Dear KitschMix,

I need help when it comes dating women who are femme. I’d consider myself femme, but I never seem to get close enough to date other femmes. I am not even hit on, but ignored or forced into the friend zone. I would like to meet someone, but I am never sure which women are into women.

I like girly girls. And talking to them is not hard, (hello girly girl here) but I don’t want to freak them out by asking them to go on a date. I don’t know where to go over the line of friendship to the dating zone.

So here is a short story. Last year in the spring semester, I had a class that was really hard. There was one girl I really liked. She was cute yadda yadda and sometimes she would get to class early. I would chat with her and during the semester I saw her in a study room and helped her with her work. So basically I am capable of finding a person, making friends with them, and getting on their happy side. But the issue is when I want to date them and not just be their friend. We had a discussion once about dating but she said she didn’t have a boyfriend and I told her it was the same for me. Now I don’t know if she is fully straight or bi or anything, but I just couldn’t bring myself to ask her out or anything like that.

I doubt she would be into me, but the point is that there are other girls I can become friends with so one of them by sheer statistics has to be bi or even gay. Anyways, what advice do you have for situations like this? Where do femmes meet other femmes in real life? I can always make female friends but how do you move from friendship to dating w/o making her feel odd?

Hello Reader! It is so hard to find femme women. Realistically, it’s getting hard to find any women who are into women, because the lines between “gay clothes” and “straight clothes” are getting fuzzier than they ever have been. Personally, that’s a great thing, but when you’re trying to find a girlfriend, it sort of sucks.

I seem to find myself recommending online dating a lot lately, and I think that might be one of the easiest options for you too. The stigmas that only losers use online dating are long gone now, and it’s actually one of the easiest ways to find someone in the queer community. This is particularly true for the “invisible queer community” – I have never even once been hit on by a woman, unless I was either introduced by a mutual friend or I had found them (or they found me) online. This even includes at the gay bars – I’m a straight-man magnet, apparently, and the only straight guy in the whole bar will find me and assume I’m the only straight woman in the bar. It’s happened far too many times for me to consider it a coincidence.

It’s actually a little sad to me that, the more acceptance the gay community seems to get, the more invisible we become. I mean, there’s a man dancing in heels in an Axe commercial, and trans actors and actresses are all over TV like never before, and all those actresses we’ve secretly been hoping were gay for years are now coming out as gay, bisexual, or sexually fluid…

…and yet still, I can’t pick out another lesbian without an extensive questionnaire.

Thankfully, online dating sites provide that extensive questionnaire for you, most of the time, and you can actually tailor your search to exactly the type of woman you want to be with! Of course, I do still recommend being friends first. Some people don’t agree with that approach, but think about it: If you can’t even be friends with someone, how are you ever going to know if you have stuff in common?

In the online dating world, that’s not usually how it works out, but you can still use it to your advantage. Find someone you’re interested in, and take your time getting to know them. Most women want to meet up sooner, rather than later, but I recommend at least a couple days of talking before you agree to go that route. If she’s worth seeing, she won’t mind the extra precautions.

If you really don’t want to go that route, I would check to see if your school has any sort of queer student union or gay-straight alliance. Not all schools do, but many have something along those lines. If your school doesn’t offer one, I’d look into local meet-ups. This is a good way to meet women who are interested in other women, without the bar scene. (The lesbian bar scene is usually crap, anyway. Don’t you wish we all had The Planet nearby? From The L Word, if the reference wasn’t clear enough.)

Once you have found a woman, who likes women, who you hit it off with as friends, subtle flirting is your friend. Don’t jump into sexual innuendos or promises of romance, because if it turns out she’s straight, this is the stuff that will make her feel weird and shy away.

I find that it’s sometimes easiest if you come out to the person before flirting – as nonchalantly as possible. I usually don’t make the first move, though, so I won’t do this until the woman has at least hinted that she’s interested. Your experience may vary – I’m not sure how shy you are or what your personal limitations might be.

When flirting with a woman whose sexuality you’re uncertain of, if you want to safeguard yourself from having to come out first, make sure your approach involves compliments and humor. Make sure to note similar interests, as this is what will make the two of you most compatible. Since you’re good at making friends, the approach for a girlfriend is really pretty similar, except you will eventually try to touch and/or see her butt. (It’s usually worth the wait, too.)

Some people have a lot of success with the dive-right-in approach – that is, making a pass at her and hoping she’s not revolted. These women are generally a lot more confident than I am, though. But you know what they say – apparently women are never completely straight. This is probably good news for you.

I also understand why this all-in approach probably doesn’t work for everyone, though. You have to have a tremendous amount of confidence to make the first move, especially when there’s a lot of uncertainty on the line. And, since these women are friends of yours, it can be even tougher knowing that a little awkwardness now could potentially ruin the chance of a friendship, too.

On the other hand, if you go with the “subtly hint that you find her attractive and that you two would be perfect for each other” approach, at worst, she will be flattered, but not interested. At best, you’ve already established that you care about her as a human being, as well as a love interest, and you’re setting a course for a great relationship if things do work out.

I hope this has helped, and please don’t hesitate to write in again if you have any more questions! (Or just to let me know how it went!)

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