Survey: Third Wheel in Your Dating Life—Best Friend Edition

Maybe you consider dating a personal journey. But for many young Americans, friends’ group chat is behind the wheel.

Hily surveyed 3,100 Gen Z and Millennial American daters to find out just how much influence best friends have in modern romance. From screenshot analysis to first-date debriefs, the results show that the line between “my dating life” and “our dating life” is blurrier than you might think.

Here are some key findings from our survey:

• Nearly half of American women and 1 in 3 American men ask friends for advice before replying to a dating app match
• 63% of women who ignored a friend’s dating advice eventually found out their friend was right
• More than half of American women share screenshots of dating conversations with friends for analysis
• 72% of women and 64% of men have continued dating someone despite a best friend’s objections

Group Chat, Chime In

For many daters, ‘let me think about it’ actually means ‘let me ask my friends.’ Nearly half of American women and 1 in 3 American men consult friends before replying to someone they’re interested in on a dating app. The message isn’t sent until the group chat weighs in—at least for a significant share of daters.

Friends get more involved as things get more serious. American women are twice as likely as American men to consult friends before agreeing to meet someone from a dating app. For many, a friend’s read on a situation is part of the process before anything happens IRL.

Some daters let friends in the mix even earlier. More than 1 in 3 American women would let their best friend send likes on their behalf, compared to 1 in 4 American men. The reasoning is straightforward: a best friend sometimes knows your type better than you do.

More than half of American women share screenshots of dating conversations with friends for closer examination, compared to 1 in 4 American men. The screenshot is the modern love letter—two people start talking, five people are immediately invested.

Date First, Discuss Immediately After

More than half of American women say they wouldn’t go on a second date without first telling their best friend how the first one went. For roughly a third of American men, the same is true. For them, a first date isn’t a two-person event— a debrief is required before anything moves forward.

Friends are important, but parents still have the final say. Daters may be checking in with friends, but only 36% of American women and 23% of American men value their friends’ opinions more than their parents’. Best friend or not, it’s hard to trump a mother’s disapproval. 

Red flags are easier to spot when you’re not the one with feelings involved. For nearly half of American women (but fewer than 1 in 3 American men), a best friend’s opinion shapes how they view someone they’re dating—even when it conflicts with their own first impression. A friend’s read might be what reframes an entire relationship.

When Friends Disapprove

A thumbs down from a best friend has led 1 in 3 American women to lose interest in someone, compared to fewer than 1 in 5 American men. Disapproval from a close friend is more than noteworthy—for many, it’s enough to change the outcome entirely.

Among those who did lose interest, 73% of women and 59% of men credit their friend with spotting a red flag they’d missed. In hindsight, the friend saw something worth noticing.

Not every case of friend disapproval comes with an obvious reason, though. Nearly 1 in 4 American women and 1 in 5 American men say they’ve felt pressured to stop seeing someone, even when there isn’t a blatant red flag. Influence and pressure aren’t always the same thing, but they can look similar in the moment.

The Group Chat Was Right (Again)

Sometimes that pressure isn’t enough—72% of American women and 64% of American men have continued dating someone despite a best friend saying it was a bad idea. Listening to friends and following their advice are two different things, as most daters have proven at some point.

Whether or not that’s a good thing is another story—63% of American women who continued dating someone against a friend’s advice eventually found out their friend was right, compared to 44% of American men. Going against the group chat is a choice many daters make. More often than not, for women especially, it turns out the group chat had a point.

Despite this, 58% of American women have hidden details about someone they were dating to avoid friend judgment, compared to 36% of American men. Sometimes, the easiest way to avoid the group chat’s verdict is to withhold the questionable evidence.

The Unofficial Relationship Consultant

Good intentions and good advice don’t always go hand in hand. Friends’ opinions have negatively affected dating decisions for 43% of American women and 30% of American men. Outside perspective is useful… until it isn’t. For a meaningful share of daters, friend involvement has steered things in a direction they didn’t necessarily want to go.

All this negative feedback is coming from a minority of people— just 1 in 3 American women and 1 in 4 American men have been the friend who convinced someone to stop dating a person they liked. Causing a breakup isn’t a task everyone is up for.

More Than Just Dating Advice

Friends are being consulted at every stage of dating. Private moments aren’t necessarily private—62% of American women discuss their sex life with friends, compared to 36% of American men. If you want to make sure you’re truly alone in the bedroom, it might be a good idea to check in.

But people aren’t always sharing intimate details for the sake of hot gossip—58% of American women have asked a friend whether something in their sex life was normal or a potential red flag, compared to 33% of American men. When you need to know whether something’s just a little freaky or frankly problematic, who better to turn to than your bestie?

Dating: Brought to You by Friendship

For many young American daters, a relationship isn’t between just two people. The best friend is in the group chat, reviewing the screenshots, rating the first date, and occasionally overruling the first impression.

That level of involvement cuts both ways. Friends catch red flags, offer perspective, and sometimes see things more clearly from the outside. They also pressure, judge, and occasionally get it wrong.

Most daters seem to know this… and involve their friends anyway.

The methodology

Hily’s research team surveyed 3,100 Gen Z and Millennial daters in the United States to explore how best friends and social circles shape modern dating. The study examined how often daters consult friends before responding to matches, whether friend opinions influence attraction and dating decisions, how daters navigate friend disapproval, and how both men and women think about friend involvement across different stages of a relationship.

About Hily

Hily (pronounced like ‘highly’) is a dating app designed to connect singles with new people while supporting them in remaining authentic. Short for “Hey, I Like You,” it invites users to have fun and not look for a perfect match.

By encouraging everyone to date as they are, Hily is breaking one of the biggest curses of online dating—feeling pressured to hide your true self. Praising self-exploration, self-acceptance, open-mindedness, and inclusivity, the app helps people put real connections first and keep competition at bay by unlocking their unique, fabulous selves. With features like icebreakers, compatibility checks, messaging, Major Crush, and zodiac synastry, Hily helps users express who they really are and connect in genuine ways.

Launched in 2017, Hily has become one of the top 10 dating apps in US app stores, with over 42 million users worldwide.