As a woman in her 40s reentering the dating pool after many years, Lia Romeo heard the message everywhere: men are the worst, especially on dating apps. Friends traded screenshots of ludicrous profiles—Ernest seeking a woman with old-fashioned values, Scott a self-proclaimed sigma male, Matt with only a torso shot. Even The New York Times lamented straight men’s inability to transcend gender roles, coining the term “heterofatalism.” But Romeo, a bisexual playwright, found that dating women isn’t the panacea her straight friends imagine.
Safer, but Not Simpler
Dating women involves less fear, Romeo writes. She’s less concerned about giving out her real name or bringing a stranger home. When she rejects a woman, she usually backs off immediately, unlike men who may persist annoyingly or frighteningly. Citing Margaret Atwood’s adage—“Men are afraid that women will laugh at them. Women are afraid that men will kill them”—Romeo notes that fear diminishes, but disappointment does not.
Smaller Dating Pool, Higher Hurdles
Meeting women is significantly harder. There are far fewer queer women than straight men on apps, unless you’re in a major city or parts of Massachusetts and Vermont. Meeting women “in the wild” feels nearly impossible; the likelihood that a woman she encounters is both single and queer seems vanishingly small. When she does match with women, those who learn she was married to a man often assume she’s just experimenting. Bi women or late-in-life queers are more interested, but that shrinks the pool further.
No Script, New Confusions
While queer relationships offer freedom from patriarchal scripts, the lack of a script brings its own difficulties. Who asks? Who pays? Who initiates physical intimacy? Women tend to communicate more, but that can lead to exhaustive discussions. Intimacy can build quickly, but expectations may become unrealistic. Romeo has ghosted and been ghosted, had profound conversations that led nowhere, and met women only interested in sex or wanting more than she could give.
Desire Dehumanizes, Regardless of Gender
Desire, whether straight or gay, is rarely equally distributed and often turns others into objects. It may be slightly harder to objectify someone of the same gender, but it still happens—especially when faces appear on screens. When straight women say they wish they were gay, Romeo suggests they really wish dating were easier. Men can be awful due to culture and upbringing, but no matter whom you’re attracted to, dating is hard. Hearts get broken, but there are also moments of connection—kissing outside a dive bar, walking through oak trees, sharing a beer—that make it all feel worth it, for a night or for a lifetime.
