INVESTIGATION: Can You Actually Make Friends On A Dating App?
It’s inevitable in life that the friends you were once close with might go in a different direction to you. Whether they have kids, move to another state or country, or you just drift apart, the older we get often means that our friendship circles start to shrink.
As people head into their 30s and 40s, outside of work, there aren’t as many opportunities to form friendships. According to a 2019 global report commissioned by Snapchat on the impact of culture, age and technology on friendship, most people on average have met their best friend by the time they’re just 21 years old. This doesn’t leave much time for people looking for a bestie later in life.
Lucille McCart, APAC Communications Director at Bumble, told us, “As we get older the social environments that are set up to help us make friends easily, such as school or university, fall away and it can feel harder and harder to meet new people or make new friends.”
With a diminishing chance of making close friends as we age, people are now turning to dating apps for more than just romantic connections. But can you actually make friends this way? Let’s find out!
making friends from dating apps is my superpower…. it’s a gift and a curse
— Anav Gagneja (@ChefQuixote) January 20, 2021
Can you actually make friends on a dating app?
“I have made awesome friends from dating apps,” Tars told us on Facebook. “Matched him with a mutual friend and I’m going to be her maid of honour when they get married.” Another dating app user, Isabella, added, “This guy messaged me, just to chat, we seemed to really get on and just became good friends. Have never hooked up or anything, because we are just awesome friends.”
Sometimes dating app friendships can start off romantic, but then evolve into a friendship when two people realise they’re not in the same place. “I’ve always gone into dating apps with a ‘whatever happens, happens’ mentality, because you just never know what vibe someone you match with will have,” Michelle told us.
“Sometimes people just have friendship energy — and that’s OK. I actually matched with one of my now good friends five years ago on Tinder. At first, we were ‘seeing each other’ but three months in he told me he wasn’t looking for anything serious but ‘didn’t want to lose me as a friend’. Being 22 and dramatic, I despised him for using that line on me but over time, I realised he was right. We were good friends — we had similar interests, we liked sharing new music with each other, we’d communicate through memes and we’d hang out when we were bored — and that was something I didn’t want to lose either. So knowing that a relationship wouldn’t work between us, I choose to remain friends instead of losing him entirely,” she said.
“At the end of the day, not everyone you match with will be someone you want to be with — and the real friendships you can form are often better than the failed romances anyway.”
In other instances two people get along, but the physical attraction is lacking. “I matched with this guy over Christmas 2020. He was delightful and super intriguing. We went for a drink in Redfern and I was just blown away by how interesting he was,” an anonymous dating app user told us.
“We had really similar views and values, but at the end of the day I just wasn’t attracted to him — even though he ticked all of my perceived boxes. I said I knew friendship was unlikely to be something he was looking for on a dating app, but if he was, I really wanted that. We became mates and he went back overseas at the end of the holidays. We’ve stayed in contact since, sending long life updates.”
Other times, people start off and stay as platonic friends from the get-go. Jules matched with an American girl in Barcelona when she was “absent-mindedly flicking through Tinder” during a backpacking trip around Europe. “We chatted for ages, all the time, and kind of chased each other around Europe, always missing each other by a few days in each city. In the end, I went back to Australia and she headed back to the US. We kept talking though — Skyping occasionally, chatting on the phone, and she basically became my ‘Tinder Pen Pal’.
“After a few months, she said she was coming to Australia for a sailing school, and so the first time I ever met her was at the airport, picking her up so she could crash at my house before heading off to the school in Manly. She stayed in Australia for a year or two, and even spent Christmas with my family,” Jules told us. “It was never romantic, just a lovely friendship that continues to this day.”
While dating app matches can turn into friendships, if you want to avoid any kind of romantic scenario, you might be better off joining an app that’s specifically for friend-finding.
Are there specific apps for making friends?
There’s actually heaps: apps like Nextdoor, Hey! Vina, and Meetup are options, but if you’re lazy like me and just want to use your regular dating profile to make friends, then Bumble BFF is an easy alternative. If you’re already on Bumble, you can just go into settings and change your ‘Choose Mode’ to ‘BFF’ and that’s it.
It’s unsurprising that Bumble has seen a rising interest in friend-finding over the past year — life in lockdown means people are searching for social connections, even if entirely virtual. During the first three months of 2021, the average time spent on Bumble BFF globally grew 44% for women and 83% for men.
Bumble BFF first launched in 2016 and according to McCart, the app offers an easy way to find friends, especially given the social roadblocks that the past two years have thrown our way. “In the current climate, it is easy to feel isolated and it is not always easy to meet people IRL, so Bumble BFF is an easy way to meet like-minded people who are all there with a shared purpose of wanting to connect,” she said.
“There are all sorts of reasons why people come to Bumble BFF to make new friends. At certain times in your life, you may look around and realise that your friendship circle has somehow become smaller or isn’t serving you — maybe your friends are settling down and you aren’t, or you’ve had a baby and don’t have any ‘mum friends’. Or sometimes friends just drift apart.
“Any of those scenarios or more can lead to people joining Bumble BFF, but we also see a lot of people come to the platform when they are beginning a new life stage like starting university or moving cities or countries for a new job.”
A Relationships Australia online survey from 2018 found that 15% of men and 8% of women reported that they had no close friends outside of their long-term relationship, while around one third of men and women in relationships reported that they had only one or two close friends.
“As an adult it can be really hard to find new friends, especially if you live in a big city,” McCart said. “People seem to already have their friend group and there can be less of a sense of community. On BFF you can skip the awkwardness as everyone there has the shared goal of making new friends!”
We spoke to Ala, a 26-year-old from Adelaide, who not only made a new bestie, Rufia, from the app, but they now live together. “I jumped on Bumble BFF when I first moved to Adelaide as I didn’t know anyone in the state, and wanted to make friends and build connections with like-minded people to explore my new city with, ” Ala told us.
“I’m from North Sudan so when I was swiping on Bumble BFF, I was looking for people who had a similar culture to me. Rufia’s profile showed that she travelled and had a lot of friends from a variety of backgrounds, so I thought she would be someone who has similar values as me and is more culturally aware. We’re also both Muslim so we had heaps of things in common and I would say that is why we hit it off so quickly.”
Ala said that when she initially joined Bumble BFF, she was hesitant. “Being the first time I’m using a dating app, it would be no surprise that one is always accompanied with feelings of fear, doubt, and overall uncertainty. I’m so grateful and lucky to say that the people I’ve met through this app have been nothing but BADASS WOMEN (in the best way possible).”
She went on to say that she doesn’t think she would have crossed paths with Rufia without meeting on the app: Ala works in childcare, while Rufia is a school counsellor. “By pure coincidence, Rufia and I both actually matched with another girl in Adelaide and both organised separately to catch up with her for coffee IRL. She decided to bring the other one along so the three of us met for coffee, which is where I first met Rufia IRL,” she said.
“We’re still friends with the other girl and talk to her quite regularly, but there was something different about Rufia and we instantly clicked. Now I have a best friend and the best roomie!”
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It’s Back On The Apps week at Punkee! We’re digging into the good, the bad, and the highly questionable when it comes to using dating apps. Find more of our content here.