The Myth of the “Good Ones”

Why do we treat dating cis-men like collecting rare trading cards?

Photo by on

Content warning: mentions of sexual and dating violence

There’s only one straight person (a cis-woman) taking a class on LGBTQIA+ issues in psychology with me. We’re a week into the semester and it’s already been an enlightening time.

Usually, the straight student stays silent, soaking in the history of our struggles and the ways our community defines ourselves outside of institutions hell-bent on defining us as less than what we are, less than human.

The other day, the topic of dating came up. We were talking about how unsafe it can be to date as an openly queer person in the small towns that surround my mid-sized city from which many of the students in my liberal arts college hail.

For the first time, the straight girl raised her hand. She knew what it was like to feel like dating was more risky than romantic.

Dating Has Turned into Flirting with Danger

Dating is supposed to be fun and carefree and an opportunity to explore yourself and other people. For young women who date men nowadays, dating is the equivalent of diving into a shark tank with one dolphin and trying to find the dolphin.