DEAR DR. NERDLOVE: How can I stop getting overwhelmed by dating apps?

I’m a late 20s bi ?woman? ?Non-binary? person, who wants to go on dates and do things that folks in romantic (or more casual) relationships do. I’m doing what I can to meet people in person, I’m a part of a couple social groups, and I’m having a great time with that– but the events don’t have a lot of single-and-ready-to-mingle people, and I don’t really give off fun’n’flirty vibes as a default either.

The only two dates I’ve been on in the last year have been through Bumble and each time I was just overwhelmed and burnt out by it within a week. Even just swiping on people who have good profiles, similar interests, and no immediate incompatibilities, I end up getting into more conversations than I can really handle. Some of the conversations felt like rolling a boulder up a hill, with only me asking questions or bringing up topics. Sometimes, it was clear that we had similar fun interests– but that a mutual interest in tea and tabletop games didn’t translate to any romantic or sexual chemistry. Sometimes, people took hours to respond to anything– and sometimes, I was just annoyed by their spelling. Either way, after about 4 not-so-great text conversations (usually over the course of two days) I’m ready to chuck my phone in a river, and though I did get a date out of it each time, and the first dates went pretty well– the wanting to chuck my phone in a river impulse kinda killed a lot of excitement, and I pretty quickly shut down the romantic-ish communications that were stressing me out so much.

Is there a way to use dating apps that isn’t exhausting? Am I missing some magic energy conservation strategy, or are apps just not worth it?

Thanks,�No More Notifications

DEAR NO MORE NOTIFICATIONS: One of the important parts of using a dating app successfully is to minimize the amount of time you waste on it, NMN. Now, what “wasting time” means is going to be different for everyone, but in my experience, making the most efficient use of your time on the apps is making sure that you’re spending time on folks who are worth your time.

One way this crops up – especially for women and people who grew up with the socialization that women receive – is giving people more time than they actually deserve. On dating apps, this often means engaging with people because one feels obligated to do so. After all, they reached out to you; doesn’t that mean that you at least owe them a quick convo?

Well… not really. That’s not part of the terms of service you agreed to when you created your account… even if there’re folks (mostly but not exclusively men) who think it should be. You are under no obligation to give anyone your time if you don’t want to, and frankly, most people would have a better experience if they didn’t.

What you – and pretty much everyone on the apps, regardless of gender or sexuality – should do is focus on the quality of your matches, rather than the quantity. One of the mistakes that people regularly make is that they get hung up on the matching end of the equation. Well, funny thing about that: matches are fundamentally useless. The number of matches you get doesn’t mean a damn thing if they’re not the right people. There’s a reason why it’s called “online dating” not “OKCupid Go” or whatever; you’re on there presumably to meet people, not to collect em all. So the more you narrow down who you match with in the first place, the better your time will be spent and the less time you’ll be wasting.

This means that you can and should be discerning about who you match with and which matches you interact with. Case in point: you have a lot of conversations that are either exhausting or that point to a fundamental incompatibility. Just because their profile seemed ok doesn’t mean that you need to give them chance after chance; you’re allowed to say “whoops, my bad” when it turns out that they’re just not your particular flavor of yum or they demonstrate that they’re not right for you. The conversations where you had to do all the heavy lifting, for example, are ones where should feel free to just cut the line and go. That behavior tends to be a sign that either the person you’re talking to is uninterested in you romantically or is more focused on themselves. Either way: you don’t owe them more of your time and you can feel free to just call it then and there. You aren’t obligated to keep things going when the other person clearly isn’t carrying their end.

In fact, you’re welcome to just decide “nah, clearly not worth it” and end things for pretty much any reason you feel is relevant at the time. Turns out they like double IPAs? Ok cool, have fun chewing on those pinecones, bye! You don’t even need to say anything if you don’t feel the need. While it’s nice to say “hey, I don’t think we’re a match, best of luck”, it’s not required. Especially if someone seems like they’re the type to demand to know why.

