Dating apps for lesbians

[RaquelGreen]

Hi all,

I've never tried OLD but I'm considering dipping my toe in - what are the apps that you'd recommend for same-sex relationships? Any to avoid?

Thanks all, I've downloaded a couple of the apps that have been suggested-now I just need to pluck up the courage to delve into OLD for the first time!

I've tried Bumble and Tinder. I'm not a heavy phone user so I use the web versions, which is a limiting factor in my options. I've not found them very successful - I find mostly you match and have a few exchanges and that's it. There were a few where we talked for a while and I wish I'd asked to meet. Comparing the two, I found that there were fewer matches on Bumble (fewer profiles to go through too) but that the profiles tended to be better put together - nicer pictures, fewer empty profiles.

As someone with no dating experience, I do have a question: what do you think is the best way of opening up a conversation? I try to ask about something in the profile, but not everyone has a profile that gives you a hook in this way. I'm a moderately engaging woman in real life, but I find it harder online with no 'context'.

The answer is going to depend on whether or not you want to exclude people with a female gender but whose body shape/functionality/genetics doesn't match with that

I recently signed up for HER, Zoe, Bumble, POF and Tinder.

I thought Tinder was the best and recommend a 🌈 or 🏳️‍🌈 in your bio as some women set preferences to both, but have straight in their bio 🙃

HER was good too but I’m shy and struggled to get past a few lines of chat. There wasn’t many people in my area and I’m not looking for long distance.

POF terrified me, I was on it for less than an hour then deleted it.

Zoe wasn’t good, I suspected majority of profiles were fake.

I hope you have better luck than me!

I put a rainbow flag emoji but it is showing as a white flag :-/

KaycePollard

They aren’t colonised 🤷‍♀️ And I’m in an older age group

For rainbow emoji - use the usual keyboard one

So sad that wanting a same sex rship means you have to "tread carefully". My lesbian friend has met plenty of women on Her. I understand there's plenty who aren't women on there but she has had some success. Good luck OP.

Let me know how you get on with OLD, I’m in a similar situation, I’ve split up from my partner, moved to a new area and am now thinking about dating woman. I haven’t yet built up a friendship group local to me that I can go out with. I would prefer to meet someone organically but I may have to try OLD.
It wouldn’t worry me to match with transwomen, I’d be more worried about matching with a woman with a husband/boyfriend in the background.

This is interesting. Presumably 99% of lesbians are same sex attracted.

I wonder if the TM on these apps get very far?

I agree that it's usually very easy to tell if someone is male.

@RaquelGreen good luck, let us know how you get on

@Precipice sorry to bang on about Hinge again, but it feels quite comfortable striking up conversation on there, as a feature of the app is that you have to include a couple of questions to answer on your profile for people to see, your profile can't be empty! So there's always something to start chatting about on someone's profile and vice versa.

@digitalvertigo well I set up a profile on Her last night and then lost my nerve and deleted it! Baby steps!

I've come back to this thread because I now have further questions!

I have been using the apps for a few weeks now and have been speaking to a couple of women. The issue I'm having however, is that it seems to be quite difficult moving things on in terms of talking on the phone/going on a date.

I don't want to spend weeks/months messaging somebody-I'd rather message for a few days and then arrange to meet for a coffee to see if there's anything there. But this seems to be quite difficult to do for some reason. My straight friends who use OLD apps go on dates constantly but it seems to be different for women. Have other gay/lesbian women found that or is it just me? I don't want to be too pushy but I'm also not looking for a penpal

Any advice is welcome!

Bump

Just ask! Doesn't matter if it breaks the flow of the conversation.

eg.

"Oh that's a great recipe for yule log, thanks for sharing. By the way, I wondered if you want to get a coffee sometime?"

If they say yes, great! Just get straight to figuring out dates. If they don't, you can move on to the next person.

Yeah you are just going to have to ask,how about something festive "have you been to the Christmas markets yet" yes, oh maybe you could show me around them? No,maybe we could explore them together? Saves you wasting time on someone possibly not interested. Good luck

@marilousiseverywhere I'm just wary of coming over as too dominant if that makes sense? I always seem to find myself in the same position and I'd love to not be in the driving seat all the time-but maybe that's just how my relationships will always be.

I did exchange phone numbers with one woman and we moved onto WhatsApp but she then stopped replying after a few days which I thought was weird because things seemed to go from being really intense to nothing.

This is the issue I'm having at the moment-I wish people could just be clear about what they want-I find it difficult enough deciphering this when I'm speaking to people face to face and OLD is just so much more difficult! And I guess the latest restrictions will potentially make things more challenging as people become less likely to want to meet up...

There are lesbian facebook groups you could join that are not dating groups, just socializing groups although the single people seem to be messaging other single women in the group.

Some groups are by location and some are by age range.

I met my fiancée on POF but that was some time ago, most lesbian spaces have been swarmed with ‘identifying as lesbian’ types…

I hear giggle is good, the owner only allows biological women to join.

As for moving things on, I guess when you make the right connection it will happen automatically, now dp and I insisted on a telephone call after the first week of messaging to check all was legit and it snowballed from there, good luck!

I met my partner from tinder but we did have mutual friends. Getting set up Is an option?

What annoys me is that I always seem to be the one driving the conversation. I'll match with a woman, so we are both interested, and they never initiate, it's always me. And so far the only one who seemed to take as active a part in the conversation as me has now disappeared. It all seems like so much effort at the moment.

Meanwhile my straight friends are going on dates left, right and centre. I'm not looking for a fairytale-I would just like to be able to leave the house and meet people face to face rather than constant messaging.

Met my partner on Tinder
I did meet and date someone who had some issues on there but other than her, I only had perfectly normal experiences.

And just ask re dates!
I used to chat for about a week and if it felt like we had stuff to talk about, I would suggest a drink.

I'm terrible. I match with people then am too shy to even message let alone meet up with people. But then they're not messaging me either and someone has to make the first move.

I'm bisexual and what's great about same sex relationships is that there's no ridiculous stereotypes about who has to message first or do the asking. I would like someone who took the initiative and asked to meet. Tbh it would also freak me out.

The psychological transition from chatting online to meeting in real life seems to be a much bigger barrier to overcome than meeting someone IRL first, knowing there's an attraction and then arranging to go on a first date.

I think I'm just generally frustrated at always having to make the first move. Surely if you're OLD then you have made a concerted effort to find someone so why wouldn't you want to message first/talk on the phone/meet up? It doesn't really make sense to me. So many women's profiles say that they won't message first

I'm currently messaging a few women and will see where it goes but I'm definitely not prepared to spend weeks let alone months messaging without meeting up.

It just seems to be so different to my straight friends where they exchange messages for a few days and then arrange a date, which seems like a much better approach to me.