r/bumblebff

I've noticed friend-making feels like it's picked up some of the same patterns as apps, matching, swiping through events, a bit of a numbers game. Curious if other people feel that shift too, or if I'm overthinking it. How do you meet new people when you are older?

Hi everyone. I'm a 22-year-old woman from India and lately l've been feeling that making genuine female friendships has become harder compared to school days.
Back then it felt natural because you met people every day, but now everyone seems busy with their own lives, careers, or studies. My circle has become quite small and sometimes I wonder if other women also feel the same way.
For those in their 20s, how did you meet your close female friends? Did it happen naturally or did you have to actively put yourself out there?
Would really like to hear your experiences and advice.would love to have some good indian female friends.

If you're a guy using this app, you probably know that most of the dudes on here are gay men looking to convert other men. I don't care about anyone's sexual orientation or gender when choosing a friend, but just like everyone else on here, I'm only looking to make friends and nothing more than that. Since bumble believes that people of the opposite sex can't be friends, this app is pretty much dead to men which is why the only posts you ever see positive on here are from women.

This post is just for the guys on here, do you all have any other alternative sites that you use to make friends, one that allows you to make friends with people of all walks of live and don't come with a fee? It's hard enough making friends as an adult, even more so for minorities. Feels like finding good people to be around these days are such a rarity lol.

This isn't intended to be having a go at any marginalized groups so please don't get the wrong idea. But I am becoming frustrated with my time on BFF. I'm a guy who doesn't have many friends and has recently tried my hand at BFF to meet some new people in my area and have a few hangouts. I have noticed a huge amount of gay guys on the app. This didn't bother me and I was quite happy to match and be friends with them. But it seems the conversations with many of them often escalate and get either sexual, flirty or indicative of wanting something more. My profile makes clear that I am just looking for friends and that I'm straight. I've had multiple men claim they can turn me. Do a lot of people think it's just like normal Bumble and it's for dating? Has anyone else had this experience?

I do not have the courage about opening up my emotions to friends who are not close
Because strangers treat better than them
So I downloaded this app
Is it safe though

TLDR; be intentional/selective, initiate often, don’t cancel plans.

My husband and I moved to a suburb of a city and wanted friends so badly. I ran in to all the issues you see on this sub; people who don’t respond, people who don’t actually want to meet up, flakey people, or just people you don’t click with. It’s basically been a part time job and over the past 8 months we have met 12 couples and hung out with all of them a bunch. Now of the 12, only 8 we actually liked and 4 who we’ve become good friends with and formed a group. We still hangout with all 8 though. Below is what I’ve found works.

(1) First and foremost, be ruthless in your swipe criteria. For us, that meant no city people because we want friends who want to do things in the burbs. I only swiped on women in relationships. I only swiped on women in a certain age range. I only swiped on women who I thought I’d have a chance to be real friends with. (2) Don’t cancel plans, ever. Seriously if you are not in the ER don’t cancel. Too bad if you’re tired or don’t feel like going out anymore. Make plans, put them in your calendar and show up. If someone cancels on your first hangout, move on. If someone cancels more than once maybe twice during the friendship building stage, move on. You can’t build a friendship off the internet if both parties aren’t equally consistent in showing up. (3) Don’t continue to give your time to people you don’t click with just because they’re nice. This is tough. We met a couple who was very nice but in such a different place in life than us it just didn’t click. We kept them around for way too long and we eventually started dreading the hangouts. (4) You have to be the initiator and not be passive. Ask people to hangout, keep initiating, keep showing up. You don’t build friendships online by getting coffee once a quarter. Try music bingo or trivia for a first hangout, grab a low key dinner for another hangout, do drinks one night, find a cute park to walk around, go for a chill hike, hit a winery, and generally just be eager but not needy.

My favorite formula is this: first and second hangout is a double date, third hangout id schedule for just me and the other girl, and by hangout 4 I’m introducing them to another couple my husband and I have met. It doesn’t always workout this way but the point is, you have to be okay with being the initiator basically all the time until things get off the ground.

i’m a gay dude wanting to meet more local friends (ideally women or lgbtq+ people) and this app is horrible. i’ve “matched” with a few people and they’re all so incredibly boring and dry. i don’t get why this app doesn’t show me women? i vibe more w them than straight dudes. i guess it’s to prevent people from using it like a dating app, but i don’t even like women, so jokes on them. this sucks 😭 i just want to meet friends

I started talking to a girl at the beginning of this year off the app. We met in March and it was a nice hang out. She asked me to hang out again but I was out of town and told her we could make plans when I got back and it never happened. She ended up getting back with her toxic boyfriend and said she was busy with him. In June we tried to make plans a couple times but one she canceled because she had to work and then the other she just didn’t respond the day of and apologized because something came up. We ended up talking about the app again and she said she has met other people on there and hung out with them. Which confuses me because she has yet to follow through with plans with me even though she texts me pretty much everyday. I don’t know if I should cut it off with her or try to make plans again?