When you create your profile, it’s worth keeping this in mind: you don’t want to be everyone’s cup of tea; you want to be a few people’s shot of whiskey. That is: you want people who crave you and that you crave. Writing your profile with this in mind – filtering out people who aren’t right for you and attracting the people who are – helps immensely. Whether it’s adopting a “show-don’t-tell” philosophy of writing (i.e. don’t say you want someone with a good sense of humor, write something that someone who shared your sense of humor would find funny), having a specific call-to-action for folks who would be a good match for you (“Message Me If: you can recommend a great cocktail bar” or “I’m looking for someone who can beat my high score at Medieval Madness”) goes a long way towards helping filter out folks who aren’t your type. If they can’t be bothered to play along or their reply doesn’t vibe with you, then you’ve successfully filtered them out and you can feel free to just not reply.

Another thing to keep in mind is that you don’t need to be at the app’s beck and call. Yeah, it’s nice when you and that special someone get a good back-and-forth going, but you’re not Pavlov’s dog; you don’t need to react just because the notification dinged in. If you, say, carve out specific times to check the app and stick to that instead of letting it decide, you’ll be able to work on your terms and schedule, instead of exhausting yourself. To that end, feel free to turn off the notifications that appear instantly; having a badge that lets you know you have messages or matches waiting is more than enough and less stressful than having your down time interrupted because CaliSurfer92 liked your picture.

This will also cut down on the stress and frustration of waiting for them to reply. Treat chatting on the app as email, not instant messaging; fire off your missive and trust that they’ll get it and reply. Doing the 21st century equivalent of sitting with sandwiches by the phone hoping they’ll call is a waste of your time and energy. Not everyone’s going to be on the same schedule as you and that’s ok.

The other thing I would suggest is, in addition to being choosy about who you interact with, is to get off the app as quickly as possible. As you’ve found, the longer you chat on the app, the quicker you lose interest if only out of sheer frustration. If the other person seems interesting enough that you’re curious about them, then move the conversation off the app – ideally, in person. As I keep saying: we’re built for face-to-face communication, and it’s very difficult to gauge compatibility through text or even video chats. One of the things I highly recommend is a pre-date date – meeting up with people for 15 minutes or so for a coffee or ice cream or something. What you want, ideally, is to meet up some place neutral and see if they’re as interesting in person as they were on the app. If they are, great, you can make plans for a proper date later on. If they’re not… well, all you’re out is 15 minutes of your time and the cost of a cup of coffee or a cone.

Just remember: this is your time. The less of it you spend when you don’t have to, on people you don’t want to spend it on, the better you’ll do. Maximize the quality of the people you match with over the quantity and cut down on the amount of time you spend on folks who aren’t a good match. If they seem like a strong potential, give them a chance in person and see if that connection is as strong or interesting then, rather than trying to guess in a medium that’s poorly suited for gauging compatibility.

Good luck.

Please send your questions to Dr. NerdLove at his website (www.doctornerdlove.com/contact); or to his email, doc@doctornerdlove.com

DEAR DR. NERDLOVE: I have a… predicament. I seem to potentially be in a scenario where I have to choose between downgrading my friendships and working towards having a partner, and it kind of sucks. Now, hearing that, your mind probably immediately jumps to “no, please, don’t throw away your friends for someone jealous and controlling!” Alas, that scenario would in some ways be less obnoxious than the one I find myself in.

While reading a recent post of yours, one of your links went to your column “This Is The Best Way To Meet Amazing Women“. I… well, I did that by coincidence. Near the start of the year, I joined a local IRL friend meetup server because I was lonely, went really hard at it, and fixed my social life. Yay! After 33 years of kind of being alone, I’m now one of the Popular Kids™.

I’m part of the leadership for the server, I have a lot of friends, I reach out to new people who seem to be struggling and encourage people to come to events. I’m very proud of this accomplishment. But… it hasn’t really translated to any dating success.

