Friendsy fosters student relationships
Last Wednesday night, members of two fraternities and one sorority left their weekly meetings carrying small index cards.
The cards gave the students access to Friendsy.net, an anonymous website where registered members can mark if they want to hook up, be friends or (gasp!) date another registered Dartmouth student. Like Last Chance andTinder, Friendsy’s more nefarious counterparts, the site will alert both students if they receive a match.
Cards spread to additional Greek organizations and eight residence halls throughout the week. By 11:00 a.m. on Sunday morning, 85 students had registered on the site. Of 315 attempts to connect, the site matched 98 users as mutual friends, 23 users as hook-ups and 19 as dates.
Since its launch at Princeton University last spring, the site attracted 1,200, according to Mike Pinsky, a Princeton rising junior and a site organizer. Princeton has 5,150 undergraduate students.
About 90 percent of the feelings expressed at Princeton have been mutual, Pinsky said.
“It’s such a shame that people miss out on what could be a great thing for both people,” he said. “Because of the sheer volume of people you might be interested in, a site like this is perfect for a college campus.”
Site organizers are aiming to expand the site’s services to 15 schools this summer for a fall official launch, but since so many Dartmouth students are on campus this summer, the College will prove a test case for Pinsky and other organizers.
Pinsky called Friendsy a positive social networking site, unlike Facebook, which can spark jealousy or envy among friends.
Rising sophomores, juniors and seniors used the site in equal amounts in the first week of the Princeton’s launch, Pinksy said. They used the site for all three options on the site, not just hooking up, he said.
“Dartmouth has the culture for something like this,” said the site’s Dartmouth representative, who wished to remain anonymous. “With college kids, there’s always some fear—I’m interested in this guy or girl, but I don’t want to embarrass myself.”
The Dartmouth representative for Friendsy said he wished to retain his anonymity so that fellow students would trust the site. Dartmouth Compliments and the Hacker Club’s Last Chance sites has anonymous student organizers as well.
Knowing who brought Friendsy to campus could cause some users to worry about their confidentiality when using the site, he said.
Dartmouth’s representative said that when he talks to students, they tend to remember the site’s hookup features. He emphasized that this is just one capability on the site.
“I would never use it for that function, or for the dating,” he said. “We want to target a broader audience than Last Chance.”
The site will be offered to a broader Dartmouth user group in September. Until then, keep an eye out for the circulating Friendsy business cards—your next Foco buddy or formal date could be a click away.