How To Make Friends As An Adult With Bumble BFF
If you’re past your early 20’s and out of college, you’ve probably come to realize that making friends as an adult is HARD. No more organized school clubs, no more bonding next to the people you sit beside everyday in class, no more dorm life where making friends with your neighbors is so easy. Friendships require more effort by taking control of your social life which takes time and intention.
Social connections have been proven to be the key to happiness and longevity according to the longest ongoing study at Harvard - read it here. This doesn’t mean you need to have a ton of friends to be happy, just a few solid connections. I’ve found that the easiest way to put yourself out there and meet new people as an adult is through Bumble BFF.
I started using Bumble BFF in 2018 when I moved to upstate New York and didn’t know a single soul. It was lonely. But through this app, I was able to meet some amazing women with shared interests and was able to handpick the friend group I wanted. Since I’ve started a new chapter in Colorado, I find myself using Bumble BFF again.
If you’re not familiar, Bumble BFF is basically like a dating app but for meeting friends. Just like a dating app, you swipe right with people you want to match with and swipe left on people you don’t think would be a good fit.
Common Mistakes
Some users complain that it doesn’t work and that they never actually meet up with people. But they’re probably using it wrong. Here are some of the most common mistakes I’ve seen:
Swiping right on too many people and it becomes overwhelming trying to keep the conversation going.
Bad prompts on your profile or not answering the prompts which makes conversation more difficult to get started.
Not moving the conversation off the app or meeting up in person.
How to Use Bumble BFF Effectively
Before you start swiping, ask yourself, “Am I at a place where I can dedicate the time and energy to chat with and meet up with people?” If no, maybe hold off for a few weeks or when you have a lot of time on your hands, because starting new connections does require investing some time and effort. You may lose some matches if you’re unable to meet up after starting a conversation, since there’s a chance they may become uninterested if you wait too long.
Creating your profile:
Choose a wide variety of photos that you think accurately portray yourself and your interests. Avoid just posting selfies. Additionally, make sure you select prompts that make it easy for someone to start a conversation. My pet peeve is when people only choose this or that questions like “yoga vs hike” - “both”, or “beach or mountains” - “mountains”, “night club of Netflix” - “Netflix”. Sure, someone can start a conversation from these prompts, but it’s difficult to get a sense of who you are with responses like this. Instead answer prompts like “describe you perfect Sunday” or “ideal night out is” or “after work you can find me”. The person on the other end viewing your profile will get a better sense of whether or not you’ll click and it’s a chance to show more of your personality.
Use your profile as an opportunity to be honest with what you’re looking for.
Swiping for Success:
Okay, so you just completed creating your profile with engaging prompts and some fun photos. Let’s find friends!!
Here’s my advice.
Don’t aimlessly swipe, know what kind of people you’re looking for and what your non-negotiables are. Does age matter to you? How about how far away they live? How far would you be willing to drive to meet someone? Keep in mind, to build connections you need to hang out fairly frequently in the beginning. Fortunately, you can edit the settings so you can choose the age group and relative location of the people you want to meet.
The first time you open the app, swipe right on 10 people you think you could get along with, then STOP (temporarily) and see who matches with you. Some may swipe left, some may not be active on the app anymore If a day passes with no matches, swipe right on 5 more profiles, then STOP again (repeat).
Why? It can be so easy to swipe through a whole city in a night, and then you’re stuck with more matches you can handle and inevitably ghost people that could have been good matches because you didn’t have the time, understandably, to keep 20 conversations going at once.
I’d recommend not having more than 5 active conversations going at once (for the reasons listed above). Unless you’re great at multitasking then go for it!
Becoming BFFs:
The best conversations start by commenting on someone’s prompts or photos. I wouldn’t recommend starting a conversation with “how’s your day” or other basic conversation starters. It’s just harder to get the conversation going for some reason in my experience. Use the prompts, they are there for a reason! Or comment on something you have in common (ie. you both are from the same state or went to the same school, something like that).
People aren’t looking for pen pals. Get the conversation off the app as soon as possible!! Don’t drag it out. It will probably end in a few days if you don’t act on it and then you’ve lost an opportunity. You also can’t really know a person until you meet up with them in person anyways.
Once you feel like you could have a connection on the app, set a friend date! The best first “friend dates” I prefer are drinks after work, coffee shops on the weekends, or short walks at a nearby park. I actually really like going for walks as a first meet up, because I have social anxiety and sometimes sitting face to face with a stranger makes me nervous, especially if there is a lull in conversation. But meet wherever you feel most comfortable!
From there, it’s up to you how to move forward. If you feel like you could see a friendship evolve, make sure you schedule meet ups at least once a week until you feel like you’ve formed a genuine connection. Otherwise, it may fizzle out.
Community is incredibly important, but sometimes it takes time to build. Put yourself out there, don’t give up, and be open for connection.
