Active Audience | 86% |
Quality Matches | 55% |
Popular Age | 26-32 |
Profiles | 160 300 |
Reply Rate | 62% |
Ease of Use | 6.7 |
Popularity | 7.5 |
Fraud | Very Rarely |
Rating |
7.2
|
Registration | Free |
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There was a time not too long ago when plus-sized men and women were judged and even shunned by society. They were written off as individuals who did not care for personal hygiene or their health. As the world has become more aware, the biases have diluted. Body positivity campaigns have become a common occurrence, and so have dating websites that cater to such individuals.
Large Friends is a website that has been creating quite the stir over the past few years. It is among the most popular dating websites that promise to connect Big Beautiful Women (BBW) and Big Handsome Men (BHM). Large Friends has a number of search options, but what the website focuses most on is helping users find serious relationships.
Unfortunately, plus-sized people, especially women, often become the target of negative elements such as to exploit these individuals to extract financial and personal favors. Many dating websites for plus-sized individuals have become the target of such elements, which has brought down their reliability. However, Large Friends has proven itself to be a safe and helpful social networking website. Unlike other similar websites, it is not just a dating service. It is a community of individuals who support each other and strive to make dating safe for everyone. The management behind Large Friends has also been instrumental in making it a safe and popular choice for bigger individuals.
Large Friends hasn’t been on the online dating scene for long, but it has gained a strong foothold – thanks to the support from a strong dating network. The website is an addition to Successful Match’s already impressive portfolio of dating services. Large Friends comes as a result of the success of its sister niche websites – AgeMatch and BiCupid.
Large Friends has seen rapid growth and enjoys the business of almost a million users from different parts of the world. The reason Large Friends and its sister websites have gained popularity rapidly is because Successful Match puts a lot of focus on the security and privacy element of its websites. It also puts quality and ease of use at the center of its user experience.
New users will not fail the notice the many success stories littered across the introduction page and throughout the website. The first thing that normally comes to mind is that there can’t be so many hits on a single website; some of these must be made up. However, a little digging revealed that Large Friends have indeed worked tremendously for a lot of its users.
The question is – how do Large Friends achieve this? We found the answer in the website’s user base and its quality of service. Any dating service that can boast a large user base is bound to become more successful than websites that get less traffic. Of the million users that the website caters, a whopping thirty-five percent hail from the US. This number comes up to around 350,000 users.
With so many users registered in the USA, it comes as no surprise that a majority of the website’s success stories come from the said country as well. Large Friends also has a high density of users in primarily English-speaking countries such as Canada, the UK, and Australia. That being said, the user base also has significant chunks of users from Germany, France, Spain, and other European countries.
With the heavy traffic, the website records over fifteen thousand average weekly user visits, with almost sixty thousand users visiting the website every month. What these numbers translate to is a sufficiently healthy activity. Large Friends may not be the busiest website we have reviewed, but these numbers are great for a website that caters to a niche rather than the general public.
We weren’t too disappointed with the gender distribution on the website, either. About 56% of male users and 44% of female users make up the user base of Large Friends. Although male users have a higher ratio, the difference isn’t too significant. This means that there is a good chance of users finding their perfect match regardless of their gender.
Taking inspiration from its sister niche sites, Large Friends is also very accepting of same-sex couples. This is another factor that has led to the website’s large appeal. As for the age distribution, a large number of male and female users registered on the website are between the ages of 25 and 34. This is followed by middle-aged individuals between 45 and 54.
Large Friends is a website that caters to the modern individual. It works to solve problems that plus-sized individuals face when looking for relationships and love. A website that caters to the modern user, and that too primarily the young-adult age group, should put a lot of focus on aesthetics. Large Friends, unfortunately, looks fairly outdated.
We believe the look and feel of the website have hardly been updated since it was first launched. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing as Large Friends manages to keep the user experience clean and simple. We just wish that it had paid some attention to keeping the layout updated to go with the aesthetic of modern dating services.
However, the use of pleasant colors is always refreshing to see. Large Friends utilizes the themes of white and blue to dominate the website, which creates an aura of familiarity and puts users to ease. The general layout, as we said, is dated, and this might be because it tries to mimic social networking websites of its time. Users of Myspace and Friendster will see obvious similarities. That makes it intuitive and easy to browse through.
