Initially, the headline, “Why Some People Are Paying to Make Friends” puzzled me, but it quickly began making sense. Way back in the day, I remember my brother’s stand on college fraternities, “I’m not going to pay,” he said, “to make friends.” Thereby highlighting the fact that lots of people have been paying to join clubs to make friends for a long time.

It’s also not surprising given this:

“The apps are taking off at a time when about 67 percent of adults have reported social-emotional loneliness, in part because they did not feel part of a meaningful group, according to a 2024 study by the Making Caring Common Project at Harvard. About 45 percent of lonely adults said they ‘don’t really know how to develop close friendships.'”

Those are brutal statistics.

How the apps work:

“The start-ups are meant to remove the strain caused by online dating and other meet-up apps — no profiles to swipe through, no schedules to align, no locations to discuss.

When they sign up, the apps’ tens of thousands of users, typically in their 20s to their 50s, fill out questions related to their background, interests and values. The companies consider unusual criteria like sense of humor, how you like to spend time with friends and if you like meeting people on the other side of the political spectrum.

Once users pick an event off the apps’ calendars, the companies’ algorithms kick into motion. Users are matched with a small group from all the people who signed up — based on characteristics like age and other answers — and told to meet at a predetermined location.”

Obviously, one limiter is affordability. Note, they do not appear to ask if you like meeting people from different economic classes. Also:

“The apps are not always a hit. Some users complain on social media that they did not click with their group or that the experiences can feel awkward and forced.

Alex Cheney, 34, attended several friendship-matching events in cities including Los Angeles — organized by apps like Timeleft, Groupvibe and Kin — over the last two years. But he did not form any meaningful friendships, he said.

‘In terms of building a deep friendship, it’s almost something that you have to explore and co-create and build in real time,’ said Mr. Cheney, who had also tried building a matching algorithm for coffee meet-ups. ‘I don’t necessarily know if it’s something that you can build into a matching algorithm because you might have a lot of compatibility on paper with someone.'”

Say a person doesn’t have an extra $22/month for a friendship app or has it but doesn’t want to pay anything at all? How do they begin building a circle of friends? Or widen their circle? Or deepen it?

Of course I have ideas, but they’re probably not as good as your collective ones.