Four's Company? Trio of Female Roomies Seek Male Fourth on Grindr, Get 'Hundreds' of Responses
Grindr can be a platform for finding Mr. Right or Mr. Right Now — but platonic gay roommate? Three women sharing a residence in England decided to give it a try when a room opened up and they thought some "masculine energy" might be nice for a change.
But they weren't expecting how the responses to their query would come flooding in, UK newspaper the Daily Mail reported.
The runaway response has earned the three a rep as "marketing geniuses," the article said, but the strategy for finding "the right fit" was almost accidental.
"We had a house with four girls and one of them was moving out," Birmingham resident Cliodhna Heffernan told the Mail, adding, "we thought it would be a nice change to bring a bit of masculine energy into the house and change things up."
But looking for a new roommate via the usual routes (including a post at a service called SpareRoom) wasn't working for them. "We had guys come to the house and it just wasn't the right fit," Heffernan recounted.
Cue the gay best friend.
"I had a discussion with my gay best friend and was just saying we hadn't found anybody yet and he was like, 'Why don't you just make a profile and advertise on Grindr?'"
Heffernan did just that — and found herself "flooded with messages from prospective housemates," the article detailed. Meanwhile, "a tweet shared online of the ad has gone viral, racking up more than 22,000 likes and retweets."
Some responses questioned whether the women were looking for a gay man to be pals with, but, Heffernan said, "it wasn't like that at all."
"I suppose the whole process behind it was, a lot of my close friends over here [in England] are gay and we are very involved in the gay community so every weekend since I've come over from Ireland, we've gone out in the gay village in Birmingham."
Perhaps unsurprisingly, once she heard the idea, it clicked. "It just felt like exploring that option would be a good idea and a gay man would probably be a good fit," Heffernan told the Mail.
Saying that theirs is "a very social house," Heffernan added, "I feel like I've gotten so lucky in the house that I've moved in" where she and her roommates "just clicked, and we're looking for that person that's outgoing, fun and going to fit in."