When Kendrick Constant glanced at his phone one afternoon in 2018, he noticed dozens of text messages rolling in from a cluster of retired fifty-something investment bankers trading jokes and logistics for a birthday celebration in Manhattan.
A young, Black, recent college graduate who was just starting a career in finance, Constant was mistakenly added to the text string. But while most people would have silently backed out, the then 22 year old leaned in and found himself absorbed into a close-knit circle of people twice his age.
After someone in the WhatsApp chat finally sent a photo of the group gathered at a restaurant for the much-discussed birthday dinner, Constant opened the image, cut his own headshot and carefully photoshopped himself into the scene, smiling alongside the strangers as if he’d been there all along. It was the first time he had commented.
The whole crew embraced the bit and kept the banter going. Constant quickly became known as “the new guy.”
“It started as a joke,” Constant, who lives in Stamford, Connecticut, tells TODAY.com in an interview. What he didn’t expect, he says, was that instead of being kicked out, “they adopted me.”
That unlikely twist is now resonating far beyond their group chat. After Constant shared the story in a short Instagram reel, explaining how a wrong-number message turned into a seven-year friendship, it struck a nerve, drawing hundreds of thousands of views from people craving a reminder that genuine human connection can still happen by accident.
As the months went on, Constant developed a special connection with Brent Milner. It was Milner’s birthday dinner the friends had been organizing. Constant has also grown close with Milner’s 21-year-old son, Beck, a student at Yale University.
Constant and Milner’s first meeting came months after the photoshopped gag, when Milner invited him to a recording studio in New York, where he and a few friends had rented time to play music. Constant, who sings in a church choir and plays drums, joined them for several hours. That face-to-face connection cemented what had begun online.
From there, the relationship deepened in ways Constant hadn’t anticipated. What started as playful banter and a jam session gradually shifted into something more meaningful.
“He’s always been a helping hand,” Constant says, explaining how Milner became an informal mentor. “As a young financial advisor, I’d reach out for advice: how to navigate situations, what stocks to look at, how to approach conversations.”
Milner, who lives in Park City, Utah, says the mentorship quickly became a two-way friendship. What surprised him wasn’t Constant’s youth, but the ease with which their conversations expanded far beyond careers.
“We cover all kinds of stuff, life, failure, success, everything,” Milner, 57, tells TODAY.com. “It’s never just one thing with Kendrick.”
For Constant, the deeper lesson was about choosing to see people as individuals rather than categories. He admits that on paper, it could’ve looked like an unlikely match. But he never approached them that way.
“I just saw people I could connect with, and they saw the same in me,” Constant tells TODAY. “Even if we come from different worlds, we’re still able to find common ground.”
In a moment when the world feels so divided, Constant says he hopes their story shows what happens when you give the unexpected person a chance.
This story first appeared on TODAY.com. More from TODAY:
