Where do you try to meet people?
 

Well, I'm venturing back into the dating world after a long hiatus. I've checked out a couple of different online sites. I'm not into the bar/club scene. I tried getting involved in some of the local LBGT organizations but I don't feel connections with anyone.

Where do you find yourself meeting people to talk to who understand the butch/femme/trans dynamics?

Here
 

Well.... this is a good place!
:loveBFP:

You could volunteer at any LGBT center!

figure out where you go...and then realize you havent found anyone there, so stop going there.

head to the local non profits. Volunteer.

go to the hi kill dog and cat pounds and walk the dogs and get involved in the politics. LOTS of chances of meeting people..and people who know people...good for all kinds of connections

what kind of person are you attracted to? Go where they might go. I LOVE horses. Look for gay western dances. Or sponsor one. Its not as expensive as you think...

run for office. In something. No matter how small. It will get you laid if not a relationship...

join the SCA...the Society for Creative Anachronism (or something like that). Trust me LOTS of brothers and sisters in that group

go to church. A gay friendly church. Or not gay. Be out gay yourself. Those who care and are as strong as you will come forward and friend you. But you need balls to do this...

make soap. Sell it. Put your name on it and say you want dinner dates. WHAT A MARKETING PLOY! But, you will sell soap and get dinner...

put an add up at the laundromat. At least you know they are clean people.

get a dog and walk it. Make sure its wearing a rainbow collar

get a great old car. Restore it. Paint it with a rainbow flag on the hood. Go to car shows. Sit outside next to it in short cut off jeans...yep...that'll work

go to the library and tuck sweet messages in books...give no information except what book to look in next...see if someone will do it back to you...then find a time and place to meet...talk about romantic!

want more?

Alexri, if you've tried the local lesbian organizations or meetups and they don't serve you, go into the next town. As someone said, participate in things you love to do. They may be full of people who aren't in our community, but you will be around people who enjoy your favorite activities. Wear some kind of rainbow thing (decal on your jacket or cap, bracelet, pin, etc) if you think you aren't being "read" well.

People have friends who have friends.

I had the same problem you are experiencing. I went to another city and found a friendlier group. The B-F community is small, even in this city, but it does exist. And again, friends have friends.

Pride is always a great way to connect as well.

definitely take up some hobbies involving people! :) or volunteering. i like okcupid but it's a mixed bag...have to put up with a lot of bullshit. if you're religious and have an lgbtq-friendly worship space, that can be a really good way to meet folks.

miss tia, that list is amazing! i want to try the library scavenger hunt :)

Damn ! ") Now I like the rainbow collier on my Gabby girl but hell Hun look at me you can tell :)

Before I became coupled, I did join a lesbian dating site.

It did bug me that they did not have a place to specify that you were looking for a butch (in your case, a femme). I did send them an email voicing my displeasure about this.

What I did was to pick a user name with "femme" as part of my name. I also specifically wrote in my profile: Looking for butch woman, not feminine women like myself, etc. (I am paraphrasing).

It did, for the most part keep the femmes from responding (and the butches did).

You may have already tried this...

What I did find was that there were lots of femmes and not nearly enough butches available to date. A lot of the femmes were looking for other femmes to date, so I could see that as a real problem for butches.

Gee, dating and meeting the right person that you connect with, is just plain difficult!

I finally hit the jackpot right here on the Planet, hopefully, you will too!

interview women for an article. Its an old movie, but it works and if you sell the article, you make money too! Invest it in soap making supplies....

if you are obvious looking, stand in the middle of a big area and wait. Every day do this. After 10 days, put up a sign that says "I am not coming back unless you let me know you noticed me"

get kites. Not kid kites. Big beautiful magnificent kites. You will draw attention. When girls come up to watch, draw them in by letting them handle the string. You will empower them and make friends

go to craft shows and sell crafts. LGBT crafts. Make sure you make some that say "supporter of LGBT" and some that cry out "I am the gay one!". Smile HUGE at the girls who grab the gay one. Ask the supporters if they have a single gay person in their life...

flirt. Flirt with everyone. Flirt with the lil kid in front of you at the check out. And her granny who has taken her there to buy coloring books. Flirt at the garage sale. Flirt with the barber. Flirt with everyone but your gynecologist. The more at ease you are at flirting, the more you will impact. The only way to get at ease is to do it every chance you get.

check license plates. and bumper stickers. Have cards made up with email accounts, bidding them to contact you, and place them on LGBT marked cars.

