You’re Not Bad at Dating, You’re Just a Lesbian
Chatting is hard, dating is harder, and relationships are the hardest. These are three truths that all potential daters can relate to. Now imagine all aspects of dating suddenly got harder due to the overwhelming realisation that, as a woman, you have no idea how to make the first move.
Now, this is not a universal truth for all women who date women, not even for all women in general. However, a part of coming to terms with my sexuality was the uphill battle with the change in dating dynamics involving WLW.
Before I came out as a lesbian, my interactions with dating were mostly one-sided; a man would be interested in me and ask me out, I would say yes. It was quick, easy, and exactly as I expected. I did what was expected of me in those situations: when a man asks you and you’re not with anyone else, you accept. What else have you got going on?
My troubles surrounding dating and having relationships were not fixed but certainly became easier as I started to explore dating women. When I started exclusively dating women, I believed that this would be my dating renaissance. I would be one of the Charlie’s Angels: sexually confident and highly flirtatious. I’m sorry to disappoint, but I am no such thing and remain no such thing to this day. So, what went wrong?
My experience of dating apps was pretty much 80% of my overall experience in dating. I started a chat and a man pulled out a pick up line and depending on how gross it was, I gave my response. In contrast, I could spend days to weeks speaking to women on dating apps about anything and everything, it was so intriguing to get to know people and to be so open, it was freeing! However, I never knew where I stood. Was this amazing person speaking to me as a friend or as a potential match? What should I ask to know for sure?
This led to a horrifying realisation; I had no clue how to make the first move.
I had been taught, all my life through, popular songs and Disney movies, that I was never to make the first move. I was simply to make myself look interesting and attractive, and a potential match would do the leg work. So what was stopping me from shooting my shot, sliding into the DMs, pulling?
This leads to me another equally horrifying realisation: not only was I clueless about the first move, I was afraid of rejection.
Being the one expected to ask, and receiving rejections, was never something I concerned myself with; it feels naïve to have expected my entire life for others to ask me. I probably should have seen this as an eventuality when at nine years old, I started telling everyone that I would be live as a witch alone in the forest and never marry.
The fear of rejection takes on a whole new terror when added to the fact that not only could you have misjudged if they liked you, but also if they were even WLW. The memories of the girls’ locker room and the idea of someone looking too long at another changing girl would send a flurry of hysterics across the room. It feels ingrained in my mind that if I want to approach a woman with interest I have to with the absolute certainty that she is expecting and interested in the attention. Otherwise, I run the risk of offending her or worse, scaring her. The eternal back and forth questioning: does she like me or does she like me like me, with no discernable way to answer my question without asking. The cycle continues.
What I’ve learnt over the years is that there is no perfect way to approach somebody. Though I wish I had found it, it differs for everyone and even differs depending on who’s making the move. The only advice I can give is that if the chemistry is good, there will be a positive reaction and even if there isn’t, there’s plenty more fish in the sea.
