A travel writer tested four popular friendship apps in Indianapolis to see which actually help adults make friends. One stood out for real-world connections.
I’ve lived in Indianapolis for nearly five years, but as a travel writer, I’m often on the move, and home can feel like a layover. Lately, I’ve been trying to know the city better, so I ran an experiment to see if friendship apps could help me build a social circle while deepening my connection to Indianapolis. For more than a month, I tested four platforms: Bumble BFF, Meetup, BeFriend, and Friended.
Setting up my profile felt oddly vulnerable. What does friendship potential look like in photos? How much personality belongs in a bio? You want enough detail to attract the right people without oversharing.
The results came quickly. BeFriend flooded me with more than 100 requests, all from men. Since I was looking for female friendships, I deleted it. Friended focused on online connections without a strong local component, which defeated the point. I wanted people to explore the city with, not pen pals.
Both apps also shared another issue. Most profiles were looking for something other than friendship, and useful features were locked behind paywalls. Friended, for example, charges about $8 per week for access to basic tools. Can friendship really be so commodified?
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That left Bumble BFF and Meetup.
Bumble BFF felt familiar and oddly intimidating. I caught myself swiping with the same scrutiny I use on dating apps, then questioning it. How much could a profile really tell you? What if I was filtering out a great friendship? After days of scrolling, I worried I’d never match. When I finally did, the pace felt slow.
“It is critical that adults realize that meeting, developing, and maintaining friendships takes a lot of time,” says J. Ryan Fuller, Ph.D., a clinical psychologist and co-founder of My Best Practice. “As adults, people are already set in their ways, so starting something new has to be very appealing and then takes time to grow.”
Meetup came with less pressure. My first event was a food-focused gathering at Oppa Beef Bone Soup, a Korean restaurant. Five people showed up, spanning three generations. Several had been attending Meetups for nearly a decade and seemed unfazed by the idea of meeting new people. What struck me was how low the stakes felt. The event existed whether or not I attended, and conversation flowed naturally in and out. No one seemed to be performing or angling for a follow-up plan.
When the meal ended, some people lingered while others left without apology. I realized Meetup works less like dating and more like a standing invitation. You show up when it fits your life. I also appreciated the intergenerational mix, something harder to find on one-on-one apps. Still, full access required a subscription.
Over time, Bumble BFF emerged as the clear winner. In about six weeks, I matched with 21 people, sustained conversations with five, and met three in person.
The first meet-up exceeded expectations. We went rock climbing at North Mass Boulder, an 18,000-square-foot gym housed in a restored factory. Since we were both beginners, we bonded over our fear of heights, small victories, and a shared learning curve. We climbed and talked for more than two hours.
“Activity-based interactions often feel lower pressure because the shared activity gives you something to focus on,” says Dr. Sanam Hafeez, a neuropsychologist and director of Comprehend the Mind. “They can help people bond naturally through shared experiences.”
A few days later, I met another Bumble BFF match at The Garage food hall. With dozens of cuisines to choose from, we wandered and chatted about travel experiences as we perused menus. It was relaxed, unforced, and ended with a mutual plan to meet again.
I explored the city with both new friends in the following weeks. I made custom scents at The Aroma Lab with one, and we compared our favorite notes along and connected on similar childhood upbringings. I walked the Canal Walk with the other, catching the sunset before ducking into a café for cocoa and board games. Eventually, I hosted a duckpin bowling night with both of them and a few existing friends. Everyone got along well, and I was surprised at how quickly social gatherings come together when you put in effort.
But not every attempt worked. One match cancelled on me less than an hour before we were supposed to meet to make flower arrangements. Another fizzled after weeks of messaging and timing issues over the holidays. Hafeez recommends meeting in person sooner rather than later: “Asking to meet earlier helps avoid investing time in conversations that never turn into real-world connections.”
Bumble BFF took effort, but it delivered. Out of 21 matches, only one became a consistent friend (the other moved away, a stroke of friendship luck). That turns out to be a 5 percent conversion rate, which is higher than before I started the experiment.
I’m also meeting with my new friend every week to cowork at a local cafe, splitting our time between work projects and conversation. It’s low-key but sustainable enough to grow our friendship.
One unexpected benefit of the experiment was how it changed the way I scheduled my time at home. Instead of defaulting to solo routines between trips, I began anchoring around shared plans, even small ones.
Although the experiment is over, I’m not ready to delete the app. I plan to use it while travelling for work, testing whether it can help me make connections on the road the same way it did at home. This time, I won’t linger in messaging and plan shared experiences instead.