Making friends on Tinder is generally not the goal. It is a booby prize. And not the fun kind, if you know what I mean.
But if I understand you right, you want a Tinder app for making friends.
Great.
Because in this article you’ll find the best online friend-finding apps that suit your needs.
- What is the friend equivalent of Tinder?:
- Best For Making Multiple Friends: Meetup
- Best For Friends In Your Area: NextDoor
- Best For Friends With Mutual Hobbies: Wink
- Best For Filtered Results: Bumble BFF
- Best For Gamers: Twitch
- Best For Online-Only Friendships: MeetMe
- Best For Pen Pals: Slowly
- Best For Fitness Enthusiasts: Atleto
- Best For Instant Connectivity: Friended
- Best For Platonic Friendships: Patook
- Make yourself popular
What is the friend equivalent of Tinder?:
The next apps are similar to Tinder but are exclusively aimed at making friends:
- Meetup
- NextDoor
- Wink
- Bumble BFF
- Twitch
- MeetMe
- Slowly
- Atleto
- Friended
- Patook
Read the rest of the article to find out which friend app is best for you.
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Best For Making Multiple Friends: Meetup
Whether you’re moving to a new country or doing a Jason Bourne and wake up without knowing who you or any of your friends are, Meetup is a great place to find new buddies from scratch.
Meetup can help you build incredibly strong and long-lasting friendships because the app is built around mutual interests.
Whereas most friendships in real life are based on proximity. People just run into each other over and over again (like at school or work) and strike up a friendship out of familiarity.
The trouble is that these types of relationships can easily end when the thing that brought them together ends.
Then hanging out stops being convenient.
But when your interests and passions are what bring you together, then you always have a reason to see each other.
That’s exactly why Meetup works so well.
How does it work?
Meetup hosts events for you to join events, where everyone is into the same stuff. So it’s sizeable yet intimate.
Creating the perfect space for making a few friends.
Tldr;
- Meetup allows you to organize or attend social events.
- It’s about making friends in real-life group activities, not through chatting online.
- Meetup is free to join and attend, but you must pay to organize events.
Best For Friends In Your Area: NextDoor
NextDoor is an app that connects you with people from your area.
You can get restaurant suggestions, offer advice to new move-ins, and meet people a stone’s throw away from where you live.
“If I want to meet the locals, isn’t it better to just go out in my neighborhood?”
Great point. And I’d argue no.
Most of your neighbors will be at work for most of the day. And when they come back, they’ll spend the majority of their time indoors watching Netflix or playing Hearthstone.
NextDoor lets you get in touch with everyone in your region who’s looking to make new friends. Even if they’re hidden away in their home.
What does real-life look like?
Pretty much a blend of Tinder for friends and Facebook for neighborhoods.
Points worth noting:
- Its focus on locality guarantees you’ll have something in common.
- Great for meeting friendly neighbors.
- Free to use.
Best For Friends With Mutual Hobbies: Wink
Wink is an app to make new friends based on hobbies and interests.
It has a swipe-based discovery experience like Tinder, so you tend to get judged based on appearance. But that makes things even easier for you if you have the right Photoshop skills.
Just shop a fedora on your head and some nachos and Mountain Dew in your hands, and you’ll be the most popular person in town.
Jokes aside, Wink is a great app to socialize with strangers because it minimizes awkwardness by introducing all sorts of fun games that break the ice.
Do note that Wink is not explicitly platonic. The friends you make might be open to dating you.
Is that something you’re interested in or open to?
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Points worth noting:
- Wink is the closest thing to Tinder for making friends.
- People who have success finding dates on Tinder have success finding friends on Wink.
- Wink is free but has Tinder-like in-app feature boosts.
Best For Filtered Results: Bumble BFF
Bumble BFF is a new feature from the classic dating app that allows married guys to tell their wives, “I just installed Bumble to find friends, honey.”
Epic jokes aside, Bumble BFF might be precisely what you’re looking for if you want a Tinder for friends app.
It works similarly to the dating version of the app: you create a profile with photos and a bio, swipe left or right on potential friends, and wait for the person who initiated the match to reach out within 24 hours.
Yes… for some fugged up reason, Bumble BFF included the same waiting rule from the original app. Does the person who swiped right last not get in touch you within a day?
Then you lose the match (unless you extend it with a special feature).
Besides that, it’s pretty sweet. The filtering options are as good as ever.
Points worth noting:
- Bumble BFF is a feature within the Bumble app. That means you need to be ready to explain yourself when your partner casually walks up to you holding a battleaxe.
- You can lose a match if the person who needs to take the initiative is too busy to text you within 24 hours.
- Its branding and marketing is aimed at women, which can make it a little difficult if you just want male friends.
