Can Your Friends Save Your Dating Life? Dating Apps Think So

Last Wednesday, Tinder announced Group Hangouts—a feature on the app that allows users to choose an activity and then invite two friends to join. Then—similar to the way you can swipe right or left on other daters—people can swipe to join your group outing.A year ago, Tinder launched Double Date, which lets you and your friend choose another pair of friends to go out with. Earlier this summer, Hinge (also owned by Matchgroup) released Friends Take—the option to have your friends or family members add text, photos, voice notes, or even “video testimonials” to pin to your dating profile.I know the Spice Girls said that “if you wanna be my lover, you gotta get with my friends”—but have we taken things too far?We’re socially awkward, lonely, and can’t even date on our own!There is a looming loneliness epidemic, the younger generation is plagued with the “Gen Z stare,” and now dating apps are attempting to remedy our dating dilemmas by letting us bring along a friend. We’re socially awkward, lonely, and can’t even date on our own! So are these new friend-centered methods the solution to the state of dating—or are they just another crutch keeping us from learning how to make meaningful connections?When Is It Okay To Phone a Friend?I’ll be the first to admit that I had a habit of running almost every text I sent to a romantic interest by my best friend first (yes, this includes sexts). But as I got older and became more sure of myself and what I wanted out of a partner, I stopped doing that. My thinking was that as much as I trust and respect my friends’ opinions, I had to have agency in my own romantic decisions. At the end of the day, I was the one that was going to be in whatever relationship ensued—and so my decisions needed to be all mine. But not everyone else feels the same. For some people, they see their best friends playing an integral part in all of their dating decisions.“Dating can be uncertain, and friendships can help ease that uncertainty,” nurse practitioner and relationship expert Dr. John De Oca tells Cosmopolitan. There’s a difference between doing a guided check-in with your friend and letting them override your own feelings in a situation.And there are usually a lot of things you’re uncertain about: what to wear on the date, if that last text they sent was a red flag, how you even feel about them. Licensed therapist Keisha Saunders-Waldron explains that in situations like these, a friend can help you slow down and ask yourself the important questions.“Sometimes you need perspective,” she says. “Sometimes you just need to say the whole thing out loud before you know how you feel.” But there’s a difference between doing a guided check-in with your friend and letting them override your own feelings in a situation.Saunders-Waldron says that if you need three people to approve a text before you send it, it’s probably time to pause and ask yourself, “What’s making it so hard to trust my own response?”When You Should Leave Friends Out of ItNearly half of women and one-third of men say a friend's opinion shapes how they see someone they're dating—even when it contradicts how they feel, according to data from Hily Dating App.And the biggest problem is that their advice just isn’t always the best. While some of it can be helpful, about 43 percent of women and 30 percent of men admitted that their friends' opinions have negatively affected their dating decisions. This isn’t because your friends are secretly out to sabotage your chances at love—they’re just not you.“A helpful friend can tell you the truth without trying to run your relationship,” Saunders-Waldron says.They might ask if you’re happy with how your partner is treating you and express when they’re worried about your safety, emotional or physical. Situations where you feel that you’re being controlled, manipulated, or mistreated are important to run by your friends.But if your friend’s mantra is “dump them because I said so,” you’re not really getting much real guidance. “The trouble starts when every date, disagreement, and private conversation gets brought to the group for a verdict,” she says. Plus, your friends love you. They might still be upset about a disagreement between you and your partner that you’ve already resolved in a healthy way—and that could cloud their judgement of your relationship going forward.Even in the early stages of dating, when everything feels really low-stakes, it may not feel like such a big deal to involve your friends, you may be taking away your own autonomy in your dating life. “The best approach is to hear their perspective without surrendering authorship of your own dating life,” Dr. De Oca says. “Ultimately, you must pick your partner and spend your time with them.”Should We Be Bringing Friends on First Dates?If I ever brought my best friend along for a first date, I would feel terribly sorry for the man sitting across from us. We’re very unserious when we’re together, and that for sure would affect his chances of truly getting to know me.Saunders-Waldron says that a double date or group date can be fun, and even having a friend somewhere nearby on a first date can make you feel safer. But having your friend be a part of your first date, can complicate things.”If your friend is answering questions for you, whispering commentary, or sizing up your date across the table, it’s hard for either person to relax,” she says. “You need some room to talk to each other and find out how you feel in their company.”Dr. De Oca tells me about one of his patients who had a codependent friendship and even invited his friend on a first date. “While this alleviated his anxiety about the dating process, it dampened his connection with the potential new partner he was trying to build a relationship with, and this became an ongoing issue in the relationship between choosing friends and romance,” he says.The reality is that no matter what, dating is going to be uncomfortable—and that’s totally fine! It’s awkward to sit across a table from someone you don’t know but are attracted to, and ask them questions about the past few decades of their life you know nothing about. And sure, dating is abysmal right now, but it’s not going to get any better just because we make it more “fun.” Dating of course should be fun, but if you stop trying the second you feel a little out of place, you’ll never get anywhere. Once you get over that discomfort, you open yourself up to what could be on the other side of that awkwardness: a potential meaningful relationship (or even just a hot lay!)There are a lot of things wrong with the dating landscape today, and it’s great that people are trying to find a solution. But bringing your friends along isn’t going to save your dating life. Unfortunately, you’re going to have to do that yourself—one awkward date at a time.