Friendship

Believe the media hype about Tinder and you know it as the epicenter of youth hookup culture. The app is constantly plagued by accusations of promoting casual sex, but a recent survey from college jobs startup WayUp says the perception of Tinder could be a far cry from its reality.

The survey asked 200 college students about their dating habits. Seventy-three percent ranked Tinder as their favorite dating app, followed by Bumble at 13% and OkCupid at 10%. A lone student listed Facebook as her dating site of choice.

It’s not a surprise that college students show a strong preference for Tinder. They were amongst Tinder’s most active users when the app launched in 2012, and today Tinder says 50% of its users are in the college age group.

What’s more surprising is what they say they’re using it for. Twenty percent said they're looking for a hookup, 27% said they’re looking for a significant other, and the majority - at 53% - said they use dating apps to find friends.

So is that Tinder’s deep, dark secret? It’s not the sex-fueled free-for-all everyone thinks it is?

Both college students and researchers believe the survey isn’t an accurate reflection of the dating landscape. Sydney Mastandrea, a sophomore at University of Miami, told CNN Money, "I think people use [Tinder] for random hookups rather than [finding] friends — but say it's for 'friends' so they aren't judged."

Aditi Paul, a Ph.D. candidate researching online dating at Michigan State University, believes students don’t need an app to assist in finding friendships, as the college experiences provides a wealth of opportunities for social interaction.

Or perhaps students say “friendship” because they don’t actually know what they’re getting. Kathleen Bogle, professor and author of Hooking Up: Sex, Dating, and Relationships on Campus, told Inside Higher Ed that the tendency for college students to use the term could come from their proclivity for unlabeled romantic interactions. Without a more formal term, they default to “friendship” to keep their options open.

“I don’t know that I believe that people are just trying to make friends via Tinder and have no other intentions beyond that,” Bogle said. “I think that’s just a sign of being open to whatever happens, happens.”

Rosette Pambakian, vice president of communications at Tinder, takes a more open-minded view of the application. In 2014, she told Elle, "The purpose was never just for dating, it was for social discovery in general ... The co-founders wanted to create a really efficient way to meet people around you who you probably would have never met before."

In the end, it doesn’t matter to Tinder. Whether college students are looking for friendships, hookups, or long-term love, they’re still using the app. For more on this service, you can read our review of Tinder

For the sixth year in a row, Match.com surveyed singles from across the United States to examine what it means to be single and looking for love in the 21st century. More than 5,500 were surveyed for the 2015 edition of the annual ‘Singles in America’ study. The report covers a wide range of topics, but two are especially hot: sex and exes.

The survey begins by comparing the two most talked-about generations. Match found that Boomers, despite being older, are hardly prudes. They’re 118% more likely to have a one-night stand on vacation and 53% more likely to have a threesome. Millennials, on the other hand, are 165% more likely to have filmed sex and 236% more likely to be completely drunk the first time they sleep with someone.

Singles In America goes on to present sex stats on a range of subjects:

• 44% of respondents lost their virginity by 18
• 75% had sex by 21
• 16% of women said they’re open to making a sex tape
• 24% of men admitted to having sex in public
• 55% of women have had multiple orgasms
• 3% of men never orgasm from sex
• 50% of singles have had 6 or fewer partners
• 47% of singles have had fewer than 15 partners
• 46% of singles have had a friends-with-benefits arrangement
• 25% of singles have turned a one-night stand into a relationship

What happens that those relationships don’t work out? Match.com also studied the behavior of exes in America. Unsurprisingly, sex was still a hot topic. Twenty-five percent of singles said they've hooked up with an ex, while 33% confessed to dreaming about doing it.

The biggest questions involved breakups and friendship. Forty-two percent of women said they would stay friends with an ex, but fifty percent of female respondents said they wouldn't be okay with a friend dating their ex-boyfriend. However, 25% of women and 50% of men said dating an ex’s friend is totally cool.

Your likelihood of scoring that date in the first place depends on the language you use in your profile. A ‘LOL’ or a ‘Haha’ boosts your odds of a date by 255% and your chances of hitting the sack by 39%. But the real winner of the language race? It’s 2015’s most trendy phrase: ‘Netflix and chill.’