Now, there’s a complicating factor here: I’m a lesbian. I’m also trans, which isn’t generally super relevant (I’ve been out and passing as many years of my adult life as I had presented as a guy), I get very little surface-level discrimination, and culturally I haven’t had to consider myself from a male or openly trans perspective in a very long time, but it does at least theoretically affect social dynamics under the hood so I figured I’d mention.

This is kind of a general issue. While I’m obviously very proud of my social life and social success, it is a relatively mainstream meetup Discord server. It’s extremely queer friendly, our queer population probably exceeds the general population statistically. But the dating pool for me remains small.

Please, forgive me about to describe the server like a dating meat market, if this wasn’t a dating advice question I would never analyze the server in this way, but: most of the people are straight (and cis). Of those very few who are WLW, there’s a couple I’m not attracted to (so it goes), and almost all of the ones I do like are bi women who have only dated men. Obviously that’s not a problem in and of itself, I’d date bi women happily, but there is both difficulty in overcoming the psychological barrier becoming a bi woman’s first female partner, and the availability of male (or heavily masc) partners is so much higher, so they tend to be taken/polysaturated or currently only actively pursuing men.

Telling people I like them is still really hard for me. Crushing makes me feel like a creep and a predator, I tend to freak out, I go through a lot of stress. But… I persevered, and have tried to push through it (and your advice to people actually helped in that area a lot as I kept it in mind). All told, I’ve gotten two crushes and… two rejections. Heartbreaking, but to be expected and I’m trying to not let it get me down. That said, after that I appear to be… out of candidates. Oops.

Obviously that’s a small number, dating is a numbers game etc. I’m demisexual and I think possibly demiromantic, I crush on friends, and also very rarely get crushes. Obviously your advice in that article I linked above was mostly aimed at cis straight men, and it makes sense this doesn’t necessarily apply to lesbians as easily, given the limited pool. That said, due to the whole “double demi” thing, I will say that dating apps are kind of hell for me, I end up scrolling through scores of profiles hitting “pass” not because I don’t think they’re not really lovely people, but because the absolute most glowing assessment I can give someone is “… meh” from just a short text blurb and a picture.

The stats for how many lesbian couples meet online are pretty hard to find, I’ve found 28% from Pew, and 65% from a study in 2019, but both of those are combined LGB couples, not just lesbians, and that’s a *pretty wide* variance. Even so, it’s unfortunate that online dating doesn’t seem to be a great avenue for me and I was really hoping the “improving my social group” route would pay off better in hindsight.

This is where the zugzwang comes in. I feel like I have two realistic options:

Just… keep doing what I’m doing and hope a cute girl that mutually likes me joins the server by sheer chance, and/or keep telling people I’m open to matchmaking and pray someone pulls a cute lesbian friend to set me up with out of the aether, OR

Find a friend pool with a higher number of potential partners

This is where my dating zugzwang comes in. You see I… kind of like my friends? And I’m also honestly kind of at close friend *saturation*. This is going to sound braggy, maybe it is a little, but it is important nonetheless: my social calendar is kind of *full*. I generally have at least 3-4 days a week blocked out for one-on-one hangouts with the same close friends, and 2-3 days for group events. I really only have like 0-3 days a week to myself, averaging about 1. I can reconfigure my schedule a little, but my wiggle room is… very tight.

My issue is that option 1 above seems kind of… inefficient. Not impossible, one of my friends considered setting me up with their friend (their ex, technically), because they thought we’d get along, but they ultimately didn’t both she’s apparently kind of jealous and controlling (hence the “ex” bit), but also she got into a relationship right when they started considering doing so. In general this seems very unlikely to pay off. Especially since, shockingly, when your friend group is from a Discord server meant for people without friends to make new ones, most of people’s friends are others from the server that I already know since they were, y’know, lonely before joining. I’ve been considering blocking out a free day to take a weaving class or some other class I’m interested in for its own sake, which seems fun, but still suffers similar dating pool likelihood limitations for similar reasons to the server (i.e. most people aren’t lesbians).

