Middle aged gay dating advice?
Fellow LGBTQ+ ~ers, I'm hoping you can give me some direction and pointers in dating advice.
I'm a male in my early 40s who has become single after a dozen years and finally realizing/admitting that I'm gay. This isn't a huge deal (I've always identified as queer/not straight) but it does leave me in a place of total ignorance on how to proceed in meeting gay men and dating them.
I'm not intetested in sex-without-friendship, so Grindr is out. I'm not a fan of social media, so FB is useless to me. Even if there are any gay bars left, I'm not the bar type. My preferred personals site was craigslist... which shows you how out of the loop I am.
Any advice on dating sites and/or alternative ways of meeting people? I'm thinking about getting a bunch of shirts printed with a wittier version of "Introduce me to your gay friends!" and a rainbow necklace or bracelet...
If location matters, I'm a fair distance outside the Seattle area but get there often enough.
Thanks, all!
Caveat: I'm a straight man, but otherwise in a similar boat (in my 30s, in the Seattle area, and dating).
OKCupid is the least-bad dating site I've used. Originally developed by some math majors at Harvard, it's the nerdiest/geekiest of the ones I've tried, both in its userbase and in how the site itself is implemented.
Besides the normal thing where you fill in a bio, there's a ton of match questions. For each multiple-choice question, you pick a single answer, then pick one or more answers that an acceptable match would give, and rate how important the answer is to you. Every match gets a "match percentage" based on how well your answers line up with their acceptable answers and vice versa.
The beauty behind that algorithm is that it accommodates a ton of different dating "styles" and approaches. Just as one example, there's a question for how many dates it would take before you'd be willing to have sex with someone. The choices are something like "1 or 2", "3 or 4", "6 or more" and "maybe never". Two people who are just looking for casual sex can pick the "1 or 2" option, match with each other, and have fun. From what you've said, you would pick one of the other options, wouldn't mark "1 or 2" as an acceptable answer, and rate it as an important question. That means people who are looking for casual sex would filter towards the bottom of your matches, and people who like you prefer to develop an emotional connection first filter to the top.
If you take the time to answer questions (and there are thousands of them, many user-submitted) you can find people with high match percentage, who at least align with you on some key questions (as determined by the importance you assign each match question). That's obviously not a guarantee - I've been on dates where we were 95%+ matches according to OKCupid, and when we met in person it became clear we were similar in a lot of ways, we agreed on a ton of things, but that we weren't compatible relationship-wise.
I'd also recommend Fuck Yes or No as one of my favorite pieces of writing related to the dating world. I first came across it several years ago and it really help put a certain part of my life into better perspective.
Your advice is exactly what I was looking for on the dating site question, so it's very relevant and helpful. I'll give OKCupid a good look. Thanks!
"Fuck Yes" is exactly how I feel about the whole thing too, gotten there from a different starting point. If the person I'm really attracted to isn't obviously excited about the prospect then it's not going to work, short term or long term. Thanks for the read!
Boy, that describes me so well. Mind if I borrow it?
I did a brief look at meetup, will have to give it a "look at with intentions" try. Also, volunteering is a good idea, will look for opportunities. Thanks!