What Is Large Friends?
Large Friends is a dating site for plus-sized folks to make friends, date, and find big love. Here, you can find attractive, big, beautiful women and men who are looking for someone just like you. It has some unique features like first date ideas and a flirting game called FLAME, which will be discussed in more detail later in this Large Friends website review. There are also some novel ways to add personality to your profile.
We'll also explore how to register, complete your profile, and some of the pros and cons of using the site. You'll find out the quality of the other member's profiles, and any security concerns we picked up from their Ts&Cs. Finally, we'll let you know how much it costs to use Large Friends, answer some frequently asked questions, and wrap it up with some final thoughts.
Pros
You can start communicating with free-use messages called Winks.
Easy to use.
You can create a profile and start browsing for free.
You can see when other members have a premium membership.
Cons
Messaging is behind a paywall.
It is a smaller dating site, so it is only viable in densely populated places like big cities.
Very simplistic site design.
The Large Friends app is only available on Android, not on iOS.
Poor customer service.
Login Process
Joining is reasonably quick and easy. You can begin by clicking on 'Start Journey' on the LargeFriends home page. This will take you to a page asking for your email address, to agree to the service agreement and privacy policy, and to confirm that you're not a robot with a captcha. Next, you'll indicate if you're a man or a woman and the gender you're looking for. You'll then create a password, indicate your location, and enter your age.
Creating a username is the next step, followed by entering your height, indicating your ethnicity, relationship status, and creating a headline for your profile. Unique to LargeFriends, your headline will not only top your profile page but also appear next to your name in search results and FLAME. That's followed by the prompt to say a little about yourself, with a block for you to write an answer. This is a chance to show your personality and sense of humor.
Next, you'll need to write a little about your perfect match. Finally, you must add at least one photo before gaining access to the site. You'll need to verify your email address by clicking a link emailed to you, but you're allowed to edit your email first if necessary. Your profile then needs to be reviewed before you can message anyone. It takes up to 1 business day, or if you immediately upgrade to premium, it'll be completed in 3 minutes.
Profile Completion
To complete your profile, there are a few more sections to fill in. Some of these have space for you to write a short paragraph, including your about me, about your match, and profile heading. All of which were completed during registration. The Basics section also has a few shorter questions to answer, including your body type and eye and hair color.
You can then complete the whole 'My Info' section, which has the typical dating site questions about your education level, job, and whether you smoke or drink. This also asks about your religion, if you want children or already have them, astrological signs, annual income, and political stance. And lastly, you'll indicate if you have pets, select some favorite music genres, and choose your hobbies and interests from a list.
A few other questions have a written answer section, which includes things you highly recommend to the community. These can be anything from restaurants to brands you love. You can also expand on your favorites and write about sports teams, food, charity organizations, or anything else. Lastly, you can write a little about your personality.
User Account Quality
LargeFriends.com is a smaller dating site and has a limited number of users. All profiles have photos since this is required when joining, which is great. More male profiles have premium and verified badges than female profiles, which is common on dating sites. But it is a slightly concerning trend as it's difficult to trust the legitimacy of female profiles.
Large Friends has no matching algorithm. It's totally up to the individuals to match with other members based on their profiles and perceived compatibility. While there's nothing wrong with this, it's usually nice to get at least a few matches that are likely to be your type. This could be improved by adding a matching algorithm and some form of daily matches.
Dating Features
FLAME
Large Friends has a fun alternative for when you're tired of searching through profiles on the Discover tab, which is called FLAME. This is like a game where you're shown other members' pictures and a summarized version of their profiles. You can then click on the heart icon if you like them or on the X if you're not interested. Clicking the heart will add them to your favorites list. Once you've clicked the heart or the x, a new profile will appear.
This is a fun way to browse profiles in a way that takes less effort than seeing profile pictures on the Discover tab and having to open the profiles manually. You can get an idea of which members you're interested in and curate a favorites list that'll allow you to take a closer look at their profiles before reaching out to start flirting.