In contrast option 2 seems almost… s--tty? Since I’m kinda friend saturated, it feels scummy since it’d be hard to *not* to some degree treat it like a meat market since I really have limited capacity for new close friendships ATM. Trying to get into a new social circle naturally means tradeoffs. I *also* just feel scummy telling some of my close friends more or less “hey so like we need to hang out less often so I can spend more time making new lesbian friends that’ll be more likely to find me a cute girl to kiss.” They might even understand, but it still feels kinda like… just like being a bad friend?

I don’t know what to do. My self-esteem is taking a hit because I’ve honestly never had anyone like me back (not strictly true, but I’m not counting the two highly abusive relationships I’ve had years ago that said I was unloveable or they never loved me, not to mention the girl who forgot we were dating). I just want someone to hold hands and cuddle and watch a movie with, but it’s so hard. Each rejection is hitting me harder and harder. But at the same time I’m trying to take my friends’ advice to heart that this is very probably a “limited dating pool” issue more than a “me” issue, and that I just need to meet more people. My friend did offer to learn my type and swipe *for me* on a dating app, essentially playing matchmaker with random profiles since I can’t find profiles I like on my own due to my demi-ness, it might be fun, but I’m low confidence on it really working out since I don’t see even a first dating piercing through me generally needing to be know someone at least beyond an acquaintance level before being romantically attracted to them.

So yeah, do you have any advice how to cut through what feels like a very difficult situation to me? I’d really prefer to not betray my friends just so I can find a girlfriend.

Signed,

~ Did Everything Right But Still Lost

DEAR DID EVERYTHING RIGHT BUT STILL LOST: You’re making this much harder than it needs to be DER. This isn’t a Kobayashi Maru situation, it’s just that you’ve given yourself a false dichotomy. You have far more options than you seem to recognize and you’re not in a place where you either have to just sit around and hope for more queer women join your server or ditch your friends.

I mean, to start with, you aren’t obligated to spend all your free time with your friends. Don’t get me wrong, having a tight social circle is generally a good thing, but there’s a difference between a tight social circle and a leash around your neck. It almost sounds like you’ve fallen for a couple of the Geek Social Fallacies – specifically “Friends Above All” and “Friends Do Everything Together”.

You aren’t expected to give up everything in order to maintain your friendships – especially your desire to find a partner. In fact, your friends shouldn’t want you to give up everything just for them. That’s not healthy under the best of circumstances, and it’s especially unhealthy if your friends actually demand this of you.

Fortunately, it sounds to me like this particular call is coming from inside the house. Which doesn’t mean it’s any less troublesome, but it’s a hell of a lot easier to resolve when it’s your own worries rather than something your friends are insisting upon.

Similarly, you don’t need to make your friends the center of your existence to the point that they have to be involved in all aspects of it. You’re allowed to have time with people who aren’t part of that particular circle. S--t, it’s even possible to have different social circles. After all, we’re all complicated and complex individuals who have wild, varied and disparate interests and sides to ourselves; not every person we meet is going to vibe 100% with every side and that’s fine. You may have friends who like to do X and a separate group of friends who like to do Y, with no overlap between them. You may even have groups of friends who have no crossover whatsoever and no real contact with one another. That is also fine and normal. Friendship isn’t automatically transitory after all, and having different groups of friends isn’t a betrayal to any of them.

It can play merry hell with your time management, but then again, you’re right back to “you don’t need to spend all your time with them”. You can (and should) block out time just for yourself, for any reason you feel. That may be because you’re people’d out and need a break, because you have other obligations and responsibilities or because you just want some “you” time for stuff that doesn’t involve them. Which, y’know, includes going and meeting potential dates and partners.

If they’re your friends, they should understand that you’re a fully realized person who has a life and needs outside of your immediate social circle and that sometimes life means that you’re not going to be able to spend as much time together as you’d like.

Just as importantly, you have more options than “hope someone wanders in randomly” and “use the dating apps”. Now in fairness: as a woman who’s attracted to women exclusively, you do have a significant challenge in as much as you have a much smaller dating pool than bi, pan or straight women do. That does mean apps are going to be a higher priority for you than they are (or should be) for straight, bi or pan people; after all, it’s much easier to find women who love women in dedicated spaces where they’ve opted in than to go about randomly hoping to stumble across them.

