DatApp: Her

Everyone wants to find love, right? I’m not the only one still swiping away, trying to find my soulmate, right? Maybe it’s because I’m a Libra swept up in my season, governed by the planet of love. Maybe it’s because hopeless romanticism runs in my veins. Maybe it’s because I’m a useless gay that’s terrified of rejection from a beautiful, tragically heterosexual girl.

Either way, I’m here to confess. I’m Jules and I’m a swipe-a-holic, though as most gay girls can attest, Tinder is a sapphic graveyard. Upon switching my settings to “woman seeking women” and finding half of my results were cishet men that chose the same settings or coupled girls that were “seeking a third,” I started to find myself altogether, bitter. If I couldn’t cut men out of the equation, I decided to put “PayPal me for a surprise ;-)” in my bio, which promptly got my Tinder account banned.

What was a queer femme to do? I still remember my first night at a gay bar where another lady patron bellowed in my ear over the throbbing synth beats “have you tried the dating app, Her?” I hadn’t and I downloaded it hastily. Now, I’m not here to tell you this app is user-friendly. I’m not here to tell you there are more than 300 profiles to browse at a given time. But, what I will tell you is that Her is sure better than that Tinder mess and it’s been a catalyst for my queer identity.

The gender options are very accommodating with options from “womxn” to “neutrois” and many in between. It felt like a community and that is exactly what I needed at the time. I had my first ever wlw relationship because of this app, I met and fell for the first non-binary individual I had ever encountered on this app. I had my first open relationship with a lesbian couple because of this app. It was in these encounters that I realized how important dating apps like Her are for the queer community. Coming from a conservative background, I couldn’t be more grateful for how these people opened my eyes, invited me into new spaces and showed me a life I never anticipated could be so full of colour.

Online dating is never perfect, but neither is dating in person, so if you’re sitting home alone most nights, wishing you had a girlfriend you know you’re altogether too petrified to approach, download the app Her. The worst that could happen is that you leave your comfort zone and we both know it’s about time.