Queer Love 411: A Focused Approach to Dating

Perhaps more straightforward in older generations, dating today takes so many forms. Some daters are out there looking for The One, others the One-Night Encounter, and still others are trying out ethical non-monogamy.

One thing I’ve observed about it: the superfluity of options doesn’t necessarily make it easier to find someone. The fact that a fair amount of people on the apps are just looking for attention, distraction, and/or validation, for instance, disqualifies them as actual genuine “options” if what you’re looking for is a real connection. Not to mention the paradox of choice brought on by such surplus.

And specifically for lesbians, as author Lane Moore put it, “Straight-focused apps like Tinder and Bumble allow for same-sex swiping, but, for gay women especially, that often leads to matches who are just dabbling in same-sex hookups or are looking to plan a threesome for their boyfriend.”

Certain dating issues are more specific to queer daters.

Over the years, I’ve heard straight people say they “don’t see sexuality”—and I think it comes from a good place.  It’s just that LGBTQ experiences are different. The way society regards my partner and me differs. The unique challenges confronting two women who are navigating the world together (as opposed to just one, or a female with a male partner) differ—amplified sexism, for one.

Familial rejection, internalized homophobia, and myriad other factors contribute to rates of mental health struggles that are higher in our community than in the general populations—which can spill over into our relationships and create more stressors. Not to mention we’re working with a far smaller pool of “candidates.”

That our dating prospects are invisible has been a challenge I encountered as far back as my freshman year at college. While friends and hall-mates met their hookups or significant others at frat parties, in the dorms, or in class, I met mine through an LGBTQ dating site called Downelink (this was before the days of Tinder, Bumble, or even Okcupid).

With that said, I want this column to be a place to explore dating topics with an LGBTQ bent. Specifically, I write from the angle of having dated as a femme lesbian for the past 14 years or so.

In it, I’ll explore questions like, who initiates when you’re both femme? Would you want to know if you were maybed, yesed, or hell yesed on an app? How do you stay grounded and avoid projecting in the early stages of dating?

Among the topics covered will be vulnerability and difficult conversations, dealing with rejection, navigating dating as a person with mental health struggles, unpacking “the spark,” expectations versus reality, love-bombing, love-dusting, bread-crumbing, and ghosting. You’ll read about one-sided relationships, scarcity mindset, past traumas’ role in dating behaviors and patterns, and the way attachment style influences our choices in partners.

I want to note that, of course, dating can also be fun. Over-thinking and excessive analysis takes some of that fun out—So my hope is, you’ll use this information to create better understanding that can actually help make it more fun and less weighed down by baggage.

Having a more relaxed mentality towards dating doesn’t mean not thinking about these topics at all. I think everyone benefits from some level of self-understanding and insight into why they act the way they do in relationships. Fun and insight aren’t mutually exclusive. Self-knowledge clears baggage. Clearer communication means less space for drama, more for positive experiences.

I think my biggest frustration with the apps today is the loss of serendipity and organicness. All the pre-planning lends itself to more snap decisions and passing up of people who could have made great matches had you met in different, less pressurized, expectation-laden circumstances.

Like, I’m still a fan of the meet cute. Where the girl and guy, or girl and and girl, or nonbinary person and nonbinary person, meet when they’re both stuck in traffic one day.

One is singing and dancing to Lil Nas X. Having a great time. Making the best of an undesirable situation.

The other is in the car behind them. The two make eye contact in the rearview mirror. Smile. Things take off. Eventually, they’re raising piglets or plants or kittens together.

Who says that can’t happen anymore, though?

Every minute of every day carries endless possibilities, right?

I hope you’ll take something from these columns, whatever your specific dating goals may be.