Spencer Sleyon and Rosalind Guttman met face-to-face for the first time on Friday. Photo / Amy Butler
Spencer Sleyon and Rosalind Guttman met face-to-face for the first time on Friday. Photo / Amy Butler
An aspiring rapper and hip-hop producer travelled more than 1600km to meet a pensioner he befriended while playing a word game online.
Spencer Sleyon, who lives in Harlem, New York, finally met with Rosalind Guttman, 81, in Florida after the pair formed an unlikely bond while playing more than 300matches on the Words with Friends app.
The app lets people play a Scrabble-like game with Facebook friends or other randomly-paired competitors.
The two talked about Words with Friends to TV shows, and have since become Facebook friends. Photo / Amy Butler
Their friendship started last summer when Guttman used the word "phat", which is hip hop slang for "excellent", in a game after the two were randomly matched.
Recalling the moment to the >Washington Post, Sleyon said: "I was like, yo, how do you know that word?
"From day one I knew I was playing an old white woman," Sleyon said. He just wanted to play, he said, and she was a fun sparring partner.
He also enjoyed their side conversations, where they would talk about their lives a bit. He once deleted Words With Friends for a short time and before he signed off he asked her for life advice. "Shoot for the stars," he recalled her typing. "Whatever you want out of life, just go grab it."
On Friday Sleyon, whose stage name is Half Empty, finally travelled to meet Guttman at her retirement home in West Palm Beach.
He tweeted pictures of the pair greeting like long lost friends and the touching images have been shared more than 240,000 times on the social media network, garnering more than 1 million likes.
The meeting was arranged by the mother of one of Sleyon's friends, Hannah Butler, after she overheard the pair talking about the rapper's chance friendship.
Amy Butler, a pastor at the Riverside Church, in Manhattan, initially wanted to write a sermon about Sleyon and Guttman's bond.
Then she said she started thinking about the fleeting nature of online relationships, which offer people the opportunity to connect with many others without ever meeting - so she asked Sleyon if she could contact Guttman to see if a face-to-face encounter could be arranged.
Guttman agreed and Butler accompanied Sleyon, who is originally from Silver Spring, Maryland, near Washington DC, on the journey down to Florida to witness the meeting.
She said the pair talked about everything from how competitive the pensioner felt about their online contests (Spencer has won 210 out of their 324 games) to the TV show Curb Your Enthusiasm, describing Guttman as "like a character on The Golden Girls".
Following the encounter, Butler said: "We're living in a country divided by fear of the other, and people are longing for ways to connect. This story has two unlikely people becoming friends. It's very beautiful and hopeful."
Sleyon said he plans to continue playing Words With Friends. He and Guttman have three simultaneous games going on, and they have a new way to connect, too: They just became Facebook friends.
The two have since become Facebook friends. Photo / Amy Butler