Best For Gamers: Twitch
Twitch is a social streaming site where horny, pizza-faced teens spend money to buy feet pics from cute gamer girls. But that’s just one of its many functions.
Its main reason for existing is to bring gamers from all over the world together in one place.
Either set up a stream of your own or watch someone else play your favorite game and interact with them and their viewers.
Hanging out in a Twitch chat is not always the best way to make friends, depending on the size of the chatroom.
Good luck standing out in a room with 30,000 League of Legends trolls, kekw.
Luckily, many streamers have dedicated Discord servers (another type of chat room) where you can have more in-depth conversations and interactions. You can even hop into lobbies where you can talk and play games together.
It’s one of the more chill ways to make friends.
Points worth noting:
- Instead of looking at profiles, you’ll be picking a game or specific streamer to link up with potential friends.
- You don’t need to host your own stream to make friends, although the personal interaction does make it easier.
- Twitch is free to use. Viewers can subscribe to its paid ad-free experience.
Best For Online-Only Friendships: MeetMe
MeetMe is a great platform to make friends you won’t ever meet.
I’m only half kidding.
Although you can find friends in all the normal ways, using the app feels more like you joined a popularity contest.
It’s incredibly gamified. The app rewards its users to create content through live streams and discussions by handing out points.
The more points you have, the higher your place on the leaderboard. Ya, it seriously has a leaderboard.
All this makes it painfully obvious that the creators don’t really care if you make friends and meet up. They just want their audience to create addictive content that has people glued to their screens for as long as possible.
Can you make friends here?
Yes.
Is it likely that you’ll meet them?
Not really. And definitely not if you live outside of the US, because most of the user base is located in the States.
Why did I include this app if I’m not a fan?
Because so many bloggers and reviewers are saying it’s good even though it’s clearly trash. At least, if your intentions are to make friends.
Points worth noting:
- Most people are on here for the addictive social media experience.
- Unlikely that you’ll meet people outside of Northern America.
- It’s focused on getting you to buy stuff.
Best For Pen Pals: Slowly
If you are tired of shallow texting, then you should try Slowly. The app allows you to make pen pals via letter-writing.
You can find friends based on shared hobbies and interests and write letters to them. The messages are deliberately delayed to make them feel like actual letters. If you’ve always wanted a pen pal, this app is perfect for you.
Points worth noting:
- Slowly is not a pal-finder. It is a pen pal finder.
Highly recommended if you enjoy deep and meaningful conversations.
Slowly is free to use.
Best For Fitness Enthusiasts: Atleto
Tired of people who call walking two blocks exercise? Try Atleto, which is for serious fitness freaks. Atleto connects people interested in fitness for collective workouts and fitness classes.
Plus, it organizes events and tracks your fitness goal so you can compete with your buddies.
Points worth noting:
- Great if you want to get in shape and / or meet friends who care about exercise.
- Beginner friendly. It has athletes of all kinds of skill levels.
- Not very popular outside the big cities.
Best For Instant Connectivity: Friended
If you want someone to talk to immediately, Friended is your friend. It is an app where you can always find someone to talk to. Users can post an opinion, question, or anecdote to the community, where everyone can see it but can’t post comments. The only way to reply to the post is to send a private message.
Once a “friend” has messaged you, you can keep talking to them about different things without making fresh community posts.
Points worth noting:
- Friended democratizes instant connection.
- Has built-in conversation starters to help break the ice and spark conversation.
- The app is free to use, but you need to subscribe to its premium tier for unlimited posting privileges.
Best For Platonic Friendships: Patook
Patook is unique because it is strictly for platonic friendships. Many friend-finding apps are just pre-dating apps where people get to know each other before diving into the bedroom..
Patook is different.
It has a strict ‘no flirting’ policy. The app even has an algorithm that detects when someone is steering the conversation toward romance so that all their users are
With a strict ‘no flirting’ policy and a proprietary flirting-detection mechanism perpetually friend-zoned.
If platonic friendships are what you’re looking for, then you will find no app better than Patook to replace Tinder.
Points worth noting:
- Patook guarantees platonic connections.
- Everyone needs to fill in a detailed questionnaire to help create more powerful connections..
- It is absolutely and completely free to use!
Make yourself popular
It doesn’t matter how many friend-finding apps you’re on if your profile looks like doo-doo.
You’ll still get zero success.
Keep in mind that even though people don’t want to date you, they do want to befriend someone who looks fun, kind and trustworthy.
So how do you become the popular guy?
By following my Profile Checklist and creating a profile that people can’t resist.
Just click the big gold button below, and you’ll get all the profile-building tips you need to make friends right in your inbox.
Enjoy.
Blessings,
Louis Farfields
And don't forget your download below ;)
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