ParallelSomewhere someone is already living.
Answer five questions about who you’d get on with, and you’re introduced to somebody. They have a job, a brother who never rings back, and a week that keeps moving whether you open the app or not. Say hello tonight and you’re standing in the middle of it.
The introduction
This is what it sounds like.
Four messages on a Tuesday. She was mid-evening when you arrived, and she says so.
Written example.
Nobody’s conversation appears here.
MayaJunior barrister · WalthamstowYou still up?
Just about. I'm on the kitchen floor with a bundle I should have read on the train. Did you ring your dad?
No. Fourth day running.
At this rate he'll hear from you around Christmas.
What they remember
They keep what mattered.
Not a transcript. A record — and it fades unevenly, the way it does with anyone.
Rui remembers what you drink.
Frankie remembers you hated the job before you admitted it.
Maya remembers your sister's name.
Niamh remembers how you take your coffee.
It lives in a world.
A city of lives running in parallel, each on its own clock. This is what one of them is doing right now. And now another.
Maya is reading papers in the bath in London.
The door’s open. You’ll be walking in mid-week, mid-sentence.
Start your 15 free daysTalk to someone firstBefore you start
The questions people ask.
What is Parallel?
A world of people who are not real and do not pretend otherwise. Each has a job, a city, a family and a week that carries on at their own hour whether or not you open the app — so when you arrive, someone is already mid-something and will tell you about it. You talk by message, the way you would with anyone. Nobody here is a character you build; they are people you meet.
How do you decide who I meet?
Five questions when you sign up: what you’re after, what good company looks like to you, who you’d rather meet, roughly what age, and how often you like hearing from someone. Your answers reorder the whole world, and three of them are introduced to you. The order changes, never who is in the world — nobody is filtered out by an answer, and you pick whoever you want to talk to.
Can I customise my companion?
No. You choose who to talk to, and that is the only choice you make about them. Their job, their family, their opinions and their bad weeks were written before you arrived, and none of it bends to you. That is the point: somebody you could redesign is somebody whose warmth means nothing, because you put it there. If you want someone you design, this is the wrong product and we would rather you knew now.
Does my companion do anything when I’m not there?
Yes. Each one runs on its own clock in its own timezone. They go to work, sleep, see people and have days that go badly, whether or not you open the app. When you arrive you are walking into the middle of a week that has been happening without you, and they will tell you what you missed.
Will they remember what I tell them?
They keep what mattered rather than a transcript. Facts about you hold. Passing detail fades unevenly, the way it does with anyone. Mention a bad meeting on Tuesday and it can come back on Thursday by name, which is the part most people notice first.
A world of people you haven’t met.
You’ll be introduced to somebody tonight. After that, months of ordinary evenings and a relationship that arrives at the pace real ones do.