also, what I noticed was nearly all the books that I owned,
he had copies of as well.
Anna Martin: Sonja had grown up in South Africa.
Then, after getting her degree in psychology,
she'd spent the last few years traveling and staying in hostels.
She got the sense that Colin was a traveler, too,
from the art he collected.
Sonja wanted to meet the man whose house she felt so at home in.