First Date Ideas
Another novel feature of LargeFriends is the first date ideas area, where members can share what they love to do when they first meet someone. This is a fun and great place to find more ideas about what to do with someone on a first date. There are several categories that you can add your ideas to, including the various meal options of brunch, lunch, and dinner dates, as well as arts and culture, out and about, and others. You can also sort the dating ideas by age if you choose to.
Some of the ideas are, admittedly, pretty boring – there are almost 5,000 suggestions of going to a café for a cup of coffee. There are some slightly more creative ideas, like taking your dogs for a walk together or running errands together. Sadly, we found that the vast majority of date ideas, even under the more interesting headings, were some variations of 'get a meal and talk', so maybe this isn't the creative date idea fountain we'd hoped for.
Send Winks
Messaging is behind a paywall, but LargeFriends has ways for you to start connecting with a free profile, one of which is sending a Wink. A Wink is a short greeting message, and you can choose from a few pre-written ones. These include things like "Great profile, let's talk!" or "I like you, would you please share more about yourself?". It's a good way to start conversations with someone new for free.
With a premium subscription, you can write your customized Wink instead of using the pre-written ones. You can also send a customized greeting card as a Wink. This is even better than just sending a simple 1-2 line message because it looks like an e-card, which can help you stand out above the rest. There's space for a photo on the card; you can leave the photo as is, or you can add your own picture of your face, your pet, or something else entirely.
Question Game
When visiting people's profiles, you may come across their Question Game answers. This is a game where you answer some rapid-fire questions about your preferences or how you react to certain situations. You can compare your answers to see if you're aligned in how you approach, for example, confrontation, if you snore, or even if you prefer playing team or individual sports.
When viewing someone else's profile, you can only see their answer to a question if you've answered the same question. So if you're burning to know if they've picked the names of their future children, you can quickly click "Answer", give your answer, and then see theirs. This can be a great way to eliminate dealbreakers, if you've got any, before even getting involved with the person.
Private, Public, Bold, and Pet Photos
An interesting feature of LargeFriends is the different types of photos that you can upload. Many dating sites only allow you to upload pictures of yourself, alone, and clearly visible, and while this is important, you may also want to express yourself in other ways. This could be by showing the world your adorable cat or showing off your photography skills by sharing your incredible landscape snaps. Now, you can do that with the different photo categories.
Public photos are the usual dating site fare, pictures of yourself, which will be visible to everyone. Private photos allow you to share but keep them hidden from the public visiting your profile, and people must request access to see them. You can either allow or deny them. Once access is granted, they can keep viewing your private photos until you decide to revoke access. Interestingly, this photo category forbids pornographic pictures.
Bold photos may be of items that don't include yourself, such as beautiful landscapes or holiday snaps. And finally, Pet photos are the space to share your furry, feathery, or scaley animal companion. All photos will be moderated before being posted to ensure you follow the guidelines, which are visible when you click Add Photos. Moderation takes up to 24 hours.
Prices & Costs
Large Friends makes its money through ads and the premium membership plan. There's only one type of membership, and the cost varies based on the period you take it for. Paying members get 17 privileges and the assurance that they're always adding more. These include:
Unlimited likes, winks, and messaging
See who viewed your profile and who liked you
Advanced search criteria like browsing by distance
Chat features like exclusive emojis, auto-replies, changing chat wallpapers, and setting up chatrooms for specific topics
More privacy settings
No ads
Large Friends is priced about average for dating sites of this type and is set to auto-renew at the end of the period. You can disable this in your Settings, but take note that you must cancel at least 24 hours before the end of the month. It costs:
1 Month: $29.95
3 Months: $19.95 per month
6 Months: $15.95 per month
Also note that you'll pay for the whole period at the start, so for the 3-month subscription, you'll pay $59.95 on the first day and when it autorenews. The 6-month subscription will cost you $95.95 at the start and every time it autorenews.
How Safe Is LargeFriends.com?
