As a Black MoC butch lesbian looking for love online, I can tell you that they’re not on OkCupid or Dattch or any other online dating site. It’s really sad to me because I don’t know where else to look. We’re all so busy and these busy schedules prevent us from having enough social time to meet dateable people and online sites have become the alternative, especially when it comes to finding someone special and not just hooking up.
Back then there were quite a few black lesbians on the site
Interestingly enough, most of the faces I saw on those Yahoo profile pics ended up becoming great friends of mine in the black queer community. Much of the 21 to 30 year old crowd then transitioned from Yahoo to Downelink. That site had a HUGE black community. But it quickly devolved into a hookup site as more people started posting pictures and messages that would never meet the community standards of traditional dating sites. Although it was a great place to find booty shots and I think it may have been the birthplace of “selfie modeling,” it wasn’t really conducive to cultivating mature relationships.
Many Black lesbians have taken matters into their own hands by setting up groups on sites like Meetup, but I’ve found that those are usually one group just recycling their dating options amongst each other and who wants to be a part of all that internal drama?
I have no idea what I put on my profile that makes OKC think these are the women I’m interested in dating
After my ex and I broke up, I ount of single women in my immediate circle was quickly dwindling. I even rebooted my OKC profile, changed my pic (I cut my dreadlocs off in 2012 and I thought it was deceiving to still have that picture up) and headed off into the world of dating algorithms.
I now have a history of adding and deleting my OkCupid account because whenever I’m on there it always matches me with some with lesbian who is hanging off the side of a mountain in her profile picture. And honestly I tried throwing caution to the wind and saying “Hey, if the computer says we’re compatible then it must know what’s best, right?” Because honestly, while I’m open to diversity in the women that I date, I have found that usually out of 50 quick matches on OKC I might get three black lesbians. I met up with a hang gliding white lesbian once to see if there could Kaliningrad women looking for man actually be some sort of connection. Maybe she secretly has an affinity for ’60s soul on Stax Records or we could connect over L Word re-treads. It just didn’t work at all. The only thing we connected with was a love for Thai food and cognac which can work in certain situations. But there was no spark. And that is ok.
So my friend suggested I try Dattch. I don’t know why because that was an even worse experience. The pool on Dattch was even shallower. There are so few available options that when you DO find someone worth checking out, it’s always the one who never logs in because the site is so dry. So you message them and they don’t respond for a good 2 months. It was a terrible experience and made me start questioning my dating viability as a whole.
All of this puts me back at the beginning of my quest for this elusive black lesbian waiting for me in cyberspace.