But apps aren’t the only method, even for lesbians. Part of improving the odds of finding a partner is at the intersection of preparation and opportunity – that is, you have to put yourself in fortune’s path. So part of what you should consider is to find your local queer community and take part in it in person. Find more organizations, groups or even just social clubs geared towards queer women. This may be a lesbian sports league, a book club, even volunteer organizations; anything that gets you together with other women who love and date women. While these aren’t necessarily meat market setups, meeting more lesbians and bi and pan women gives you more opportunities for friendships (outside your current circle) and more opportunities for those connections to become something more.

And while dating apps may not be the most efficient method of meeting people for someone who’s demi, it’s still worth giving things a shot and seeing if there’re people who you might want to meet. Here’s the thing that may make things less challenging for you: instead of hoping for instant cartoon hearts and cherubs as soon as you see someone’s picture or profile, focus on if you find them interesting or not. If there’s something about them that strikes your curiosity, consider giving them a chance to meet up in person and see what they’re like when you’re in their physical presence. After all, we’re a species built for face-to-face communication; even the most eloquent profile with the best photos possible can’t convey what a person is like in the flesh. What seems “ok, I guess” on paper may be a “oh hot damn…” in person – you just couldn’t tell because so much of what signals attraction and compatibility can only be determined in actual proximity to them.

That, in turn, makes it easier for you to decide if you want to invest the time it may take to find out if this will be something more than just a quick coffee date.

But to circle back around to the false dichotomy: I think one thing that you may be struggling with is that you’re so caught up in the novelty of having all these friends that you’ve let it overwhelm everything. I get that finally finding something you may have longed for is intoxicating, but you may have gone a bit overboard in your enthusiasm. Maybe it’s the excitement and novelty of it. Maybe it’s been something you’ve been wanting for so long, you’re afraid to do anything that might screw it up. But I can promise you: if they’re your friends, then not being with them all the time or even most of it isn’t going to damage your friendship.

Giving yourself a bit more leeway and letting yourself have time away from the server and that social circle may help you realize that you’ve got more options than you’ve allowed yourself to see.

This isn’t a no-win scenario; it’s just one where you’ve narrowed your options for no real reason. Expand your horizons a bit, give yourself permission to do more just for yourself and to trust your friends. If y’all are really that tight, not only will having your time away not damage anything but they’ll be happy for you when you do find that special someone.

You’ll be ok. Your friendships will be ok too. I promise.

Good luck.

Please send your questions to Dr. NerdLove at his website (www.doctornerdlove.com/contact); or to his email, doc@doctornerdlove.com

DEAR DR. NERDLOVE: Thank you for your insightful advice on the blog. I (26F) have a relationship issue with my boyfriend (29M). We just started dating only 2 weeks after 2 months of being kinda-close friends.

When we first slept together, he kept talking about how he didn’t want kids, EVER. I knew about this even before we dated, despite knowing I wanted kids in the future. This is because I don’t know where things are heading with this guy, so talking about kids seems too early an issue for me – I want to have fun, making memories with him. Also, I like him a lot, A LOT. He taught me to find my own security and stability in relationships in general.

But every time we slept together, he kept talking about not wanting kids. And he doesn’t want to be married either because, in his words, “he likes his loneliness”. For me, I like this guy so much that I hope our relationship can be more serious within a year. And maybe, marriage in the future, who knows.

But, now that I understand his desires, I think the best thing to do is to break it off, although we just started to go out 2 weeks ago. I no longer hope that he will change his mind. I no long hope that we can be any more serious than a few dates per week.

But…I like him a lot and want to make more memories with him. I was thinking about suggesting to him that we could date for a year or two, with both of us understanding that the relationship can never be that serious. When the time comes when we want to be serious with our life, we will both break up amicably. Knowing his personality, there is a high chance that he would agree. However, this seems kinda risky on the emotions, so I wonder if this is a good idea? I am confident that I can manage my feelings after 1 year of dating him. We have only been dating for 2 weeks, I’d rather we broke up when we stopped having feelings for each other than for some issues that might not even be related to our situation. By that, I mean we might not even get to talk about these things when we are done having fun with each other.

