Online dating when you’re LGBT isn’t desperate, it’s essential

We need to talk about gay dating. Everyone knows that throughout high school and university, the thought of meeting someone online, whether that be on Tinder, or even through mutual friends on Facebook is inherently embarrassing. It would seem easier to just make up a story about how you met your potential new bae, anything would be better than admitting you gave them a sneaky super-like on Tinder.

Ideally the story would involve you bumping into them in a bar, or missing your train together, or having your life saved from an evil bouncer by Ryan the dashing prince in his Nike AirMax outside Pryzm (this is what straight people do, right?).

Straight boys heaven?

The trouble is that, for LGBT people especially, situations like that just don’t happen – and not just because we would never wear Nike AirMax. We account for around 1.5 per cent of the population in the UK according to the Office for National Statistics. That leaves an extremely small chance of meeting the love of your life in the street.

Fem, Hornet, Tinder, Her, Grindr, Surge: there are hundreds of apps available to the LGBT community not to mention finding people on Facebook, Twitter, and Insta.

The problem is that while all these apps are great there’s still a huge stigma attached to using them and frankly this can make dating for LGBT people feel secondary or inferior to straight dating. Finding someone online isn’t trashy or desperate though, and it shouldn’t be embarrassing.

Yes I use the same picture don’t judge

Over the years, I’ve had some of my closest friends roll their eyes or smirk at the fact I’ve met someone new over the internet. It’s meant that I rarely want to talk about people I’m seeing to my friends for fear of seeing the “internet-dating-smirk” flash over their smug, straight face. But just because I didn’t meet my new bae in some Disney-style turn of fate doesn’t mean its worth any less than you and your AirMax-wearing boo.

Out of all of the gay guys I’ve ever known, I think only around four of them come from actually meeting in real life. For people like me, using dating apps and social media has meant I’ve been able to surround myself with people who have the same interests as me and understand the same problems.

The network of friends that LGBT people can build online is also something which a lot of straight people don’t understand, or need. Remember gossiping about your first crush to your closest friend? I don’t. I hid the first crush that I ever had from even myself. The thought of telling someone, let alone a straight person, was terrifying.

Over the years since I’ve come out, I’ve made so many amazing gay friends online who have supported me and understood my problems in ways that straight people couldn’t do – not because straight people are bad people, but just because they don’t understand what it’s like to be gay.

So next time your friend, gay or straight, says they’re going on a date with someone they met online, don’t smirk or roll your eyes. It’s 2016 and, for some people, romance starts on Tinder.