Threesomes, Unicorns, and Emotional Unavailability-Oh My!

Dating right now is hard. We all know that, but dating as a lesbian/sapphic/WLW is a whole different world. As vaccines roll out, more people are reentering the world of dating after time away and after a year of self-discovery, closeted gays have come out and are trying to get into the dating world. This means not only is the dating pool opening up for fellow queer women, but also more people are trying dating apps due to how hard it is to meet other queer people in public. As one of those people who has recently come out as lesbian, I decided to conduct a little research and try to see what apps gave the best chances of finding that special someone.

No matter what app you are on from HER to Zoe and of course, Tinder, there are three classic types of profiles to avoid. First, we have the women who are only looking for another woman for a random threesome with their friend. While that’s fine, often these hookups are FMF which can be highly unfavorable for lesbians, especially if you don’t read their bio and match. It also seems more as if these women are just helping in the fetishization of lesbians for a man’s pleasure which is extremely harmful to the lesbian community as a whole.

Next, we have a couple looking for a unicorn. These profiles are among my least favorite for so many reasons. However, the main reason is that they often seem to attempt to hide the fact that they are a couple looking for a 3rd. If you’re upfront about it, at least it doesn’t feel like you’re misleading someone by having several pictures of the girlfriend and then one picture of her more often than not below-average boyfriend. 

The hardest to avoid is emotionally unavailable sapphics. These are often sapphics who have recently gotten out of a long-term relationship and are jumping into their next to avoid their feelings. Or they are a sapphic who has fallen in love with their best friend and is using a dating app as a desperate attempt to get over them. Newsflash babes, it doesn’t work. Save yourself and other people the heartbreak by allowing yourself to feel and heal from your unreciprocated feelings or even better, confess to them! After trying several dating apps, there is only one specifically catered to lesbians that I find at all usable and that is HER. While the layout is a little inconvenient, as soon as someone likes you, it alerts you and allows you the chance to like them back and start a conversation. It also asks a variety of questions so you can actively see if you will be compatible with your potential match. After a few days of a stalemate of lesbian silence, HER will also send a message with a prompt to help start a conversation. However, after a few matches/likes, you will either have to pay to see those likes or lose them in the shuffle. You’re also unfortunately not able to limit or filter who you see that much. The lack of these functions, however, is made up by the fact that, unlike Tinder, the only other dating app I can tolerate, this one is specifically for women meeting women. In conclusion, being a WLW is hard when you’re looking for love and although meeting your person in public can be tricky, dating apps won’t always be the solution for you, despite the target audience. All that being said, it’s always worth a try whenever you want to shoot your shot, so happy swiping!  

• dating apps
• Her
• lesbian
• lesbians
• tinder
• WLW