So despite its dated appearance, the simplistic layout helps greatly with usability. We can’t help but wonder if this design choice that seems stuck in the era of Myspace is intentional. A significant portion of Large Friends’ user base comprises of people above the age of fifty-five. These are users who take comfort in the known rather than experimenting with the unknown. The website’s aesthetic and layout make it easy to use for users of all ages.
Large Friends, as we mentioned early on in this review, is more of a community than a dating website. This distinction brings with it a ton of special features. These features allow members to communicate with other members on topics of interest.
This is a great way of developing meaningful connections that go beyond dating or physical attraction. However, Large Friends does not have a shortage of dating-specific features either. Following are some of the website’s hottest features:
Large Friends is a website that likes to keep things simple. In doing so, it manages not to sacrifice the intuitiveness of its features. Once you’ve found a match, either through the conventional search or the website’s Spark one-by-one user discovery, you are presented with several options to initiate contact.
Sending direct messages in Large Friends is reserved for premium users, but that doesn’t mean free members are at a loss. Although free users can’t send messages, they can respond to messages sent to them by premium members. They can also connect with members who match with them through Spark.
Alternatively, free users can also send a wink to register their interest in a particular member. If that member is a premium user, they can reciprocate the wink with a direct message. Since Large Friends is not just a simple dating website, users can also take a more organic approach to form social connections.
In Large Friends, it is free to post in forums and add to your blog as much as you like. Through these two mediums, users can express themselves and their views. They can also use these mediums to tell visitors more about themselves and their aspirations. Visiting users are often more attracted to these soulful insights than they are to profile pictures. This is a great way of connecting with people that you are actually compatible with.
Large Friends keeps the sign up simple so that users of all ages can register without getting stuck on any stage of the process. Registration can take anywhere between three to five minutes, depending on whether you opted for manual or Facebook registration.
Regardless of which mode you opt for, you will be required to fill in some compulsory information. This includes your gender, age, contact details, location, physical attributes, and your purpose for joining the website. Users are asked to upload a profile picture at the end of the sign-up process.
User profiles on Large Friends are quite detailed. There are multiple subsections for basic information, detailed information, hobbies, interests, comments, and other information that visitors may find interesting.
Overall, we found the profiles to be quite engaging, provided users take the time to fill them in properly. Editing the profiles is also easy, so keeping it current shouldn’t be an issue for anyone. All profiles IN Large Friends are accompanied by a blog where you can go deeper into your motivations and relationship requirements.
For a website that a majority of users prefer to use through their phones, Large Friends sure is cutting out a large segment of its user base. Although a smartphone app is available, this app is only available on Android. There is currently no iOS app.
This is certainly a bone of contention. However, it helps that Large Friends offers an intelligent mobile-friendly version of the website. This means that iPhone users can easily access the website on their phones by navigating to the mobile version of the site on any web browser.
Quality dating portals for BBWs and BHMs are a rare occurrence. The following are some websites that offer a secure and fun environment for plus-sized individuals to find their partner.
BBWCupid
WooPlus
BBWDateFinder
Large Friends makes a bulk of its features available to all users. However, there are some features, such as direct messaging, which only become available through Premium Membership. Following are the subscription charges for the Large Friends Premium Membership:
Payment Methods
Large Friends is a dating website with an active moderation team. No website is a hundred percent safe when it comes to exposure from negative elements. However, Large Friends does a great job of dealing with such issues in a timely manner.
Users can report questionable activity or unwelcome behavior on forums. Users can also report profiles and block users from sending them communication requests. Large Friends furnishes users with online dating guidelines that can be accessed from the bottom of any page. As with any dating website, users are advised to be on the lookout for predatory behavior and inform the team if any issues arise.
Any niche website is only as good as the promises it manages to keep. Large Friends promises to provide a decent dating platform to BBW and BHM dating individuals of all ages. What it delivers is a safe and easy experience that not only helps users find potential partners but also helps them connect with likeminded individuals. In doing so, Large Friends has created a wholesome community of plus-sized users who come together to help each other out.
Navigate to the Settings option from your picture menu bar at the top right-hand corner of the screen. Click on the Membership section. Here you can select either the Disable Account option or the Delete Account option to disable or permanently delete your account.
Only premium members can send direct messages. Free users can send winks or interact with users on forums and blogs. Send a direct message by selecting the relevant option from the user’s profile.
Users need to have a premium membership to see who has liked or favorited them.
Large Friends gives users the option to block other users by clicking on the three-dot menu besides their name and gender information.
Navigate to Settings and then Membership to cancel auto-renewal of premium membership.
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