Start a social group. Wine tasters of the LGBT variety. A book club. Hikers for Habitats.

Have tshirts made up that say "Single and queer, looking for someone near"

I am not sure that a "lesbian" dating site is the way to go but glad it has worked for some. I am on one of those and just today I got a response from someone, who in her profile says... I prefer femme women, if I wanted butch, I'd date a man. Now my profile name has Butch in it and also my picture and I am obviously Butch. So I don't think those sites are very good. lol

Meeting people on a B/F site has worked for me in the past. I have met many friends, lovers, and even the occasional partner.

So I sit here and think, if I did not have this type of a place to go to, where would I go?

I would probably go to where femmes like to shop.. maybe sephora, maybe hang out reading in a book store. I really don't know. Maybe the femmes can let us know where they tend to go.

I think sometimes it not just about where to meet people but taking it to the next level of being friends or dating outside of whatever environment you are in. You have to take a risk and invite them out or to your house or whatever. I am speaking from personal experience, because that is one of my own issues.

Go look in the lingerie, shoe, purse and fragrance section at big department stores..on a Friday night. Where I live, that's the place single femmes go to to find something nice for their date on Saturday night. Just sayin'.....

Book store? Nah..

Diversity
 

I disagree, you'd find most of the Femmes i know near a book before finding them in lingerie shops! (Leather shops are another story though!)


Femmes are a diverse, unique, individuals!!!

:)

yep, i'm a library or bookstore femme...i wander into lingerie stores maybe once a year, hehe.

and I agree, we are all different.

Just under two months ago, for religious reasons, I decided that I would abstain from alcohol for a year. As someone whose social life centres on bars and alcohol, I'd resigned myself to a year ahead of austerity as regards making new contacts.

However, I'm actually having luck meeting women who appear to be interested in me, totally randomly, in coffee shops. I should add that these coffee shops are located in Soho, the largest LGBT district in London and I am rather genderqueer looking so that's probably got something to do with it.

The other aspect to this is that, strangely for someone who's involved in diverse business interests and interacts with a lot of people in my day-to-day life, I'm actually rather intimidated by coffee shops.

This is because, to me, coffee is either black (without milk) or white (with milk), whereas the whole language of modern coffee shops is overwhelming for me as I don't know my latte from my frappuccino, I always assumed that macchiato was the name of an Italian dictator and that lungo was some sort of tropical disease.

Therefore, I'm giving off an air of vulnerability (and, in all honestly, probably subsciously playing on this a bit) in these shops which makes some women more likely to make initial contact with me.

So far, I've had some really nice conversations and three women have given me their contact numbers. In particular, over the past 24 hours one young lady who is very feminine looking (I can only assume that she IDs as femme but I'm not certain) and works in one of these shops that I've been visiting regularly over recent weeks and have been chatting to when there has asked me out on a date. In reality, I'll likely politely decline but it does show that it's possible to make nice, good contacts in environments that I usually wouldn't expect to.

Dang, you all are very creative people. Lots of great ideas here. :bowdown:

Thoughts
 

Geographically you're surrounded by a lot LGBT communities, maybe doing some traveling to the queer areas and socializing amongst the masses would be ideal! It's worth a train ride just for the experiences or friendships.


If funds allow since sometimes moneys keeps us closer to home..

Snow is right- you're close to DC, Delaware lots of great gay places. I'm in Southern VA and DC is 5 hours or i would damn sure be venturing in. I'm sure dating sites work for some. I'm not sure how I feel about dating these days. I think its best, at least for me, to network with friends and just hang out, be social and get involved.

I joined an lesbian social group a couple years ago in hopes of at least making friends. I keep up with it once in a while, but my experience has been that anyone I'm even friendly with, they act like they have something better to do - ie, stuck up - and that's not me. I think I also maybe avoid the group on some level is because there's straight guys showing up. Okay, so their friends with some of the lesbians there, but for crying out loud, let me have my own space. I also joined a dinner group and not much success there. You think it would be fairly for an extrovert to at least strike up a friendship, but honestly, there are times I feel like a complete and social retard. I've tried dating sites, craigslist, and women can get real weird. They'll email you a couple of times, and then you don't hear anything else. I've also met a couple of people from chat, and that ended up crashing and burning, as well. Starting to think that maybe it's me, and not the other person. There's a lesbian community in another town that's about an hour from me, but I've heard they run in their own clique, as well. Thinking maybe this all would be easier for me if I was living back in Minnesota...

Sue