"If only you could swipe right to find a new friend"

[El]

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/mar/25/if-only-you-could-swipe-right-to-find-a-new-friend

If I were in the market for a new boyfriend, I’d have my pick of apps and sites that could help me browse and narrow the field of potential suitors. Dating sites offer you the benefit of layers of filters and algorithms, and while that’s no guarantee you won’t waste a free evening on someone you end up totally hating, there are plenty of tools to make it less likely.

When it comes to finding platonic friends, though, your toolbar suddenly shrinks. There are a few options – primarily Meetup.com – that will connect you with events where you might meet people you like, but if you want to sort using a criteria other than shared interests, you’re out of luck. Friendship is, in many ways, actually more complicated than romance. So why do we act as if it’s simpler?

We don’t often talk about friend chemistry, but everyone knows it’s real. But a site like Meetup elevates hobbies above all else – as if the process of friendship is one of picking a shared passion, crossing your fingers and hoping to click. Who’s got the time?

Maybe we’re supposed to like everybody; maybe nobody would want to be seen using an app that announces: “I’m choosy about my friends.” Or maybe nobody wants to be seen using a friendship app at all – you’re supposed to come pre-loaded with friends, and then devote yourself to finding a romantic partner. If you tried to find friends on a site for people with no friends, wouldn’t you be limited to the friendship dregs, the losers?

We faced a similar challenge with dating sites. Over the decade it took for them to increase in popularity from “niche” to “ubiquitous”, attitudes towards them have changed. In 2003 and 2004, when I was first dating online, couples came up with convenient lies to avoid admitting how they met. I vaguely remember a site that would auto-generate a story about how you met so that you could keep your shame a secret.
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Now, a majority of Americans think online dating is a good way to meet people, according to a 2013 Pew Research Center report, and more than a third of new US marriages began with an online meeting. We recognize that people move to new cities, that they get busy and stuck in their routines, that meeting people is harder as you get older. We’ve become comfortable with the idea that loneliness happens and that the internet can be a tool to fight it – at least when it comes to romance. If the tipping point for friendship apps comes down to stigma, then it’s time we got with the program.

Love is always going to be mysterious, whether it’s romantic or platonic. But right now we’re pretending that friendship is easy and simple, that we aren’t as selective about our friends as we are with our dates – and at the same time, pretending that friendship is somehow so ineffable that the best you can do is find some common cause and hope for the best. People are already finding new friends in the wilds of social media; the time is ripe for some developer to step up and make it easier with an algorithm. The world can be lonely, but we have the powerful people-finding technology to make new connections. Let’s find more ways to use it.

...I concur.  Albiet, OKC turned up way more friendships than relationships for me, when I was on it.  (I very much don't want to go back on it.)

[Yuri Bezmenov]

This doesn't do much good if you live in a smaller city.     

[El]

This doesn't do much good if you live in a smaller city.     

What doesn't do much good?

[Yuri Bezmenov]

This doesn't do much good if you live in a smaller city.     

What doesn't do much good?

Trying to meet people via the internet or smartphone app. There's usually too few people registered at any one site.

I live in a town of 50,000 and there's not even a dozen women my age on any dating site, even if you set the filters to accept fatties.

[El]

This doesn't do much good if you live in a smaller city.     

What doesn't do much good?

Trying to meet people via the internet or smartphone app. There's usually too few people registered at any one site.

I live in a town of 50,000 and there's not even a dozen women my age on any dating site, even if you set the filters to accept fatties.

I live in a town of under 10,000.  Everything and everyone fun is about an hour from me.  You have to schlep if it's not right there.

[Dexter Morgan]

I thought that is what meetup.com is for?

[El]

I thought that is what meetup.com is for?

Didja read the article, Dex? 

[Yuri Bezmenov]

This doesn't do much good if you live in a smaller city.     

What doesn't do much good?

Trying to meet people via the internet or smartphone app. There's usually too few people registered at any one site.

I live in a town of 50,000 and there's not even a dozen women my age on any dating site, even if you set the filters to accept fatties.

I live in a town of under 10,000.  Everything and everyone fun is about an hour from me.  You have to schlep if it's not right there.

I'm in the same boat. All of the cites here are in valleys, so to go to the next town, you have to drive over a mountain pass to the next valley.

[Dexter Morgan]

I thought that is what meetup.com is for?

Didja read the article, Dex? 

I've learned not to click on Guardian opinion articles.

[Jack]

she pasted the article.