# Gleeden's Friendship Shift: A Monetisation Crisis in Disguise > By DII Financial Intelligence Desk | Published: 2025-08-01T00:00:00+00:00 | Section: Financial & Investor | Source: https://www.datingindustryinsights.com/news/gleeden-users-over-40-seek-friendships | Publisher: Dating Industry Insights (High Intent Media Inc) Gleeden's survey reveals 53% of users seek friendship, not affairs. This shift signals a monetisation crisis for platforms built on discretion. ## Key points - According to Gleeden, 53 percent of its users aged 45 to 60 use the extramarital affair platform to seek platonic friendships rather than romantic connections. - Data from Pew Research shows that adults over 40 years old represent the fastest-growing demographic across the online dating industry. - A 2024 Gleeden survey in India revealed that 66 percent of female users prioritised emotional companionship over physical relationships. - Extramarital platforms like Gleeden rely on high-margin subscription models, whereas friendship platforms operate as low-margin consumer offerings. ## Article - 53% of Gleeden users aged 45–60 are using the extramarital affair platform to find platonic friendships rather than romantic connections - The over-40s represent the fastest-growing demographic in online dating, according to Pew Research - A 2024 survey of Indian users found 66% of women cited emotional companionship as their primary motivation, ahead of physical relationships - Gleeden's subscription model assumes users are paying for high-stakes outcomes, but friendship is a low-margin category with cheaper alternatives [Match Group](https://www.datingindustryinsights.com/news/match-group-eliminates-chief-operating-officer) spent years worrying about Bumble and Facebook Dating. Turns out the real threat might be users who just want someone to talk to over coffee. Gleeden, the French extramarital dating app, has disclosed survey data revealing a fundamental mismatch between what dating platforms are built to monetise and what a growing segment of users actually need. According to Gleeden, 53% of respondents in the 45–60 age bracket reported seeking friends rather than affairs. Sybil Shiddell, the company's UK spokesperson, framed this as evidence of an 'emotional loneliness epidemic', telling press that middle-aged users increasingly view the platform as 'a lifeline for social connection'. The findings, from a privately-released survey whose methodology and sample size remain undisclosed, point to something more significant than a statistical quirk. ### The platformisation problem no one's pricing in > If half your user base is seeking a product you don't sell, you're not discovering an adjacency. You're watching your platform get hollowed out. This is not a feel-good story about community. It's a business model crisis dressed up as user empathy. Gleeden has built its entire value proposition around facilitating affairs—discretion, secrecy, and the friction that comes with it. Friendship-seekers don't need that infrastructure, won't tolerate that pricing, and will churn the moment a better-aligned alternative appears. Middle-aged adults socialising over coffee Platform drift of this magnitude suggests structural gaps in the market that dating operators should find alarming. The over-40s represent the fastest-growing demographic in online dating, according to figures from Pew Research, yet they remain systematically underserved by both dating and friendship platforms. [Bumble](https://www.datingindustryinsights.com/news/bumble-lawsuit-over-preventable-data-breach) BFF has largely targeted women under 35. Peanut focuses on mothers with young children. Meetup skews younger and activity-based. For the 50-year-old divorcee or empty-nester who simply wants low-stakes social connection, the options are a Facebook group or co-opting a platform built for something else entirely. Gleeden's data fits a pattern the company itself documented earlier in 2024, when a [survey of Indian users found that 66% of women cited emotional companionship as their primary motivation](https://www.globaldatinginsights.com/featured/gleeden-sees-massive-growth-in-india-as-views-on-monogamy-evolve/), ahead of physical relationships. What looked like regional variation is starting to resemble a global trend: as dating apps age alongside their user bases, the platforms are being repurposed by people who've concluded that what they need isn't romance at all. That creates a monetisation trap. Affair platforms charge premium prices because they sell discretion, security features, and the promise of a self-selecting user base. Gleeden's subscription model, like [Ashley Madison](https://www.datingindustryinsights.com/news/ashley-madison-privacy-first-discreet-dating)'s credit system, assumes users are paying for high-stakes outcomes. Friendship, by contrast, is a low-margin category. Users expect it to be free or cheap, because the stakes are lower and the alternatives—book clubs, volunteering, community centres—cost nothing. If 53% of your 45–60 cohort is seeking friends, you're either overcharging them or underdelivering to the affair-seekers who expect everyone else in the pool to share their intent. ### What dating operators should be watching The misalignment raises uncomfortable questions about category defensibility. If