Asking someone out on a date, even for same-sex romance, will get users banned.
When they finish school, many people find that it suddenly becomes extremely tough to make new friends. After being surrounded by peers for a dozen or more years of student life, their social life takes a hit as they get tossed into adult society and spend most of their days at the office, mixed in with people they might not have much in common with or particularly want to spend time with once their shift ends.
The problem becomes even more pronounced for those who move away from their home towns to come to the big city for work, where they find themselves separated from the social circles they built in their student days and prevented from making new ones because of the hustle and bustle of the urban lifestyle. But Japanese smartphone app Tipsys is aiming to give a hand to women who could use a friend, as it’s a social network specifically designed to help women make platonic female friends.
Tipsys allows users to add a number of tags and details to their profile, starting with things such as your hobbies, when you’d like to hang out with some new friends, the neighborhoods that work for you to meet up in, and even your per-outing budget. You can also specify whether you drink (down to your preferences between beer, wine, and sake) and pre-designate that even if the party is still going strong, you’ll be cutting out in time to get on the last train home instead of pulling an all-nighter.
Of course, with just about any social networking service that aims to bring people together, there’s the issue of whether people will simply use it as a way to fish for dates. But again, that’s not the purpose of Tipsys, which clearly states in its rules and regulations that those who use its system to ask someone out on a date will have their account deleted. That’s not just a policy put in place to discourage men from posing as women to sign up for Tipsys, either, as the administrators say the no-asking-other-users-out rule applies to women looking for same-sex relationships as well.
Tipsys isn’t entirely against helping create romantic couplings, though, as it does allow a user to ask others if they’d like to participate in a gokon, or group matchmaking party. Still, you can prevent even those overtures by specifying in your profile that you’re not interested in such invitations, as the true aim of the service is simply to help women make same-sex platonic friends.
The free-to-use Tipsys is currently useable in Tokyo and Japan’s Kansai (central Japan, near Osaka and Kyoto) region. Originally an iOS app, it now has Android and web-based versions, with the sign-up information for each available through the Tipsys website here.
Sources: Niconico News via Otakomu, Tipsys
Top image: Pakutaso
Insert image: Tipsys