The trends of social media never fail to amaze me. This week a friend of mine introduced me to the app called Friendsy. Friendsy is an app exclusively for college students to join and make friends, hence the name. With the app having limited amount of ratings, I figured it was pretty new.
The newness of the app is why I actually wanted to join it in the first place. The idea behind how to make friends is pretty cool. Once the app confirms you are a college student, you join the app. Then you can set up your profile or start to "chat" with other college students. The idea is that both users remain anonymous during their conversation. If the conversation goes well, then you can send them a friend request and if they accept then both identities are revealed.
This app has quite good timing since our generation has this fascination with anonymity versus identity. A great example of this is the show "Catfish". The show was very popular among audiences. The refreshing idea of being completely ignorant of what a person looks like (or even their gender) and making a connection was cool to me.
KEYWORD: Was. It was until I got my first match and the conversation started with, "Horny guy here!" That pretty much was the end of my enthusiasm for the app. I was smacked by the cold hand of reality that most people (once they hit puberty) will look to hook up with as much convenience as possible. That trend of getting matched with guys who were after girls continued. I found a few guys on there who could keep a decent conversation, but were reluctant to talk to a guy for a long period of time. They kept finding interesting ways to end the conversation with a "No HOMO" vibe to them. After my first day of Friendsy, I talked to about twenty guys, and made no friends.
After making no friends and talking to only guys, I found the future of the Friendsy app grim. I also found that the thirst became unusually high within me. I was almost on a mission to talk to a girl on Friendsy. After speaking to another 10 guys, I realized that I got the app to make friends at different colleges, not just to talk to girls.
Once I had my epiphany, I tried a few more times to speak to people on the app but no connection was found. Until later in the night when I was on Friendsy only because of boredom, I found myself in a pretty good first conversation. It was lasting a while, we got to know each other’s majors, schools and even talked about the great city of New York. We didn’t have much in common, but I found myself in a decent conversation.
The problem with having a great conversation late at night is that sleep starts to kick in. I was pretty tired during our conversation, so I sent the person a friend request. I did it because once the conversation ends, there’s no guarantee you will talk to that same person again. One thing about the app is that it randomized the matches, so the chances of you matching with that same person again is very slim. Eventually, the person did accept my friend request.
To my surprise, it was a girl. Our conversation was refreshing, and it was a bonus that she was a girl. I can happily say that Friendsy can actually generate new friendships and not just hookups. I hope it continues on this route as it spreads and grows across campuses worldwide.
