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Have Lesbian Dating Apps Made Our Lives Better?

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I’ll admit: I have limited experience when it comes to online dating stuff. I’m not good at dating in the first place, and while I have browsed before, I find myself generally limited by the process of using a dating site. I mean, you’ve got to decide what you want, put your best foot forward, and hope everything’s mutual. Enough of my life is like that outside of dating – it seems like extra steps to do it in my love life, too.

I think that relationships sort of happen. If it’s not meant to be, forcing it seems silly. And truthfully you don’t really know exactly what you want; you just make a guess and hope you won’t be disappointed.

But for those who are a little more dedicated in their pursuits, I can see the appeal of dating apps and dating sites. It saves us time because the app will tell us who we probably like – so instead of having to sift through hundreds of frogs, we can find our prince (or princess!) right away.

I’m not convinced.

Surely it must be more difficult than that.

And if my long-term partner and I took the compatibility tests on these apps, we’d be matched up together anyway.

Right?

I can’t say for sure if that’s the case, but I know there are definitely advantages and disadvantages surrounding dating in a plugged-in society.


Good: Over 40 million singles in the United States alone have tried online dating.

With a pool that big, even the not-specifically-lesbian dating apps offer a pretty good shot at finding someone. Hey, they might not be perfect – but if you’re looking for someone, chances are, they’re probably looking online.


Bad: It’s a business – not a charity.

The reason so many people flock to online dating sites now is because they’re well marketed. Remember back when you were first learning about the economy and someone told you “sex sells”? Yeah, it really does – the online dating industry is worth billions of US dollars every year.


Good: One in five relationships begin online.

So if you’ve had more than 4 “traditional” relationships and none of them were the one, maybe your soul mate is staring at their phone right now. Facebook, Instagram, and dedicated dating sites are all included in this statistic – but there’s a pretty decent success rate.


Bad: People can be dishonest online.

People can be dishonest face to face too, but the anonymity of the internet can make it even easier for someone to misrepresent themselves. Until you’ve met a person face to face, you can’t ever be entirely sure that you’re talking to the person you think you are – and even if you do meet face to face, there’s often no way to tell if they’ve been honest. (And the ways you can find out are pretty shady, too.)


Good: You can spell out exactly what you’re looking for, without being awkward.

If you tell someone on a first date that you’re looking for someone who loves kids, wants to settle down, and wants to start a family in the next five years – well, this can lead to an embarrassing silence, and potentially the other person thinking you’re crazy if they don’t meet the description. But on the internet, you put this stuff out in the open and if someone thinks it’s crazy – they don’t respond.


Bad: Some people are looking to start an argument.

Some people will view your profile and see things they don’t agree with, and they’ll want to start drama over it. On many dating sites, you can block them – but that doesn’t mean anything if you’ve already given them your contact information before you find out they’re a creep. Sometimes it’s an insecure guy who’s threatened at your gay-ness, sometimes it’s the boyfriend of a curious woman, and sometimes it’s really just drama. It’s hard to predict it and harder to stop it once it’s started.


Good: You can meet people who aren’t local.

The ability to talk to someone on the other side of the planet, who feels exactly the same way you do about love and relationships, is enthralling. Where traditional dating methods limit you to people who live somewhere near you (or are at least visiting near you), expanding your dating pool to the whole world makes it much more likely you’ll find “the one” – as long as you don’t mind the distance.


Bad: You can become addicted to “just talking”.

Sometimes, dating sites fill a social void that we can’t get in our local scene, so we dive into these outlets because they offer us a bigger safety net. We forget about short-range social interaction and we never actually meet the people we fall madly in love with – or make friends in our area.


Good: It’s efficient and adaptable.

If you’re available at 2 in the morning, online dating is available at 2 in the morning. If you’re only able to spend 30 seconds at a time online, online dating can work with that. If you’ve got 9 hours in a row with nothing to do but watch Netflix and swipe, you can!


Bad: It can turn into a job.

Your first message to someone often reads like a cover letter. “Hi, I’m so-and-so. I saw your profile and thought we’d make a great team. Would you be interested in getting to know me better?” This isn’t so bad, but over time, you can get stuck on the idea of introducing yourself to people, spending more and more of your free time just trying to find someone. It can get overwhelming.


Good: There’s less pressure.

Because you’re not exactly putting yourself out there, you have the safety of not giving out your contact information until you’re 100% sure. (This is a good idea, by the way.) If you’re not interested in someone, you can move on – or block them if you must – and that’s the end of it.


Bad: You’re self-limiting.

Many people think they know what they want from a partner, so they put limits in their dating profiles which actually keep them from meeting someone who’s perfect for them. We think that we care about location, or age, or height, or labels, or anything like that – but our heart doesn’t. And all these dating sites tell us that the more filters we select, the more perfect our person will be – but we may be perfecting them to the point they no longer exist.

I’m all for not settling, and not accepting someone who doesn’t complete you, and even making your preferences known from the start. But the problem with this is that people take their preferences – the things they’d sacrifice for their one true love – with their requirements; things like honesty, faithfulness, and creativity. They think that if they fill every question in, they’re going to find their True Love. They have to, after all – that’s the way those limits work!

Except that’s not how they work. You can’t paint a picture of a perfect person, then open your eyes and have them appear in front of you. These limits that you impose actually push your “perfect person” into a mold – one that they’re either going to reject, or pretend they fit.

Choosing someone who’s less than perfection isn’t settling – it’s reality. Most dating sites take the things you say you need out of a relationship and they don’t show you anyone who doesn’t fit exactly, based on what they said. If they haven’t said anything on the subject, it’s assumed to not be a fit. What if the person you need just hasn’t filled out the right parts of the questions to find you?


Final Verdict

Just like with anything else, there’s power in moderation. Dating sites can be a great place to meet someone, but they shouldn’t be the only place you look. You’ll be cutting yourself off from new friends, exciting lovers, and the chance to do your own thing. Isn’t that what matters most of all?

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If only the world was as “open-minded” as us… Alas, matters of sexual identity and equal love, often cause so much friction in the rest of the world. Here, find an open dialogue on the issues facing our LGBT community.

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