DATING SITES: LET’S JUST BE FRIENDS

Romance isn’t uppermost in the minds of many people now emerging from long periods of pandemic isolation. Instead, they crave the friendships and social groups they have been starved of over the past year. Dating apps such as Tinder and Bumble are launching or acquiring new services focused entirely on making and maintaining friends. Bumble founder and CEO Whitney Wolfe Herd (* Whitney Wolfe Herd? Really?) says people are seeking friendship in ways they would have only done offline before the pandemic. Bumble now has a BFF (best friends forever) feature, which it said comprised about 9% of Bumble’s total monthly active users.
– Meanwhile, Match Group, which owns the dating apps Tinder and Hinge, just bought a fast-rising South Korean social media firm Hyperconnect, whose apps let people chat from across the world using real-time translation.
– A service called Meetup, which helps you meet people with similar interests at local or online events, has seen a 22% rise in new members since January.
* Come on. If she’s telling you she’s not interested in romance, but just a platonic friend because she’s “craving friendship,” you’re a sucker and a dope.
* And any man who tells you he’s just looking for platonic relationship right now, he means, “until we finish the appetizer.”
* Like they always say, if you want a friend, get a dog.
* Sex is the “little black dress” of being human. It will never go out of style.
* These people looking for friends are just sick of the apartments they’ve been stuck in, and they need help moving.