People are using the Find My Friends app wrong
Summary
A straphanger on the subway has a radical proposal: repurpose Find My Friends as "Find My Enemies." Instead of tracking loved ones, use the app to monitor people you want to avoid. Your ex's parents, that coworker from high school, the guy with bad breath. The logic is simple. Let your actual friends roam free and stumble into them organically. But actively dodge the awkward encounters. Kareem loves it. The rider admits he's only tracking four people right now but has ambitions to scale up to "potentially all of New York." The conversation spirals into hypotheticals about changing Sunday park plans if an enemy appears on the radar. At the end, Kareem jokes about adding each other on Find My Friends, just to avoid one another later.
Full Transcript
So, what's your take? People are using the Find My Friends app wrong. 100%. I'm not sure what—why are they using Find My Friends wrong? They're using it to keep track of their friends and family. You should use it for the people you want to avoid.
100% agree. That's true. You add all the people in your life that you keep running into, and it's always awkward and bad, like your ex's parents or coworkers from high school. There's people you don't want to see. You don't want to run into them. Add them on Find My. And then meanwhile, the people you actually love, let them go. Let them be free. And then you run into them. It will be a lovely moment. Oh, that's kind of nice. But here's the problem. So if I don't like someone, I have to get their number.
Yeah. Go up to like—it's never good when we see each other. It doesn't feel good. You agree, right? It's not good. Not you, but like someone. Okay. I'll add them on the list. We'll never have to do this and you'll never see them again. It shouldn't be Find My Friends. Find My Enemies. That's not a bad idea.
You said, "Hey, listen. I think we should add each other on Find My Enemies." They're like, "Find My Enemies?" Yeah, Find My Enemies. We all have it. It's on our phone. This is the point. It has to penetrate the culture.
Oh, it has to be open. This is why I'm doing this with you today. I want to normalize it. I don't want it to be this weird thing. It's a normal thing. We should all be doing it. How many people are on your Find My Enemies right now? I have like four. That's it.
There's four people in all of New York City that you're avoiding and you need to track them in an app so you don't run into them in a city of eight million people. I want to expand it to like hundreds. Actually, I want to expand it potentially to all of New York. You think you have hundreds of enemies in the city?
No, that enemies is a strong word. You said it now. It's people you want to avoid. Like the guy with bad breath. Sure. Let's say you had big plans on a Sunday to take a girl out and the whole plan for the week was we're going to Central Park. Okay. And you check the app and one of your enemies was in Central Park. Would you go change the plan? You would change the plan. Go to Riverside Park. Like it's—it's like you have to be open to life and avoid the unpleasant.
All right. Add me on Find My Friends after this and I'll make sure to avoid you. Uh—