Bisexual Supports

• How do you know whether a particular site or forum is safe and legitimate?
• How can you protect yourself and your information?
• How can you meet the right people, in the right context, the right way?

• Avoiding putting up a photo of you with other attractive guys or gals. Not only might this confuse a potential suitor (which one in the photo are you?) but it can also potentially make you look bad by comparison.
• On the other hand, if you have a picture of you with a cuddly dog or cat, that will work.
• Avoid using an "artificial seeming" picture – like a professional headshot (too formal) or a Halloween costume or "wacky" photo (too weird – people don't know you yet).
• Be true to yourself. For instance, if you're an obsessive pianist: by all means, put up a picture of you playing the piano. But if you don't play the piano, why would you do that?
• Sweat the details. For instance, you might have a great smile in one picture, but if you're wearing disgusting sneakers or ratty jeans, the overall image will be less than ideal.
• Show your final picture to a few friends for feedback before you throw it up there.
• Be prepared to iterate. Your first photo might not go so well! Take any feedback you get as potentially useful, and don't take rejections or unflattering comments too personally. You'll find someone!

• Avoid trying to be "too weird" out of the gate – no pictures of you with fake mustaches or partying like an animal with your girlfriends or wearing an incy-wincy teeny-weeny yellow polka dot bikini. If you put up weird photos, you're going to attract weird people.
• Present yourself how you are (the good version), not how you wish you could be.
• For instance, pick a normal "good" outfit that you typically wear – don't snap a photo of you at prom or as a bridesmaid or at a gala ball. If you do that, your suitors (or suitoresses, if that's a word) will expect you to doll-up like that all the time.
• In general, err on the side of being slightly too conservative. You want to telegraph your personality, but subtly. It's like flirting – you want to give a little but not too much.

One of the first times I went on a date with a girl, she asked me, “Are you bi or gay?”

“Well, I’m still figuring that out,” I told her.

Her response was: “I knew you were too good to be true.” I then fell all over myself in an effort to explain to her that, although I was unsure about how to define my sexuality, I was definitely into girls, more so than I’m into guys. I am not and have never been bi-curious, bi for attention or bi only when men are around. Since then, I’ve figured out that I’m solely into girls. So I guess I wasn’t too good to be true, huh?

But, alas, in parts of the gay community, being bi or being a lesbian who has hooked up with guys in the past is like having horns or an incurable disease.
This isn’t the case for all girls I have dated, but some lesbians don’t want to date anyone who has been near a penis. Ever. Girls who have always been gay and nothing else carry it like a badge of honor. And, frankly, I’m jealous of them. I wish it was that easy for me to figure it out. But it wasn’t.
I blame the bi-hatred on the rise of girls I will call “Facebook Lesbians.” These are chicks you see on social networking sites and in clubs and bars getting touchy-feely with their platonic girlfriends to get attention from men. (Hello, boob circle photos.) They make being bisexual unacceptable in the eyes of some and are the reason even I can’t say the word without putting air quotes around it. And, although for most of these girls it stops with a kiss or an innocent boob-grab, some of them actually identify themselves as bisexual, thus mucking things up for the whole gay community. I have numerous female friends who think they swing both ways simply because the idea of kissing another girl doesn’t totally repulse them. But would they have a relationship with another woman? No. So are they bi? I don’t think so.

One of my friends in particular finds it necessary to grab my face and plant a wet one on me every time she has had too much to drink. Often she gets the bartender’s attention beforehand. This pisses me off because it is both insensitive and hurtful. She’s assuming I have no problem kissing her because I’m gay. But the fact is, I don’t want to kiss her because she’s my friend and not my type. Straight girls don’t go around making out with their guy friends. (Usually.) So why the double standard?

Luckily, I have met numerous girls who can commiserate. A lot of gay girls I know dated men in, say high school, but grew more and more attracted to women, until the thought of getting with a guy became repulsive. While I believe I was legitimately into dudes when I was younger, I no longer am and don’t see myself ever going back. I have talked about this with a lot of lesbian women and none of us can figure out if we were suppressing our true feelings or if the attraction to men was genuine. For me, growing up, there was simply no other option. I lived in a small, conservative town and that was that. You were straight or you were straight.

So for all you boob-grabbing-attention-seeking-Facebook-lesbians out there, my message to you is this: Don’t kiss me unless you absolutely mean it. I’ll return the favor. OK? Great.