Match.com found that the sneaky sex reference increases your odds by an astronomical 99%, a sizable advantage over some of the year’s other trendy terms. ‘Ghost’ bolstered your chances by 63% and ‘Bae’ by 64%, with ‘on fleek’ pulling up the rear at a disastrous -26%. Time to give your profile a linguistic spring cleaning. Read our review of Match.com for more information on the dating service which conducted this study.

Most of us have heard the term “six degrees of separation,” made famous first by the sociology study in the 1960’s, and later in the nineties through references to Kevin Bacon’s prolific acting career. The theory was born: we are all only “six degrees of separation” from him, or anyone else, on the planet.

Now, Facebook is concluding we could be even more connected to each other – by as little as 3.5 degrees.

What this means is that that when you are connected to all the people you know, and they are connected to all the people they know, and so on, you are inevitably linked – through your own network of friends, and friends of friends - to such notable figures as the President of the United States, a Kardashian, football star Tom Brady, or Senator Marco Rubio. That’s right, we’re all only six people removed from everyone else on the planet.

Recently, the numbers were studied again – this time by Facebook, using its own platform. The company found that despite the fact that over the last twenty years or so the population of the planet has increased – we are now closer to each other than ever before. We are all, on average, only three and a half degrees of separation from anyone else on the planet, thanks in large part to the role social media plays in our lives.

Think of it this way: If you have 100 friends, and each of your friends has 100 friends, that's already 10,000 friends of friends to whom you are connected.

In the United States, people are even more closely connected to each other – by an average of 3.46 degrees. At least among those who have Facebook accounts, which totals about 1.59 billion according to Facebook. And Pew Research Center’s report last year shows that about 72% of US adults are active online.

More people are signing up for the Facebook platform every day, which means the numbers are dynamic and makes the connections even closer. For instance, in 2011, researchers at Cornell, the Università degli Studi di Milano, and Facebook analyzed the average across 721 million people using the site then, and found that the degree of connection between people was 3.74. Now, with twice as many people using Facebook, we've grown more interconnected, thus shortening the distance between any two people in the world.

One problem with Facebook’s figures is that in real life, the majority of people only consider a portion of their Facebook friends as “real” friends. The typical Facebook user has 155 friends, but only describes 50 of them as friends in real life, according to a 2014 study from the Pew Research Center. Thirty-five percent of people have Facebook friends they've never met in person.

What does this mean? For one, social media and the Internet have drawn us all closer to each other – in a way. Maybe we aren’t any closer to each other in terms of real life interactions, but in a virtual world, we find connection.

Found if this social network makes a good dating service substitute, read our Facebook review.

Dating can be difficult, there’s no doubt about it. One of the most difficult things about online dating is the mental game many of us play. Instead of looking and considering each potential match on its own, we compare and contrast our matches, swiping left and right based on a couple of photos or an Instagram feed. The faster we swipe to reject (or even accept), the faster we can meet someone with whom we have a connection. Someone “better” than the last match.

When we are judging others so swiftly and definitively, it’s hard not to do the same thing to ourselves. Do you wonder what others think of you – why they might be swiping left instead of right? Why another match might be “better” than you? Do you think that peoples’ reactions might change if you were just a little prettier, or more athletic, or taller? (Especially if you reject matches based on these same criteria?) This can ruin your confidence as well as your online dating experience. Sometimes, it’s better to take a step back and gain some much-needed perspective.

Online dating creates the illusion that we are not only sizing each other up, but competing with one another. Let’s take social media as an example – something that most of us check regularly. We are constantly looking at what other people are doing, and how our lives compare.

Have you ever come across the Facebook or Instagram feed of a friend who is always posting vacation photos from exotic locales, or your friend who is part of a happy couple who can’t stop sharing how much they adore each other or their new baby? Maybe you see your friends’ new promotions, new houses, and exciting moments and think your life falls short.

Social media can give us skewed perspectives, and so can endlessly swiping on dating apps. While we might think that other people have an easier time with online dating, or they are getting more dates, or are somehow meeting “better” people online, rest assured – all of us have the same insecurities and challenges.

Instead of looking at online dating as a competition or a numbers game, it’s time to approach it differently. Instead of mindlessly swiping and judging, try taking things slowly. (I know, it’s against the dating app mindset, but it’s necessary.) Try reading what each person says in his/her profile. Spend one minute looking at a profile before moving on to the next. Try looking through an Instagram feed and not judging or comparing your lives, just observing. Try saying yes to a match who doesn’t seem like your type, just to see what the date might be like.

