My Experience With a Friendship Dating App

There is something everyone with chronic illness has experienced at one time or another. It doesn't matter what health issues you may struggle with or how "functional" you may appear to be. It's loneliness. Shortly after I began to experience the long-term effects of Ehler-Danlos Syndrome I realized how isolating it can be to have a chronic illness. People who I had considered friends didn't visit me in the hospital. I needed help with activities I used to be able to do on my own, but I was hard pressed to find any family or friends who were willing to help me. I began to take long stretches of time off of work and I quickly grew bored with my sudden free time. Eventually, I was forced to stop working and I launched my own business from home. I began to miss daily interactions with coworkers. I would watch the clock and anticipate the time until my wife got home. I became desperate for any type of business. I wasn't needing the money that came along with it, but I needed to get out of the house and interact with clients. I had always considered myself an introvert, but even I grew tired of being alone all the time. I had nothing new to talk about with my wife when she returned from her day. I needed more stimulation outside of my home. I decided that I needed friends. 

Okay, so it has been a looooong time since I've made friends. In high school, I was socially awkward and preferred my own company to the company of other teenagers. Even as a child I shunned the company of children. I preferred to hang around adults at parties. But, I did have a few friends at school. I've never been much of a drinker. I detest parties. They quickly wear me out and the loud music and multiple streams of conversations can quickly become confusing and overstimulating for me (thanks auditory processing disorder!) I go to college online. And, my health has been too poor to work outside the home since I was 23. I felt that I had no opportunity to met other likeminded, introverted, homebodies who had the potential of being friends. I researched different avenues to strike up friendships. I tried to compliment strangers in the grocery store. I joined in-person support groups. I started doing my work in coffee shops vs. my home office. After several months, these strategies proved to be unsuccessful. I was getting out of the house more. But, I was still missing out on forming close connections with other adults. Part of the problem is, once we graduate school, get married, and start working we lose a lot of opportunities to form close, platonic bonds with other people. So, we actually have to work to make friends. This can feel uncomfortable for many people. So we just continue on with our lives with a very limited amount, or with no friends.

One day, I stumbled across Bumble BFF. It's like Tinder where you can swipe left or right on potential match's profiles. But unlike Tinder, it's purpose is for finding platonic relationships vs. romantic partners. I decided to give it a shot. After all, I had nothing to lose! And, I got to work on my profile. You can display whether you're married, have kids, have pets, and then you answer a few questions. I picked a few pictures of my self and then started to get to work swiping on potential friends.

My Bumble BFF profile!

 If you and a potential friend are both mutually interested, you're matched, and you have 24 hours to message each other before the match expires. 

Just like with dating sites there were some people I messaged and never received a message back. And, there were some people who I messaged and our conversation fizzled out after a couple of message exchanges. 

But, there were also some people I felt that I really had a connection with! I was able to have in-depth conversations and discuss things from our childhoods, our dreams for our lives, and our relationships. Finally, the time came to meet up with someone on Bumble BFF. I wasn't sure why, but I was extremely nervous! In some ways, it felt like I was preparing for a first date instead of meeting a friend for the first time. We decided to meet at a restaurant and we hit it off! We had a lot in common and had very similar personalities. We even made plans for going out the next week. 

Overall, I was pleasantly surprised by how easy it was to use this app and how successful I was. Since I'm a huge introvert, it's an extremely huge accomplishment for me to even make one friend. I was even pleasantly surprised by how many people were active since I live in a small-medium sized city. If you're looking to add people to your friendship circle, I would definitely recommend using a swipe style friendship app (espeically Bumble BFF!). After all, what do any of uys have to lose?