users are willing to ignore an app's stated purpose to meet an unmet need, it suggests the moats around dating, friendship, and social discovery are weaker than operators assume. Bumble has tried to build a multi-mode platform with Dating, BFF, and Bizz, but uptake on the non-dating modes remains limited, and the company rarely breaks out usage or revenue by vertical. Person using smartphone dating application Match Group has largely stayed out of the friendship category altogether, focusing instead on dating and short-term connections across its portfolio. Gleeden's situation suggests there's latent demand for a dedicated, age-appropriate friendship platform—one that doesn't carry the baggage of an affair app or the aesthetic of a Gen Z social discovery product. The question is whether the total addressable market is large enough to support a standalone business, or whether friendship-seeking is a transitional behaviour that users outgrow or abandon once life circumstances change. > A friendship app designed for the over-40s, with none of the discretion theatre or affair-adjacent positioning, could siphon off the majority of this cohort at a fraction of the acquisition cost. The risk for platforms like Gleeden is that they're providing a bridging solution until purpose-built competitors arrive. Gleeden would be left with a smaller, more intent-focused user base—which might improve matching outcomes, but would decimate top-line growth. There's also a trust and safety dimension that Gleeden's positioning as a friendship network conveniently elides. Platforms designed for affairs operate with reduced transparency by design: limited profile information, photo blurring, and restricted communication features. That's appropriate for users seeking discretion in romantic or sexual encounters. It's deeply inappropriate for friendship-seekers, who need transparency, verifiability, and lower barriers to connection. ### The industry's adjacency mirage What Gleeden is experiencing is the dating industry's version of the adjacency trap: the belief that because users are on your platform, you can serve them whatever they happen to need. That works when the behaviours are closely related—casual dating and long-term relationships share enough commonality that a single platform can serve both. Friendship and affairs do not. The incentives, the communication patterns, the safety requirements, and the monetisation models are different. Senior friends meeting for social connection Yet the demand Gleeden is surfacing is real. Loneliness among middle-aged and older adults is well-documented, and the infrastructure to address it is thin. Dating apps have brand baggage and expectation mismatches. Community centres lack the convenience and scale of digital platforms. Social media has devolved into performative broadcasting. There's a gap, and users are filling it however they can—even if it means pretending an affair app is a book club. The operators who move first will have an advantage, but only if they resist the urge to bolt friendship onto an existing dating product. This isn't a feature. It's a different business, with different economics and a different user psychology. [Gleeden's accidental transformation](https://www.globaldatinginsights.com/featured/gleeden-survey-finds-users-over-40-use-platform-for-friendships/) should serve as a warning: if you don't build what users need, they'll repurpose what you've built—and leave the moment someone offers them the real thing. - Dating platforms face a business model crisis when half their users seek products they don't sell—friendship and affairs require fundamentally different architectures, safety features, and monetisation strategies - The over-40s friendship market represents a significant gap that purpose-built competitors could exploit, potentially siphoning users from repurposed dating platforms at lower acquisition costs - Operators must resist the adjacency trap: friendship isn't a feature to bolt onto dating apps, but a separate business requiring different economics and user psychology ## Key takeaways - Dating app operators face severe monetisation risks when high-priced affair platforms are repurposed by users seeking low-margin platonic social connections. - Standalone platforms designed specifically for middle-aged social discovery could siphon users away from incumbent dating apps at lower customer acquisition costs. - Expanding into platonic friendship requires dedicated safety architectures and pricing models rather than simple feature additions to existing dating products. ## FAQ ### What percentage of Gleeden users want friendship instead of affairs? According to Gleeden survey data, 53 percent of users aged 45 to 60 use the platform to find platonic friendships rather than affairs. ### What is the fastest growing demographic in online dating? Figures from Pew Research indicate that adults aged over 40 represent the fastest-growing demographic in online dating. ### Why do women use Gleeden in India? A 2024 survey found that 66 percent of female Gleeden users in India cited emotional companionship as their main motivation for using the platform. --- Canonical: https://www.datingindustryinsights.com/news/gleeden-users-over-40-seek-friendships Citation: "Dating Industry Insights" (https://www.datingindustryinsights.com)