- Making new friends as an adult is hard.
- The Peanut app connects women based on interests, location, and children’s ages for meetups.
- Using the app helped me make new friends and expand my whole family’s social circle.
After college, it was difficult to make new friends after many of us parted ways for our hometowns, further education, or job opportunities. Even in graduate school, people had their own jobs and social circles and it became more challenging to connect with others. Using a friendship app for women completely changed that for me.
I wanted to find connections with people like me
I had read about the Peanut app in a magazine when my son was an infant. I liked the idea of connecting with other women in the same situation as me and eagerly started using the app for meetups once my son was old enough to run around and play.
Since Peanut is geared towards women, it works well both for arranging playdates and making friends for myself. The app is set up similarly to online dating, users create a profile, check some boxes with your interests like “bookworm” or “gamer girl,” list your kids’ ages, and then swipe through profile matches. The app allows users to customize the experience, by showing potential connections based on location and child’s age, as well as interests or work life.
Once I completed the initial signup, I heard back from my first connections within 1 to 2 days. I chatted back and forth with a few of them for several weeks before suggesting a meetup.
The first mom I agreed to meet up with invited another Peanut connection on the same zoo outing. All three of us had sons who were around the same age. While at the zoo, the other boys were hopping in and out of their strollers to look at animals while my slightly younger son struggled getting back into the stroller after every stop. It was difficult for me because I was also wearing my 4-month old in a carrier. My son was also much more intrigued by their snacks than his own. I called it quits early, expecting not to hear back from the other moms. To my surprise, one suggested a second meetup and now our families get together a few times a month.
I appreciate that the app is intentional
Other women come to the Peanut app with the same intent — to create friendships, either digitally or in person. While not everyone winds up reciprocating and responding to messages, the likelihood of making friends has seemed decent in my experience.
Seeing someone once a week in-person through an organization or in-person mom group might eventually lead to a friendship, but it takes more time and some guts to reach out. Making mom friends “in the wild,” to quote a friend of mine, can feel more awkward, and risky in the sense that you could be turned down.
By contrast, the moms that I connected with in the app take turns with me in initiating our meetups, and I greatly appreciate that intention in our friendships.
The app helps you make the first step
The Peanut app help me with the initial effort of reaching out by providing ice breakers for messages. Prompts like “pineapple on pizza, yes or no?” or “describe yourself using 3 emojis” can help get the conversation flowing. Of course, many initial messages still get ignored and some people only ever message, “Hi!” or can’t carry a conversation. There were a couple of moms I only met up with once or twice and we never messaged again. It’s not a perfect system, but I did make some genuine connections that I’m grateful for.
It has broadened my whole family’s social circle
The friend from my first Peanut meetup invited me to join her book club, which is composed of Peanut moms and her neighbors and coworkers. The group has been going strong for more than 2 years. We read quite a variety of books of all genres, and are ladies of all ages with a variety of jobs. Without the app, I would have never connected with this wonderful group.
One of the husbands — a bit jealous that he didn’t have a similar group — started organizing some men’s events. My husband now gets invited to trivia nights that he enjoys.
Now my social life is the most vibrant it has been since college. Using the app has created a broad range of friends for my family, which is amazing, especially when you meet the unicorn mom who has a whole family that gets along well with your family, which I have.
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