Introducing

Oh Gay Cupid!

Autostraddle’s OkCupid series. We have plenty of questions on Formspring relating to internet dating, therefore we ultimately got a lot of people with each other to generally share it.


While OkCupid isn’t really really the only online dating service for queers, and perhaps actually even the finest, it will be seemingly usually the one we utilize most often. We will be talking about everything OkC, such as meeting pals, basic times, pages, fuck-ups, letdowns plus. Although itis the ‘OkCupid Series,’ the recommendations given in this collection can potentially be employed to any online dating service.

Oh Gay Cupid! drawings by
Rory Midhani

When filling in my OKCupid profile, I wasn’t precisely positive what I was looking for. We knew that I happened to be painfully timid about conference strangers, hence I wanted to force myself personally to move outside my safe place a bit. I elected «bisexual» as my intimate positioning because there were merely three options, and therefore ended up being the nearest i really could reach explaining my own choice.
Although regularly the pendulum swings one course or some other
, I am generally ready to accept satisfying people of any sex, provided that they may be smart and sincere. We ensured to remember the maximum amount of in my profile.  As perfectly obvious, Really don’t fundamentally subscribe the notion that gender is binary, nor have i came across your multitude of terms regularly describe someone using my predilections — «bisexual,» «pansexual,» «gender-blind,» even the catch-all «queer» — actually ever really decided terms that fit myself perfectly. However, I found myself timid and single plus industry going out for a few awkward drinks with foxy strangers, therefore I clicked the package that made many sense and moved on using my existence.

So far as online dating services, OKCupid is absolutely probably the most bi-friendly with the significant leaguers when it comes to how you’re allowed to establish your self. All of the larger sites disappointingly will simply allow customers to record by themselves as seeking specifically men or women, which can be inconvenient, insulting and frustrating (severely JDate, my personal Jewish grandma is extremely dissatisfied in you). Certainly, OKCupid’s users recognize throughout the map in terms of sex identity and sexual direction, but it’s energizing to have a recognizable room between homosexual and straight to actually occur in. I can’t believe it really is used this really miss ONE web site available this easy option.

So what can it indicate to list yourself as bisexual on OKCupid? Well, for starters you’re probably going to get most communications from scary dudes which believe you are some sort of novelty, and therefore chatting the

craaaaazy

, free-spirited home could be the starting point to creating their particular letter to Penthouse. As flattering because it’s to be fetishized by random creepsters (read: not so), those emails are really easy to get rid of and disregard. Also, when this extends to end up being too much it’s very possible to modify your OKC settings to cover the profile from straight folks.

According to
this really peculiar article on OKTrends
from 2010, although about 12% of females under 35 on OKCupid were detailed as bisexual, a surprisingly small percentage of those women had been definitely messaging men and women on the website. Since it works out, approximately 80% of surveyed users messaged either women or men specifically. The slightly confusing graph below seems to claim that more youthful bisexual-identifying women can be very likely to address both men and women, although this behavior generally seems to decrease as we grow older. OKTrends theorized this particular data generally seems to declare that bisexuality is actually a farce — «that bisexuality can often be possibly a hedge for homosexual people or a label followed by straights appearing more sexually daring to their (straight) matches.»  This bottom line rests underneath the presumption that folks detailed as bisexual on OKCupid are seeking associates predicated on the same interest to both women and men, and is definitely not precise — for this reason the Kinsey size prevails.  OKTrends’ reasoning looks difficult at best. Even though the information provided is unexpected, the restricting language available to explain your intimate fluidity on OKCupid helps it be hard to gauge any type of reliability.

In person, I was on the webpage because I would discovered flipping through pages far less overwhelming than fulfilling strangers at a bar. I’m sure what my personal type can be a specific point, but i am absolutely terrible at approaching folks in person (sober). We messaged with and even dated a few dudes off the site, but had fantastic difficulty finding some one with who I thought a genuine connection (genuine tale: We out of cash things off with a rather nice, well-read artwork designer because after fourteen days it absolutely was sorely clear that just thing we really had in accordance had been a mutual affection for

The Muppets Just Take New York

). I can’t say I moved in in search of one particular sex over another, but used to do have a much easier time discovering girls just who appeared up my alley.

Throughout the years, I kept a love-hate relationship with my OKCupid profile, sporadically abandoning it when I was in a monogamous connection or felt overwhelmed by fulfilling complete strangers from the internet. Often it could be tough to measure the biochemistry you’ll have with someone else by simply checking out a summary of their own favourite ingredients and motion pictures. Having said that, I was fulfilled time and time again with communications from a specific group of folks I realized for a fact I became

maybe not

selecting: lovers.

First, i am 100% very okay with threesomes if not triad connections — they could be fun. I have completed both once or twice and may truly claim that once they had been good they certainly were the

a lot of

beautiful, but when they certainly were terrible, were fickle and risky. While we applaud those who find themselves capable of making these kinds of agreements work, i have decided after a LOT of crying/feelings/therapy this is an activity i don’t wish to pursue. We stated the maximum amount of at the end of my personal profile — «the past drilling time, my intimate orientation does not mean i do want to become your ‘third.'» It’s not stopped countless differences on HotCoupleForU69 delivering myself communications precisely how such-and-such’s girlfriend believes i am lovely and would i enjoy appear more than for a bottle of wine sometime? This weirds me personally out everytime, specifically since these men and women i’m presumably supposed to be linking with in somehow have demonstrably NOT taken the time to read my personal profile to see the things I was emphatically NOT comfortable with.  From what I’ve heard from friends, this is super-common for every females listed as bisexual across the board, which can be a strange and sort of uneasy technology.

Absolutely truly a stigma surrounding bisexual and otherwise-inclined females around the lesbian area, though i cannot claim that I’ve experienced it my self in regards to online dating.  Sadly, being the same opportunity makeout musician has lots of disturbing myths – that individuals’re faking it for attention, that people’re actually gay or right and merely have not chosen a side however, we’re naughty, that we’re incompetent at monogamy, that individuals’ll inevitably leave all of our gf for a boy or the other way around, we all are insatiable, money grubbing, sex-crazed lunatics. In so far as I can tell, the best way to disprove that idea is actually to… just not be that. And that I mean, in the event that you

are

one or all of those things, analysis partner(s) a benefit and start to become mega-up front side about any of it.

The web is full of weirdos, and at this time whenever you list yourself as bisexual you are in essence signing your self as much as meet twice as a lot of those weirdos. Although OKCupid’s system truly actually best, it’s nourishing observe one dating website notice that a grey area between straight and gay really does exist — hence some of us are lookin’ for sweet strangers.