I was really excited to try this app and I thought it had a lot of potential. Unfortunately this app seems loaded with women who are very influencer-esque and just want to gain insta followers and minions to hype them up publicly. The conversations seem dry and ingenuine. They advertise their social media handles and then after you follow them you never hear from them again and the convo dies. Idk if anyone else has experienced this but something is just…..off?

It doesn’t seem like anyone is actually interested in being genuine friends. I’ve been on the app for about 2 months now and it just seems to be the same pattern.

Looking for female friends in Mumbai 🫶🏻
Hey! 21F here, looking to make some new female friends in Mumbai, preferably around 19–25F :)
Would love to find people who are down to grab coffee, explore cute cafés/restaurants, go shopping, attend events, random plans, or just yap for hours about literally anything. I’m pretty easygoing, love trying new things, and always down for spontaneous plans.
Looking for genuine friendships rather than just exchanging “hey” and disappearing after 3 days 😭
Girls only please
guys, respectfully, pls don’t reach out 😭🙏🏻
If you’re also looking for new friends, feel free to DM me!

I’m so confused. I’ve messaged ‘hey how’s it going?’ To about a dozen people in the past 2 days and have gotten a response from nobody. Mind you, these people swiped on me first.
Why are people on this app if they don’t want to make new friends I’m confused

I have premium so I can see who swiped right on me. I made a similar post a while back on my city’s subreddit but it’s getting worse. Why are there so many single straight men who put “woman” in their bio tag but their pics suggest otherwise?? And tbh I doubt these ppl are looking for actual friends cuz a lot of the time their bio or pics (making sexual innuendo jokes, shirtless mirror pics, listing height etc) imply they’re looking for more. Sometimes they even complimented on my profile with comments regarding appearance meaning they’re definitely not there for platonic friendships 🤮 For these pathetic creeps do you think women will want to swipe right on you with obvious creepy intentions underneath?? What are you thinking?? Sometimes I would swipe left and report the really bad ones but somehow some time later they’re back, meaning they’re constantly creating new profiles… Why don’t these creepy dudes go form their own friend group??

Introvert men of reddit, have you guys ever wanted to just make friends on bumble, despite being in a relationship (maintaining transparency with your partner). Still just friends but with girls only?

Recently got into egl fashion, it's a type of japanese fashion. The kind I'm into is the aristiocrat style and I've put together a pair of outfits that I enjoy. Women outnumber men in this style by a lot and I'd like to find more people into it. Local online community seems dead but I can still find others into egl at some events. i've been lucky enough to make a friend at one of the events but I'd really like to find more people into it and get a local community going. I also *badly* need help with makeup.

Do you think it's bad taste for me to make a profile on bff with the female gender just to see if there's anyone on there with a similar interest in the fashion? obv i'd actually have pics in my profile to show I'm into it myself. It's not a huge loss if I shouldn't, I'll just continue talking to anyone I meet in a petticoat or jumper skirt but they are VERY RARE.

I'm sorry but if you only talk about yourself and convey no enthusiasm to share a connection or learn more about the other person, you need to have better social skills😭One person should not be asking all the questions. I'm surprised more people do not know this.

For context, using Bumble BFF and the amount of guys who will strike a conversation just to talk about themselves is crazy...

This girl in my group I made keeps asking for rides everytime the other group members are making plans to meet. And keeps saying sad stuff making everybody feel guilty. Everybody ignores her and when they don’t ignore her they tell her she lives too far. She does live way too far. I want to text her to stop asking people for rides but I don’t want to sound mean. I don’t think it’s safe to get rides from strangers you never met and to tell them where you live. They could be a catfish. How can I tell her politely?

I genuinely feel like this app is a waste of time. I have been on it for a few months now and gotten maybe fifteen to twenty matches at most. And if I do get a match, we have one or two good conversations before I never hear from them again. I don’t know what I’m doing wrong. I get the feeling some people are only on the app for show and some only care about those group events. Is that what I have to do, go to one of those bar outings in a thousand person groupchat? I love going out, but I want to have conversation and make close personal connections too. I don’t think that’s easily done at a bar or club.

I’m at a loss. Sometimes I think people are just closed off and sometimes I think it’s me. Has anyone else had a similar experience on this app? Any advice on how to make new friends in your early to mid twenties?