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Making friends is tough. There’s an industry that wants to help with that.

Apps, dating services, even matchmakers are trying to help adults find friends, for a price.

Making friends is tough. There’s an industry that wants to help with that.
NBC/Newsmakers

Making friends as an adult can be difficult. Work and family commitments can cut into time that might be spent getting to know new people. But is it hard enough you’d be willing to pay for help?

Some companies are betting that it is.

“There’s a whole friendship-making business out there,” said Lisa Bonos in an interview with Marketplace’s Kimberly Adams.

Bonos wrote about the friendship-making business in the Washington Post. In her reporting, she found dating apps and even a professional matchmaker in Washington, D.C., who had decided to branch out into friend dating.

“[The matchmaker] was really finding that people were lonely, and wanted friends,” Bonos said. “And she’s finding this among 20-somethings, all the way up to 70’s and 80’s; [people] like empty nesters whose kids have left home.”

Click the audio player above to hear the interview.

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