The dating app Tinder is shown on an Apple iPhone in this photo illustration taken February 10, 2016. REUTERS FILE PHOTO
I’ve just come out of a long-term lockdown. Can we be friends?
Amorous entanglements aren’t uppermost in the minds of many people emerging from long periods of pandemic isolation. Instead, they crave the friendships and social groups they have been starved of over the past year.
That’s the verdict of dating apps such as Tinder and Bumble, which are launching or acquiring new services focused entirely on making and maintaining friends.
“There’s a really interesting trend that has been taking place in the connection space, which is this desire to have platonic relationships,” said Bumble founder and CEO Whitney Wolfe Herd.
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“People are seeking friendship in ways they would have only done offline before the pandemic.”
Her company is investing in its Bumble BFF (best friends forever) feature, which it said comprised about 9% of Bumble’s total monthly active users in September 2020 and “has room to grow as we increase our focus on this space”.