The more you can distance yourself from the cycle of comparing yourself to others, judging others, and hating online dating as a result, the better. Instead, have a more curious approach. Try to get to know someone rather than making a judgment. Seek connection, not perfection.

Colonoscopies. Stepping on a Lego. Accidentally drinking spoiled orange juice.

A lot of things are more fun than being rejected. When you muster up the courage to ask someone on a date and they turn you down, it hurts. You laid it all on the line, got told no, and at least for a second wanted to swear off dating forever.

Take a deep breath. Rejection will never be a cakewalk, but there are healthy ways to react when you hear “no” that keep your dignity, and your friendship, intact.

• Keep calm and carry on. Don't get angry or lash out, in the moment or afterwards, no matter how much you want to. It's not someone's fault if they're not interested in you, and it's not your fault if you have feelings for them. In both cases, it's just the way it is and no one owes anyone anything. Take time to yourself if need be, then come back to the friendship when you're ready to accept the situation.
• Avoid “over it” overkill. Friendship is a shaky thing after rejection. You don't want to act like you're still into them, but you also don't want to go out of your way to show how “over it” you are. Acting like you're better off is childish, potentially hurtful, and may come off as intentionally trying to provoke jealousy. Take the high road.
• Address the awkwardness. There's no way to avoid it – being around someone when you both know how you feel is uncomfortable. The best way to make that awkwardness disappear is to acknowledge it. It's ok to say things are still a little weird. You'll probably both agree, have a giggle about it, and release some of the tension. Remember: we mostly take cues from each other, so if you act awkward around someone, they're more likely to act awkward around you.
• Actually be a friend. Yes, the best way to keep a friendship intact is to keep being a friend. That means no holding onto false hope, no rudeness when they start seeing someone new, no constant reminders of your feelings, and no schemes to get them to fall in love with you. You are just friends – act accordingly.

One of the best ways to handle rejection is to go into it with the right mindset. Before asking someone on a date, set appropriate expectations. Keep your hopes and emotions to a reasonable level. Remember that rejection is almost never a reflection on who you are. And at the end of the day, you still have a friendship worth cherishing.

The ongoing feud between Kendall Jenner and Taylor Swift has emerged recently in the press. Apparently the singer still feels betrayed by her one-time friend, and Kendall isn’t acknowledging she did anything wrong by dating Swift’s ex-boyfriend Harry Styles.

“Harry’s always been the biggest issue between them,” according to a report by OK! Magazine. “Taylor thinks it was completely disrespectful for Kendall to be hooking up with Harry after he broke Taylor’s heart.”

Dating a friend’s ex has always been a thorny subject. Does your loyalty to your friend mean that you never cross that particular boundary, even long after they have split? Or should you cast aside your grievances with your ex so that it’s not an issue if your friend ends up dating him?

When two people have split, they are free to make their own decisions, including who they decide to date. Some people are more reluctant to risk friendships than others. Some are more motivated by their passion, so they end up choosing risk because the feeling of love will outweigh the bonds of friendship.

If you are considering dating your friend’s ex, there are several things to consider first – because remember, once you start down that road, you can’t really turn back:

How strong is your friendship? Have you known each other for years, seen each other through break-ups and hard times, or are you relatively recent buddies, or hang out with the same group of friends on the weekend? The level of friendship matters – you’ll feel more loyalty towards someone you have known a while, so you might not want to risk the friendship. On the other hand, if she’s more of an acquaintance, you might not feel bad letting the friendship go.

Are you motivated only by passion or chemistry, or something deeper? Is this just a flirtatious chemistry between the two of you, or are you just curious to see what he’d be like? If so, you might want to reconsider dating your friend’s ex. Think about the pain you might cause her just because you want to act on your impulses. There are plenty of other guys out there.

Have you discussed your feelings with your friend? Maybe you are drawing conclusions that are false. Maybe she wouldn’t mind you dating her ex, or maybe she would and you are giving her the opportunity to vent. Admitting your feelings to your friend is an act of courage and respect for the friendship – don’t hide and sneak around until she finds out. Own your feelings, and be open about what you want.

Are you willing to let go of the friendship? This is the tough question, because we want to have our friendships and love. But if your friend is hurt by your actions, you must allow her that space to grieve so she can heal. That means not demanding her friendship or understanding. Let her process her pain. Maybe she will want the friendship in the end, or maybe she won’t – ultimately, when you make that type of choice, it’s up to her to decide what to do.