I have always been an advocate of online dating, for a variety of reasons. I think it's a great way to meet people you would never otherwise encounter, see places you may never have heard of and build confidence. Even if you go on one or two unsuccessful dates during the week, you still give off a vibe at the bar that says, "Yes, I am dating," as opposed to the I-haven't-been-on-a-date-in-three-months vibe that people (annoyingly) tend to pick up on, as if through an extra sense.

Nevertheless, as easy as online dating has become (it's evolved into the mainstream and is popular in New York City and across the country), it is still difficult to navigate as a bisexual woman. Sure, there are dating sites specifically designed for bisexual women, but they do not have the reach or the users of other, more well-known sites, and frankly, they tend to alienate gay women and straight men. Because, like many other bi girls, I am attracted to gay women and straight men, I want that exposure. Also, I have had gay and bi friends alike find amazing partners, love and fun on all-inclusive sites. So let's discuss two popular sites, both of which you have probably heard of, and both of which tout millions of users, just waiting for you and a wound from Cupid's arrow.

When signing in to Match.com for the first time, the first thing that appears is a banner that exclaims, "It's easy to get started!" You and I both know that this is not entirely true, considering how many questions you have to answer to complete your profile (physical characteristics as well as "likes" and "dislikes") and how much of a pain it is to allocate and upload attractive photos of yourself. But I digress. Immediately it asks if you are a woman or a man, which is fine for me but isn't necessarily an easy question for others who don't identify with one or either gender. I checked the "woman" box and then proceeded to the next question, which asks if you are seeking a woman or a man.
So, before I have even started, I have hit a wall. Why, Match? Why are you making me decide something that I can't answer so definitively? I am seeking love, and fun, but ultimately love, and I just don't know if that will be found in a man or a woman. It strikes me that there are two options: I can 1) choose a gender that is appealing to me right at this moment, or 2) create two separate profiles. The first seems less viable, because I truly like both genders, and I hate to be boxed in so tightly. The second option seems daunting, because, again, if you have ever filled out an online dating profile, you know it is a tedious, aggravating procedure. It should not be this difficult. (Also, someone stole my handle! The nerve!)

Then there is OKCupid, an extremely popular site not only because it is free but because it offers an app with a Grinder-type platform, and because it's what all the young NYC kids use these days. It asks if I am straight, gay, or bisexual. This is a little more inclusive, which of course makes me feel better, though it is not truly all-inclusive. After I check "bisexual," I have the option to click "I do not want to see or be seen by straight people." But wait! I like men, too! In my previous relationships, both short ones and long-lasting ones, I have dated straight men, so of course I want them to be able to view my profile. My profile now states that I am bi and looking for guys and girls who like bi girls.

The best Meetbi.com    Promises to Bisexuals: There is no need to pay DOUBLE to hook up both men and women. Popular bisexual dating platform MeetBi.com has issued a statement saying that its users would not be charged double to hook up with both men and women. I can search local bi girls, bi guy and bi couples.

And so another conundrum. As much as I like to avoid stereotypes, I couldn't help but wonder how many gay women would actively search out bi women on a dating site. Even if a gay girl is open to dating a bi girl, even if she doesn't harbor preconceived conceptions about bisexual women, my guess is that to make things easier and more streamlined, she is going to search for gay women. To further support this assumption, out of the 24 emails I received within the first 12 hours after creating my profile, I was not contacted by one single female. Four out of the 24 men who emailed me were part of a couple, and they were on a hunt for a third. This explains the abundance of headlines throughout bi women's profiles that read "I AM NOT INTERESTED IN COUPLES!" and so on, usually in all-caps. And when a single man emails me in an innocuous fashion but his profile indicates that he is only interested in bisexual women, I inevitably wonder if and when he is going to drop the threesome request. Now, I know I am just one girl, and this is by no means a well-researched or planned experiment, but I can't help but feel that there are consequences to checking the "bi" box.
Again, I tell myself that it should not be this difficult. I know I am not the only one facing this conundrum, because throughout my searches, there were many women who included in their profile summary a clear disclaimer. Whether they had initially checked "bi" or "gay," many women stated, "I identify as queer but picked [___] for lack of better options." So I follow suit. It takes less than a minute to change my online sexuality and to add an honest disclaimer, or clarification, in my summary.

I still stand by my online dating advocacy; I just wish it weren't so strenuous to navigate as a bi girl looking for romance. Don't think I am not tempted to go the blunt and honest route: "Bi girl, who is in no way interested in being your married couple plaything, seeks a woman who is not threatened by ex-boyfriends and does not believe bi women are incapable of fidelity, or a man who will not assume that he can sit and 'watch' and is not threatened by my fondness for breasts." Bi girl seeks love.