Navigating the Dating World as a Queer Woman in India

Are you just getting into the dating scene as a queer woman in India and are finding it difficult to find partners? Even in the 21st century where dating online is the in thing, there are people who are struggling to find love. Even so, this isn’t something to be embarrassed about. You aren’t alone.?

To be honest, in cities such as Delhi, there aren’t as many offline dating spaces where queer women can find each other. This is unlike the number of gay parties that are hosted each week. If you’re on a dating site such as As You Are, you can connect with other lesbian women since they indicate clearly who they are on their dating profiles.

Below, we give you some tips on how to navigate the dating world as a queer woman in India looking for love.

Be Specific on Your Online Profile

If you’re a ‘femme’ interested in ‘butch’ women or you’re a ‘femme’ that’s interested in other ‘femme’ women, you’ve got to try as much as you can to mention that on your dating profile. This saves you time in not having to deal with inboxes from people you’re not interested in. If you’re older and are finding that most of the people matching you are younger yet you’d prefer people around the same age, make this known early enough.?

Younger queer women aren’t keen to ‘settle’ unlike older queer women. The sooner you put this out in the open, the better for you. This way, when someone contacts you, they have an idea of exactly where things are headed.

Beware of Fake Profiles

Many lesbian women have pointed out that sometimes, CIS men will disguise themselves as queer women in an effort to lure them into threesomes or just for fun. To avoid this, make sure you do due diligence on a profile. One woman reported saying that she would have a phone number specifically for dating sites. She would share this with other potential matches and ask them to call her. While sharing your number is risky business, one can’t miss the ingenuity of the decision.?

Dating Offline

There aren’t so many spaces where queer or lesbian women can come together to meet up. And, because the community of lesbian women is often quite small, there’s usually a likelihood that everyone knows each other in a given space. As a result, you may unfortunately not be able to meet many new people in such spaces.?

To add to this, the other wall you may encounter is the one made of sub-groups within the queer community. For instance, you may find a group with the younger queer women, another one for the party people, and another for intellectuals only. And, unfortunately, individuals usually don’t stray or mingle out of their different subgroups.

As if this isn’t enough, you may realize that one person maybe someone else’s ex due to the small community. But, all this shouldn’t deter you from dating. Just because such challenges exist doesn’t mean that you cannot have a dating life. You can still get out there and find someone you really like.