Dating Apps: The Lesbian Experience

I have the good fortune (if you want to call it that) of having experienced dating apps as a straight woman and as a gay woman, and the two experiences are wildly different! Online dating as a straight woman is just a lot of overly forward messages from average men who have no reason to be so confident and your classic “nice” guy who will cry if you take more than two hours to reply and then proceed to call you a sl*t and a b*tch for “ignoring” him. Gay dating however, is seeing loads of stunning girls, matching and then no one having the balls (pun intended) to message first. So let me give you all a wee insight into what online dating as a gay woman looks like.

No One Messages First

This has to be the most infuriating part of lesbian online dating. Maybe it’s because we’re all conditioned from birth to expect men to make the first move, so when it comes to two women no one’s willing to do it, or maybe everyone’s just insanely anxious and shy, who knows. But either way many matches just never interact because no one makes that first move. Then you get the girls who write in their bio “I don’t message first” like ok princess, calm down, you aren’t that special. I know sending the first message can be scary but honestly what’s the point of being on these apps if you aren’t going to talk? The girls who state they won’t message first were just an instant no from me, maybe some people like that but I think it comes across as conceited and bratty. I’m not a confident person but I’ll happily message first, after all the worst that can happen is that they won’t reply, and personally I’m not too fussed if some stranger on the internet pies my message, my ego isn’t that fragile. And sometimes, you might get lucky and it’ll work, I messaged a girl asking about her dog and we’re now a couple, so even the most lame questions can work sometimes.

Couples Looking for Their Unicorn

This is the worst one. Something that you just don’t experience on straight dating apps. There are so many couples who are looking for someone to have a threesome with, it’s infuriating. I’m genuinely curious how many of these couples have found success from this because I can’t imagine it’s many. There’s nothing worse than swiping through and thinking “oh she’s pretty” to then read her bio and see “just a couple looking for our unicorn”. The part that always baffles me is that some of these girls are stunning yet the boyfriend looks like he hasn’t even learned appropriate hygiene (seriously straight women you can do better). A wee PSA to the girls who do this; no one wants to have sex with you and your crusty boyfriend, please see yourself out, respectfully gay women everywhere.

Straight Girls

I will never forget the day I messaged a girl on Tinder and she replied “This is so awkward, I’m not gay” I assumed, wrongly, that she had her settings wrong but no she just did it to see how many girls would fancy her. Like girl, there is a severe lack of other gay women on this app already without you throwing your heterosexual ass in. Then you have the straight girls that are “just looking for friends” and I get it, sometimes trying to make friends as an adult is hard but you know, maybe join a club or something. Then we get to the girls who are just looking to experiment and honestly this one doesn’t bother me too much because at least they’re being honest, still not going to swipe right on them but yay for honesty.

Girls Promoting Their Instagram

Yes, this is real. You all know the ones “get me on insta I’m never on here” then you look at their Instagram and they have thousands of followers and a photo with their boyfriend. I appreciate the hustle but again, there’s probably better and easier ways to promote your brand. We’re also never going to follow your basic straight girl account, sorry but it’s exceptionally hot gay women only for us.

Men

You might think that men wouldn’t be an issue when you’re a lesbian and therefore have your settings as “women only” but damn you would be so wrong. A single friend kindly did a wee Tinder experiment for me and matched with these men to find out what their deal was. One genuinely didn’t realise he had listed himself as female and quickly fixed the problem, so props to him. One gave her the classic “I bet I could turn you (insert weird penis looking emojis here)”, sadly his response was a reoccurring theme. Most of the guys would give similar responses either asking how did she really know she was gay, had she ever tried being with a man and then the most outstanding response of all was the man who said he didn’t want to sleep with her but if she was game he’d happily watch her have sex with another woman. *sigh* I will never understand how men seem to interject themselves into everything but here we are.

Blunt Chat

You match with a girl, you message first, she replies, you think great finally someone actually willing to have a conversation. But then you quickly realise getting decent chat is like trying to draw blood from a stone. I’m not sure why this is to be honest, I know some people hate texting and are better in person but honestly some of you are dull. I genuinely wonder how you’ve got this far in life with such horrendous patter. The worst ones are the ones that say in their bio “send me a joke/fun fact” so you do and then they respond “haha” or “that was good”. Girl, I just gave you a 10/10 fact about rubber ducks, how are you not amazed right now? Maybe I’m just too chatty and willing to overshare but I honestly don’t know how anyone gets anywhere being that blunt and dry. Personally, I think it doesn’t matter how good looking you are if you have the personality of a plank of wood then you’ll get no where in life.

All this being said, I actually have a good success rate with dating apps, it’s how I met my boyfriend before I realised I was gay (obvs) and it’s how I met my current girlfriend. Dating apps definitely have their downfalls and you’re always going to have to manoeuvre through all the creeps and time wasters first but there are some genuinely good people on them and overall I love the whole online dating saga. Some of the interactions are horrendous but you know what? At least they provide a good story. So what do you all think, do you love them or hate them?