My experience with Bumble Friends in Inverness

As someone who has always lived in the same city (minus a few stints travelling in my late teens/ early 20s) I have never had to try and make new friends in a new place, without the commonality of a situation to make friends with people. Having been in Inverness for about a year now though, I recently found myself feeling a bit lonely as I haven’t made many friends to hang out with here (aww, I hear you say!)

So, as a millennial looking for friends in a new city, I turned to what I know best – technology. I remember one of my pals telling me that, when she moved to Glasgow a few years ago, she had tried out Bumble Friends in search of a new best mate. I scoffed at the time, thinking that was pretty odd, but as someone who has used several dating apps (unsuccessfully), I thought I should try out the online "mate dating" platform to see if there was anyone else locally in need of someone to hang out with.

Regardless of whether you’re looking for a date or a new pal, you need to download the Bumble app. Doing so will give you access to Bumble BFF, Bumble Date, and Bumble Bizz, the company’s website explains. After registering an account you can specify which section you want to use. From there, you can start building your profile to show off what you have to offer a new chum.

Bumble recommends uploading four photos minimum to show off your personality and interests. One of those should clearly show your face if you want to increase your chances of getting more and better matches. From there, you can start swiping and checking out other people who are looking to widen their social circle.

I was pretty surprised to find out there were quite a few people on the app who had been here for the same length of time as me, but were in need of some friends too. I have to say I felt a great sense of relief discovering I wasn’t the only one in need of a pal! It’s funny how we can think we are the only one in the world experiencing loneliness, when in fact there are a lot more going through the same thing.

In fact, according to a survey conducted in 2022 by the Office for National Statistics, around one million younger people (aged 16-29) were chronically lonely.

Bumble works in the same way as most dating apps – swipe one way to match with someone and swipe the other way if you think that you and the person are going to have nothing in common!

The only downside with the app is that once you get a match you have 24 hours for one of you to send a message to the other. As someone who is slightly forgetful, and is more likely to ignore a notification when it comes up than respond straight away, I did miss quite a few!

However, I did manage to respond in time to Rebecca, who is a recent health professional graduate. After exchanging a few polite messages I decided to ask if she would like to meet for a coffee.

Going to meet her was a lot less daunting than going on a date and I was pleased to find that she was really chatty, the conversation flowing smoothly. We are off to the cinema this week and I am grateful to say I now have a new friend in the city!

It may be an unorthodox way of making new friends, but it does work!

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