Report Users
As with most dating sites, you're able to report other users who may be attempting to scam you, are underage, or are abusive. This is an excellent way to help keep the site free of scammers and others with malicious intent. You can report a user by clicking on the three dots in the top right corner of their profile and selecting Report. You'll then be asked to choose the reason from a list, give more detail about the situation, and add screenshots for evidence.
The Large Friends dating site takes this a step further by providing 1 month of premium membership for free if you successfully report 10 problem profiles. This is the first time we've encountered this, and while it seems like a great way to crowdsource your security team, it also seems to have potential for abuse. It could also have the opposite of the intended effect, with someone keen on the reward overwhelming the moderation team with reports.
Photo Verification
You can verify your photo on Large Friends by uploading a video of yourself or uploading a copy of your ID. The video method involves taking a 3-8 second video of yourself looking straight ahead, which will be compared to your photos to ensure you're using your own photos. The video will only be used for this process and will not be uploaded to your profile.
The ID method involves uploading a copy or photo of your government-issued ID, like a driving license or passport. You may not black out any information except your identification numbers. This will also be compared to your photos to ensure you're not using fake ones. Once the moderation team has confirmed that you're genuine, you'll get the verified badge on your profile, which inspires trust and ensures other members that you're real.
Once you've done the photo verification procedure, you can also ask other members to get verified. You'll find the reminder link on their profile below their profile picture. This is a great way to help make sure that the person you're talking to is legit and creates a safer dating experience for everyone.
Service Agreement (Ts & Cs)
The majority of the Service Agreement and Privacy Policy is well written and seems comprehensive. They state that they will never rent, sell, or disclose any of your personal information to third parties, which is great. They also state that when you get a premium subscription, the first three business days are a Trial period. During this, you can cancel your subscription at any time and get a refund by contacting support@largefriends.com.
However, the Service Agreement also states that only 1 Month subscriptions will auto-renew. The 3 and 6-month versions will be canceled at the end of the period unless you decide to turn the auto-renew setting on. This is directly contradicted by the subscription payment page, which states that all subscriptions will auto-renew. This inaccuracy brings all the rest of the Terms of Service into question: which other clauses are incorrect?
Final Thoughts
Large Friends seems too simplistic initially, but some fun features take some digging to discover. The FLAME game is a quick way to browse through potential matches and curate your favorites list. First Date Ideas is great in theory but, in practice, contains thousands of people saying basically the same things over and over. The Question Game is a good way to get to know people before chatting, and you can also send a message for free with a Wink.
The premium subscription is in the middle of the road as far as the price goes. It costs about average for dating sites like this. The perks that come with premium are also middling, and on a site that is as small as this, it may not be worth it. Photo verification is possible, but only a few people have taken that step. Despite that, most profiles seem quite real.
Large Friends is a genuine dating site but has lackluster features and a small user base. For these reasons, we rate it 6.5 out of 10. It targets plus-size folk from the name of the site, but in no other way does it appeal to this niche, and with so few users, you may be better off trying a BBW dating site with a bigger user base (no pun intended).
FAQ
Is Large Friends Legit?
The site has many seemingly real profiles, and it is possible to chat with those members (with a premium subscription) and meet up for some romance. So, yes, it's legit.
Do I Have To Be Plus-Sized To Use Large Friends.com?
Not at all. People of any size can join the site. There's a diverse pool of singles to join and choose from. You only need to recognize beauty in big women and men and accept that there's no body shaming allowed.
Is There A Large Friends Dating App?
Yes, there's a LargeFriends app available, but unfortunately, it's only for Android users. It can be found in your Google Play store. The reviews give it an average rating of 3.7 stars, which is not too shabby.
How Can I Delete My LargeFriends Profile?
Hover over your profile picture and select Settings, then on the left, select 'My Account'. At the bottom of this page, click the link to disable or delete your account, then enter your password. Select number 5, "No thanks, please delete my account". You'll need to give a reason for leaving, share additional comments, and then finally, you can click Delete Account, and it'll be done.
How Much Does A Large Friends Dating Account Cost?
It's free to create your account and start browsing. If you want to buy a premium subscription, it'll cost you between $16 and $30 per month, depending on how long you subscribe.