I apologize if this all sounds confusing. It sounds confusing to me, really. It’s just that the whole universe is telling me to break up with him, but I like him. I admire him. I want to look back on my twenties with him in it when I’m old.

Sincerely,

Time To Move On?

DEAR TIME TO MOVE ON: Hoo boy.

TMO, I say this as someone who knew his wife for nearly a decade before we started dating and dated for years before getting engaged: two weeks is way the f--k too soon to be thinking of kids and marriage no matter how long you knew each other beforehand. Two months of “kinda-close” friends before dating? That’s not just “no” but “hell no”.

At two weeks, you’re not even at the “I feel comfortable farting in front of you” stage, never mind out of the honeymoon period, and decidedly not at a point where marriage or kids should ever enter the picture. You, quite literally, do not know him well enough to make that decision.

Now that is a general rule – something that I feel applies to pretty much every relationship, regardless of age, gender or sexuality. In your case specifically? I’m going to go ahead and tell you to save yourself the heart ache and end things now because your beau is already giving you the wave off.

This is not a situation where you’re going to have a lot of happy memories and adventures, followed by a mutually amicable break up. This is going to be a miserable slog for you and likely for him because he clearly sees what you are hoping for and he’s trying to tell you now that it’s never going to happen.

Seriously, I don’t know how much clearer this could possibly be. I mean, the first time you slept together, he’s telling you he doesn’t want kids. OK, maybe you could see that as a “no accidental pregnancies” sort of thing if you squint. A lot. It’s not, but under other circumstances, I could at least pretend to commiserate about how horny thinking might mistranslate that.

But there’s horny thinking and then there’s seeing a guy waving giant red flags in semaphore saying “no, not happening, never gonna happen” and thinking “aww, he’s doing an interpretive dance for me!” You’re more or less deliberately ignoring the fact that you knew this about him in advance. Well, he’s made it clear that’s never going to happen.

But the fact that he’s repeatedly reiterating “no kids, ever” and “I never want to get married” is the much bigger tell here. It seems pretty clear here that you’re giving off a vibe of marriage, kids, the white picket fence in the suburbs and he’s not only picked up on it but is telling you in no uncertain terms that this is not a thing, it’s not ever going to be a thing and you really need to abandon all hope already.

And as someone who’s done the whole “swear up and down that no, I know exactly what I’m getting into, I’m cool with this being completely casual, no labels no expectations, we’re not boyfriend/girlfriend” dance and knew damn good and well I was lying to myself. I am here from the future to tell you that you aren’t going to be able to make “this is a completely unserious relationship with a hard cut off” work. The only question is who you’re trying to convince: him or yourself. And honestly? I suspect it’s you.

I think that if you do this, you’d be constantly on the lookout for signs that maaaaaaybe he’s changing his mind or maaaaaybe you’ve convinced him. You will be reading the metaphorical tea leaves, trying to find evidence that he’s coming around to your way of thinking and frustrating all your friends when you keep talking about it. And then this will end in tears and heart break when he reminds you, again, that he meant what he said.

You should not be dating this guy. You definitely shouldn’t be thinking long-term about anyone after just two weeks of dating and certainly not him, specifically. Continuing to do so will end badly, messily and all over the place. The only question is to what extent and who’s going to catch the splash damage in the process.

Do yourself a favor and break up with him now. You and he aren’t compatible and you have put the cart so far before the horse that you’re in another county with no idea how you got there and the horse has f--ked off back to the stables. Go, date other people casually and leave thoughts of marriage and kids for a time when you actually have known someone longer than your total vacation days at work.

Good luck.

Please send your questions to Dr. NerdLove at his website (www.doctornerdlove.com/contact); or to his email, doc@doctornerdlove.com