The Scoop: Single parents don’t have time to waste with dating games. Dating and community app Frolo helps adults leave games in the past. We talked to the app’s founder, Zoë Desmond, about her story, reflections on single parenthood, and the app features made for and by single parents.
If you’ve ever been on Hinge, you know that you can customize your profile a ton. Along with the basics like your name, age, and location, you can put your zodiac sign, your hometown, whether you drink or smoke, and if you have pets.
You can put a tile on your profile if you have children, and another tile if you want children. This feature lets you tell other people the basics about you in an easy-to-digest way.
But, if you want to filter by whether other users have children, you’ll have to cross a paywall to access that feature (Hinge isn’t the only app to do this).
The way mainstream dating apps approach single parent dating is often a double-edged sword. You can access a large and diverse dating pool, but if you only want to match with other single parents, you’re going to have to pay for it.
Online dating can swiftly become a minefield. Between kids, work, and everything else life throws your way, you don’t have time to play games with unserious people online.
But the internet is an invaluable tool for meeting new people, and as a single parent, having a community is more important than ever. It’s all about finding the right virtual places to build that community. We talked to Zoë Desmond, the founder of the app Frolo, about how technology can aid single parent dating.
Frolo is an app made for and by single parents. The platform can be used for finding dates, friends, or community– it’s all up to you to decide. Frolo has been called the “unicorn” of dating apps for single parents.
The app offers a supportive, welcoming, and understanding environment that’s difficult to find on mainstream apps. Zoë told us what inspired her to start Frolo and filled us in on all of the app’s unique features.
“Frolo was born out of my own struggle when I became a single parent about seven years ago,” Zoë said. “I didn’t know any other single parents at the time, so I felt really lonely and isolated. I found myself craving connection with other single parents who were in the same boat as me.”
Exploring the Single Parent Dating Scene
You could look at Frolo as a niche dating app, but the statistics tell us that single parenting is becoming fairly mainstream in the U.S. In fact, the United States has the world’s highest rate of children living in single-parent households, and it seems the numbers have only been increasing.
We don’t have the exact numbers on how many dating single parents are out there, but we know nearly one-fourth of families are led by single parents. Based off that, it seems single parents don’t necessarily make up a tiny portion of the dating pool.
But, as single parents, you do have unique needs, and you’re going to date differently than your childless counterparts.
Zoë said Frolo was the kind of resource she wanted when she was struggling as a single parent. “It’s just such a tricky time, navigating the end of a relationship,” she said. “And I was still wrapping my head around being a fairly new mom and still trying to piece together parenting on my own.”
The hardest times for Zoë were the weekends when her son was with his dad. She would see families everywhere, which made her miss her son even more. She said she felt like a burden when she reached out to friends with families. She yearned for an opportunity to connect with single parents in situations like hers.
Zoë lives in the U.K., where Frolo was founded. The single parent stats there are similar to the numbers in the U.S., so Zoë knew there had to be other single parents who had time to spare on the weekends.
When Zoë turned to the internet, she was shocked that she couldn’t find a popular dating site for single parents. “I looked online to see if I could find an easy way to connect with these other single parents who I was really keen to find,” she said, “and there wasn’t an easy or straightforward way to do it.”
That’s why she founded Frolo. It started out as a community app, but eventually it grew to include a dating feature for parents interested in a romantic connection. But the core of Frolo has remained in community-building.
“It makes it really easy to discover and connect with other like-minded single parents in your area, whether it’s a co-parent, a solo parent, a widow, or a solo parent by choice,” Zoë said.
Frolo Connects You With Potential Friends & Dates
Frolo is one app with two modes: dating and community. You get to choose which mode is right for you. Zoë said Frolo’s community mode is super similar to a parenting app, but with a specific focus on the ups and downs single parents may face.
“When I first became a single parent, I did go to other parenting community apps hoping it would serve my need at that time,” Zoë said. “But what I found was that a lot of the apps were mom-based, or really focused on infancy, and just not serving my specific needs.”
The meetup section of Frolo lets you find and create events with other parents. Zoë said people use Frolo to plan holiday parties, playdates, and kid-free events. Frolo also has a feed where you can ask other single parents for advice and share your perspectives with the bigger community.
You can keep all your connections in your Frolo contacts. The app lets you create private and group messages.
Frolo’s community section is a strictly dating-free zone. “The community really took off, and it became really clear there was a huge need and gap in the space for single parents to have a place to find that connection, community, and support,” Zoë said. “It felt really important to keep it a dating-free space.”
When you’re looking for community guidance and support, you don’t need to worry about having to ward off unwanted advances from people trying to date. But, when you are ready to date, getting started on Frolo’s dating mode is easy.
Single Parenthood Isn’t Always Easy– Support Helps
Frolo’s dating mode creates a safe and respectful dating experience. Everyone on the platform is a single parent (that’s a requirement to use the platform) and shares a commitment to their family and children.
You can put your parenting status in your profile, whether you’re a solo parent or co-parent, and let other users know how many kids you have and how old they are. You can browse profiles, chat through the messenger, and start making IRL plans.
Parenthood changes dating, and Zoë said she added the dating section to Frolo in 2022 to meet a growing need. “There were lots and lots of single parents who got to the point where they were feeling back on their feet and feeling like they had found their community and they were ready to date,” she told us.
Zoë said an overwhelming majority of the single parents who were expressing a desire to date wanted to connect with other single parents. “They were really interested in connecting with another single parent who would be able to fully identify with their world,” she said. “Someone who could really be empathetic to what a single parent goes through.”
When you date another single parent, you won’t have to explain your devotion to your children or the complications that can come with coparenting. Explaining these things over and over again to a partner is a kind of emotional labor that can eventually become very taxing. When you take this complicating factor out of dating, your experience will be primed to go a lot smoother.
If you’ve been burned before on traditional dating apps, consider giving Frolo a try.
“I think with the mainstream apps, a single parent can go on and almost feel on the back foot for being a single parent,” Zoë said. “I always saw users saying they weren’t interested in people with kids. It can feel really negative – our standards on Frolo are just so much higher.”
