Yeh, that entire line of thought is definitely gross. There are ways to make friends. Join a club. Go to a meetup. Use social media. Build a robot. Whatever.

With a dating site, you have a situation where people are making themselves vulnerable (relative to the source) so they can find romantic relationships. Are you going to step in on that process and say "Tee hee, I was only looking for [s]cheap validation[/s] a friend."? That's just awful behavior.