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Oh Gay Cupid!

Autostraddle’s OkCupid series. We get countless concerns on Formspring concerning online dating sites, so we eventually got a bunch of men and women together to share it.


While OkCupid is not the only real online dating site for queers, and possibly isn’t perhaps the greatest, it will be seemingly one we make use of normally. We will end up being talking about things OkC, such as conference pals, first dates, users, fuck-ups, letdowns and more. Even though it’s the ‘OkCupid Series,’ counsel provided within this collection can potentially be reproduced to any online dating site.

Oh Gay Cupid! pictures by
Rory Midhani

When completing my OKCupid profile, I wasn’t precisely positive everything I wanted. I realized that I was painfully timid about conference strangers, hence i desired to make myself to move outside my rut slightly. We opted for “bisexual” as my sexual direction since there had been just three solutions, and therefore was the closest I could come to describing my personal choice.
Although from time to time the pendulum swings one way or some other
, i will be usually available to satisfying folks of any gender, assuming that they are intelligent and sincere. I made sure to see the maximum amount of during my profile.  Become completely obvious, I really don’t necessarily subscribe to the idea that gender is actually digital, nor have i discovered your multitude of terms and conditions regularly explain some body with my predilections — “bisexual,” “pansexual,” “gender-blind,” also the catch-all “queer” — actually really felt like words that fit me personally perfectly. Nonetheless, I happened to be bashful and solitary as well as in industry to go completely for a few uncomfortable products with foxy strangers, thus I clicked the package that made probably the most sense and managed to move on with my life.

In terms of online dating sites, OKCupid is completely the essential bi-friendly for the major leaguers when it comes to how you’re allowed to establish your self. A good many bigger sites disappointingly will enable users to list on their own as searching for solely men or women, that may be inconvenient, insulting and annoying (Honestly JDate, my personal Jewish grandmother is VERY disappointed in you). Truly, OKCupid’s consumers identify all around the chart regarding sex identity and sexual orientation, but it’s refreshing getting a recognizable area between gay and straight away to also exist in. I can’t believe it really is used this really miss ONE website available this simple choice.

So what does it suggest to list yourself as bisexual on OKCupid? Well, first of all you’re probably going to get some messages from creepy dudes which think you are some type of novelty, which messaging the

craaaaazy

, free-spirited home is the first step to creating their particular page to Penthouse. As flattering since it is becoming fetishized by arbitrary creepsters (browse: not to), those emails are really easy to get rid of and ignore. In addition, when this reaches end up being an excessive amount of it’s very likely to modify your OKC options in order to cover your profile from right individuals.

Based on
this really peculiar post on OKTrends
from 2010, although about 12% of women under 35 on OKCupid had been listed as bisexual, a surprisingly small portion of the women happened to be definitely messaging both men and women on the internet site. Since it turns out, about 80per cent of surveyed users messaged either women or men entirely. The slightly complicated chart below seems to declare that more youthful bisexual-identifying women are more likely to approach both men and women, even though this behavior generally seems to decline as we grow old. OKTrends theorized that the data seems to suggest that bisexuality is actually a farce — “that bisexuality is commonly sometimes a hedge for gay individuals or a label used by straights to look a lot more intimately daring with their (straight) fits.”  This conclusion rests within the assumption that individuals detailed as bisexual on OKCupid are seeking partners considering the same appeal to both women and men, which can be definitely not accurate — for this reason the Kinsey scale is present.  OKTrends’ reason looks challenging at best. Even though the information provided is astonishing, the actual limiting language available to explain one’s intimate fluidity on OKCupid helps it be tough to gauge any type of accuracy.

Directly, I was on the website because I’d discovered turning through pages less daunting than satisfying complete strangers at a bar. I am aware what my personal kind is up to a specific point, but I’m positively awful at nearing folks in individual (sober). I messaged with plus outdated several guys off the site, but had fantastic problem locating some body with who We believed an actual connection (true tale: I smashed things off with an extremely nice, well-read artwork developer because after a few weeks it was painfully obvious that the sole thing we certainly had in common was actually a mutual affection for

The Muppets Just Take Manhattan

). I can’t state We moved in interested in one gender over another, but I did have an easier time discovering women just who felt up my street.

Over time, i have kept a love-hate relationship with my OKCupid profile, occasionally abandoning it as I was in a monogamous connection or felt weighed down by meeting complete strangers off of the internet. Sometimes it is hard to assess the chemistry you should have with someone else simply by reading a list of their favorite foods and motion pictures. Nevertheless, I happened to be came across over and over with communications from a certain set of people I knew for an undeniable fact I found myself

maybe not

wanting: lovers.

To begin with, i am 100percent extremely okay with threesomes and even triad relationships — they may be enjoyable. I’ve accomplished both maybe once or twice and will honestly say that whenever they happened to be great they were the

a lot of

beautiful, however when they certainly were terrible, happened to be fickle and hazardous. While I applaud those who are capable of making most of these agreements work, I’ve determined after some crying/feelings/therapy this particular is a thing personally no further want to pursue. We stated just as much at the end of my personal profile — “the past screwing time, my personal intimate direction doesn’t mean i wish to be your ‘third.'” This has perhaps not ceased numerous variants on HotCoupleForU69 sending me communications on how such-and-such’s sweetheart believes I’m sweet and would i enjoy come over for a bottle of wine sometime? This weirds me out each time, particularly because these people I am allegedly meant to be linking with in some way have demonstrably NOT taken the time to read through my profile observe the things I was emphatically unpleasant with.  From everything I’ve heard from pals, this is certainly super-common for all ladies listed as bisexual across the board, that’s a strange and type of unpleasant phenomenon.

There’s definitely a stigma surrounding bisexual and otherwise-inclined females within lesbian society, though i can not point out that I skilled it myself when it comes to online dating sites.  Sadly, being the same possibility makeout singer comes with most distressing myths – we’re faking it for attention, that people’re truly homosexual or directly and merely haven’t opted for a side however, we’re slutty, we’re not capable of monogamy, that people’ll certainly leave our girl for a boy or vice versa, we are typical insatiable, money grubbing, sex-crazed lunatics. As far as I can tell, the simplest way to disprove that notion is to… just not be that. And I also suggest, in the event that you

tend to be

one or all of those things, do your partner(s) a favor and stay mega-up front side about this.

Online is full of weirdos, and currently once you list yourself as bisexual you are in essence finalizing your self around meet twice as a lot of those weirdos. Although OKCupid’s program definitely actually great, its nourishing to see one or more dating website recognize that a grey place between directly and gay does exist — and therefore some people are lookin’ for attractive visitors.