Meet the Londoners making friends through online apps

Amy Ashenden25 April 2016

Roxanne, Victoria and Ollie all have one thing in common – they met their friends through apps.

Using technology to find friends in the capital is not weird but helpful in finding someone you’ll have interests in common with, says Elizabeth Marsh.

Elizabeth was struggling to find the time to walk her dog Cherry while running her floristry business, so messaged Victoria via the app Borrow My Doggy.

Their doggy profiles matched and they now regularly meet to catch up and share the responsibility of taking care of Cherry.

Victoria and Elizabeth met via Borrow My Doggy

Huge fans of social media, jewellery designer Roxanne Rajcoomar and fashion blogger Alya Mooro met via Instagram, when they began liking each other’s posts of clothes and accessories they had designed.

Alya Mooro said: “It’s been about two years and now we see each other basically every single day.

“Social media is such a big extension of our lives now so it makes sense that we would meet each other online – we spend so much time on there.

“It’s almost like cutting out all the dating before you become friends with someone because you already know your common interests.

“Living in London and being self-employed, we have that in common so we work alongside each other and it’s nice to have someone to be able to bounce ideas off of.”

They often meet in restaurants such as Apero to work on their fashion business together, and recently went to Paris Fashion Week.

Roxanne said the first time they met in person was at a club night run by Alya: “I remember getting there and thinking ‘I’m sure her hair was like that on Instagram – it must be her!’

Over in Kentish Town, freelance journalist Esra Gurkan and social media manager Ollie Fahey have been sharing a flat for eight months.

Ollie and Esra became flatmates through SpareRoom

Ollie found Esra through an ad on the flatmate finder app, SpareRoom.

He said: “I did find SpareRoom as a concept quite weird because it is quite a big decision to choose to live with someone, and SpareRoom is quite a casual thing.

“Having said that, it is very useful having the app on your phone and we wouldn’t have been able to find flatmates in such a short space of time otherwise.”

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