The bisexual community has an inside joke that describes what it's like to date as a bi person: People think it means double the options and double the fun, but it really just means double the rejection.
Self-deprecating jokes like this one are at the core of the "Single People Club" regardless of whether you're in pursuit of gay dating or straight dating, but bisexual people do face extra roadblocks in the dating world.
Yes, online dating absolutely sucks for everyone, but the fact that there's only a single bisexual dating site that caters specifically to this community (and even then, we're kind of iffy about it) means many folks are frequently swiping on people who don't take bisexuality seriously. In 2023, that shouldn't be the reality.
There's [an] issue of bi people feeling invisible when they're deemed too "straight passing," which can often happen in queer spaces. This kind of invalidation contributes to many bisexual folks' struggles of not feeling queer enough.
The "B" in LGBTQ+ makes up 50 percent of the queer community, but it's also one of the least-acknowledged letters in the acronym. What makes the bisexual dating landscape — especially the online one — so tricky to maneuver?
Before we get into the best dating apps for bisexuals, let's tackle this question.
Bisexuality is hyper-sexualized on heteronormative apps
Something many bisexual women are all too familiar with when navigating online dating is the concept — one as old as time — of men being straight-up creeps. It's like heterosexual men can't seem to grasp that bisexuality is not a green light to ask a woman how many girls she's been with or if she likes men or women better. Such comments, especially from absolute strangers online, are disconcerting at best and threatening at worst.
23-year-old Megan from Virginia told us via Facebook that she couldn't even count the number of gross (slash ignorant) messages she'd received from men in reference to writing "bi" in her Tinder bio. "There were times when they would be like 'Oh, you never seemed gay in high school' or whatever, because gay is obviously a personality trait 🙃," she said. "Like my sexuality wasn’t a real thing or it was just a fetish to these people."
Even on Bicupid, the aforementioned singular bisexual dating app, there are a lot of couples only looking for bi-women to hook up with. We aren't saying that threesomes are wrong, but let's not assume that every bi person is dreaming of hooking up with you and your beau. You'd think the user base on queer dating apps would be more enlightened than on comparatively heteronormative apps, but that's not always the case.
Catfishing is also an issue. Some men have such a rabid obsession with queer women that they'll sign up for a dating site as a woman just to see an all-women swiping field. It's a total privacy breach and certainly doesn't boost your willingness to meet up with someone IRL. That's why the best dating sites require some form of Facebook or ID verification these days; in the case of Tinder, built-in background checks are a feature of the app.
Queer dating apps aren't always inviting, either
Does "gold star lesbian" sound familiar to you? The label is far from positive, despite its cheerful name at first glance: it's one given to lesbians who have never slept with a man. Countless bisexual women have reported being ghosted after disclosing that they have been with a guy before, and even on the best dating apps for bisexual women, profiles with "gold stars only" in the bio have popped up, too.
Then there's the issue of bi people feeling invisible when they're deemed too "straight passing," which can often happen in queer spaces. This kind of invalidation contributes to many bisexual folks' struggles of not feeling queer enough.
This feels a lot like the impossible Goldilocks principle, doesn't it, of being too much and never enough?
Why you might still want to put "bi" in your dating app bio
Adding those two simple letters to your bio will draw some unwanted attention, and it's going to be a pain in the ass. But in the long run, it'll also act like an asshole filter to weed out people who try to put sexual orientation into a box.
Just think about it: Would you want your partner to think that being bisexual is just a pit stop to being "fully-blown gay," or that bisexuality means (pardon our French) that you feel like banging anything that moves? Of course not. The easiest way to ensure that you won't be left heartbroken over someone not accepting your sexuality is to let them know from the jump. You deserve the very best, which means only those people who accept the full, messy, beautiful significance of your sexual identity.
With all of this in mind — and it's a lot to keep in mind — we wanted to review the best bi dating apps. We can't promise you'll never have a bad experience on these (indeed, that's all but guaranteed when you brave dating apps), but we believe these apps give bisexual folks the very best shot at finding a compatible partner.