The 3 best lesbian dating apps

What's in the best lesbian dating apps?

Why are lesbian dating apps a great idea? You just need to look around in an average gay bar any night of the week and you will see why online dating would seem particularly appealing for lesbians. Nearly all of the clientele are men, apart from a few fag-hags dancing the night away with their gay BFF’s and a couple of lezzie couples hanging onto each other for dear life. Not much cruising opportunities there for us lady-loving ladies. The fact is that lesbians are working with a far smaller potential dating pool than straight women, and there are far fewer lesbian-oriented events than those events geared at gay males. Online dating allows us to safely browse through girls we know like girls, thus avoiding lots of awkward moments and having to try to read secret signals before approaching a woman.

Another handy thing about hooking up online is that you can be direct about what it is that you are looking for, whether you want a quick fuck, a soul-mate or anything in between. Let’s face it; if you walk up to a woman in a bar, grab her ass and ask if she fancies a fuck, you are not very likely to get a positive response. Put that up in your dating profile, though, and you are going to be contacted only by the women who do want to fuck. Again, more awkwardness avoided.

But where do lesbians stand when it comes to hooking up online?

Gay men have embraced online dating and apps, like Grindr, Recon and the rest, with flourish from the beginning. Whenever a lesbian-specific dating app comes to the market, it is hailed as “Grindr for lesbians” but none of them actually market themselves as cruising apps (which is clearly the primary purpose of Grindr). There simply seems to be less of a market for apps aimed at hooking up only when it comes to women. Most, while not all, women tend to be searching for more than a quick shag and therefore none of the location-based dating apps aimed at gay women identify as cruising apps as such. But what about those of us that just want to fuck?

The bizarrely-named lesbian dating app Brenda (seriously, Brenda? Sorry to all the Brendas out there, but they couldn’t think of a less sexy name if they tried) is structured the same way   than Grindr, but the purpose of it is clearly different. It actually forbids you from posting pictures that are too racy and asks you to understand that it is not a sex app. As they mention in their rules: “most genuine women will not say filthy things about themselves in their profile nor will they send unsolicited filthy messages to other members” so they are hoping to vet out any non-genuine *cough* men *cough* people out. It's great that they have concentrated on creating a safe space for women, but assuming that we don't cruise too is patronising and, well, wrong.

Findhrr might rhyme with Grindr but that’s pretty much where the similarities end. Findhrr positions itself rather as a lifestyle than a dating app - it has been described as “lesbian tripadvisor” as they feature event listings, gay bars, reviews, as well as the dating function. It sounds like a great idea, but the app is trying to do too many things at the same time and not really delivering any of them. Findhrr has not really attracted wide enough user-base for it to be effective as a dating app (the awkward moment when you realize “I have already slept with everyone here!”) and the featured information on bars and events is not always up-to-date (which would surely be one of the main pros of having an app for that).

Dattch claims to be the first location-based dating app that was built by women for women. In the creator’s own words, Dattch is promoting a strong sense of community and is ideal for making friends in a new city or trying to find your soulmate. The app also emphasizes safety and security with a rigorous screening process when you are signing up; it’s by invitation only and you need to provide your Facebook account to prove that you are in fact a real person, most importantly a female person. While the screening process is aimed at providing a safe place for queer women to communicate with each other, it may also scare away some genuine users who do not have the attention span required to go through with all that. While Dattch has been received positively, it is currently only available in the UK and selected cities in US so its full potential remains to be seen.

None of the lesbian dating apps out there have hit the critical mass necessary for it to work - most user reviews complain about their being nobody in their area. That's not much incentive to sign up. But all this begs the question—what are the lesbian programmers out there using?

Do you use Brenda, FindHrr, Dattch or another lesbian dating app? Love it? Hate it? Leave it in the comments.