I’ve been using dating apps since I was newly 18 (and, if memory serves, putting together an OKCupid profile in the Starbucks-inside-of-a-Target to which I’d begged a ride in order to shop for home furnishings for my freshman dorm…), and these days, every time I log on to Tinder or Hinge or even Feeld, I can’t help thinking of the immortal words of Sex and the City’s Charlotte York: “I’ve been dating since I was 15! I’m exhausted! Where is he?”
While I would personally also accept a “she” or a “they”—and, more to the point, just someone reasonably nice and cute to get one to three wines with in the wake of my recent breakup—I still find myself empathizing with poor, lovelorn Charlotte. Even with half a dozen dating apps at my disposal, meeting someone is feeling nearly impossible.
To be sure, dating apps were never necessarily good for queer women like myself, but I remember genuinely having fun on Lex and even Tinder in my 20s, not to mention a few good Bumble dates. Now nearing 33 and tentatively Back Out There after a long-term relationship, though, I’m somewhat appalled at how slim the pickings on various and sundry dating apps seem to be. Why am I rarely matching with someone my age or older—of any gender or sexuality—who seems even remotely cool, even when I swallow my pride (and my cheapness) and pay for “premium” editions of a few of the apps? Is this a skill-issue-slash-self-own, or are things really that brutal out there?
Anecdotally, the answer seems to be, “Yes, dating-app luck takes a significant dip once you hit 30,” at least, according to my similarly single friends. Of course, queer love can be very much intergenerational in nature, but I’ll admit that I preferred to be the 20-something dating a woman in her 30s, and benefiting from her superior knowledge of wine-bar menus and how an IRA works. Is this just because I loved the flattering blush of youth, or, more likely, is there something about purporting to be the older, more world-weary one that feels a little fake to me, when I still can’t properly hang a picture in my apartment without hiring a handyperson or make vegetable stock without calling my mom for tips? This, I fear, is the plight of the 32-year-old single queer woman; not a Therese, not yet a Carol.
In your 20s, the world is full of strangers just waiting to be flirted with in bars and then awkwardly waved at as you depart their apartment in a Lyft the next morning. But a simple truth of your 30s is that, for one reason or another, your social world starts to feel a little smaller.
People combat this in different ways. When I recently polled some of my fellow single 30-somethings for app-dating advice, I got a slightly confusing yet encouraging mishmash of responses. One friend sets her search settings to the exact age of 37 to make sure the algorithm doesn’t show her anyone she already knows (or, say, met on a different dating app). Another friend, who lives in a remote area and is sick of having Hinge inform her she’s “seen everyone in your area for now,” is making an effort to breach the discomfort barrier and initiate more first dates with people she meets in person.
The latter, of course, would require me to both grow and change as a human being, so I’m instinctively against it. But maybe it behooves my 30-something single status to treat the apps less like Postmates (a.k.a. a sure thing that will always deliver what I want, ideally in 30 minutes or less, and that I’ll probably regret tomorrow) and more like just another tool in my robust dating arsenal. I guess I have to…join Dyke Soccer now?
