My Lesbian Dating Wrapped
A highly-analytical, data-driven account of everything I learned from my first year as an out lesbian.
welcome to strong feelings! Essays by writers we love, in which they share their most impassioned opinions on a given subject. In today’s strong feelings, writer Malavika Kannan shares everything she learned from her first year as an out lesbian.
Being queer is about possibility. It is an active refusal of systems and practices that do not serve us; it is an open question, an invitation to choose something new. I understood these things theoretically when I came out as a lesbian one year ago. But I didn’t understand what that would look like in practice. It didn’t help that I had few role models in my life of lesbian relationships that mirror what I might want for myself.
In 2025, I had a goal: make those possibilities real. In my body, not just my mind. This year I fucked around and found out a lot. I experienced how it feels to actually date as an adult lesbian, to slide into DMs, sit across from people at bars, climb the interminable walk-up stairs to their apartments, and have multi-act, tearful decouplings on long walks in the park.
I made this Dating Wrapped to share my experiences from my first full year on the lesbian market. I have always loved a good Dating Wrapped from a stranger online, mostly because I am nosy, but also because I’m hoping to reclaim it as the latest installment in a long feminist tradition of consciousness-raising.
Generations of feminist progress was built on this practice: the idea that when women publicly share the experiences that we’ve long been taught to keep private, including in our romantic and sex lives, we come to learn that individual experiences are actually shared political realities. I’ve seen so many young women held back from queer dating by the fact that they can’t imagine what it looks like.
Girl, let me tell you.
Here is my 2025 Lesbian Dating Wrapped. Out of respect and care for the people I’ve dated, it is entirely anonymous and data-driven. (As Lil Wayne once said: “I could say these hoes’ names/but then I would be snitching.”) If you are somebody I’ve dated, I promise that I see you as an entire, full person and not a number or a funny story and — with a few exceptions — I am grateful for the time we shared. Please don’t unionize against me.
A little about me: My name is Malavika, I’m 24, an Aquarius, and a lesbian. My careers and contributions to society include being a writer (of novels, essays, and journalism!), internet girl, and socialite. My entire existence is concerned with identity, kinship, love, and community for young women coming of age in apocalyptic, unprecedented times.
This year, I kissed 14 people with intention. I define this as: I knew their name and we had a whole conversation before or after. My data team made the difficult decision to exclude Dance Floor Makeouts (DFMOs) for this reason, although I believe those are a dying queer art and their lack is a recession indicator. I went on 11 first dates. I also contracted BV three times, which is not an STI, but is actually my body’s handy signal, as I’ve learned, that a partner is not right for me!
In 2125, anthropologists might be curious to understand Gen Z homosexual courtship rituals. I am here to provide some context. The majority of people I dated I met while out and about. I think there is a genuine fatigue among my generation with dating apps, and as life has heated up again post-pandemic, I’ve found great joy in meeting people at parties, functions, or through friends.
That being said, the second most common way I met people was via social media. For a certain Creative Class of Queer Women of Color, Instagram and TikTok are functionally dating apps. (I am convinced that the love of my life is a creative who has at least 70 mutuals with me on Instagram.) I learned an entire new ritual of flirtation, from story-liking and replying, to being added to someone’s “close friends” story, (the modern-day green light that once drew Gatsby, my friends have joked).
I had a brief dating app phase but found it unsatisfactory. Lastly, in 2025 I made the mistake of dating a close friend one (1) time. I think this is a rite-of-passage for queer women, but it was an embarrassing strike two for me, because I have already been through this and even saw fit to write an entire forthcoming novel about the phenomenon. Never again.
This was a multi-act, sleepless saga and hands-down the most romantic first date I have been on in my life. It ended only because this person had a cross-country flight to catch.
Six people I’ve dated have asked to read my novel early, and writers know there are few intimacies greater than having your work seen and understood by somebody you care about. I often feel extremely vulnerable handing the manuscript off, because it feels like I am physically handing over my heart, but it is also a great sign for me if somebody finishes and likes my book, because that is the equivalent of hanging out with me for ten hours and still wanting more.
Sometimes it’s like that.
And one beloved childhood dog. I was bitten by one person’s cat, though, awoop.
Gender played a much larger role in my dating experiences than I’d imagined; people’s gender presentation, I learned, is often intimately connected with how they move interpersonally and romantically. Sometimes I wish this was not the case — I believe, fundamentally, that gender roles prevent us from seeing one another fully as people, and, what’s more, are entirely fake. (Unless we are playing into them sometimes for fun because they are hot, which is an entirely different story.)
In dating this year, I got to experience the grand pageant of humanity and an entire spectrum of gender presentations, some of which were genuinely brilliant works of art. (I love the queer body as a DIY project of infinitely inspiring potential.) Still, when I plotted the data points (unscientifically) I was amused to see that I got lowkey out-masced by the majority of people that I dated.
Now this one is just to stir the pot. You’ll see that I ranked no person at a 0 on the Y-axis (totally innocent) because I believe that all gay people are guilty until proven otherwise. I experienced some unthinkably evil behavior while dating this year, but most of the people, thankfully, were relatively normal and kind.
I was very outside this year. As much as I love a classic dinner and/or drinks, I was blown away by some of the girlies’ creativity. In my friendships, and in life, I am often a planner, so I am always extremely grateful — and touched — when somebody plans a thoughtful date for me.
My lesbian powers evolved throughout the year. Please walk with me for a quarterly breakdown of what was shaping my swag and sense of self:
Q1: The beginning of the year saw me at middling lesbian powers. I was not my wealthiest because I had just left a job, and I was chastened to discover that lesbian dating does take out an entire line-item in your budget. In fact, I think that if you are broke, you should just be respectful to women and take yourself off the streets until you get your money back up. (Just kidding. I actually have nuanced and extensive thoughts on how queer relationships can push back against patriarchal financial norms and be generous and reparative, but that’s another essay.) I was also seasonally depressed from my first-ever winter (I’m from Florida) and felt something akin to gender dysphoria when I had to walk around dressed like a sleeping bag and not a human woman.
Q2: I was chugging along — I stepped back from some romantic options that weren’t right for me, and hit my groove with new friendships, as well as my writing career. Things were looking up! My quarter two peak was June: Pride Month. I got to shake ass at innumerable parties and functions. I came out publicly as a lesbian, which went viral, and while I did get in hot water in multiple comments sections (including earning the ire of TERFs on Reddit and YouTube), a lot of hot people read and resonated with the piece and gave me vulnerable, deeply-felt feedback. I did feel very brave to have come out as lesbian the same month that one of the few men that could hold me to bisexuality won New York’s mayoral primary, but what can I say – woke was back, new pronouns were due, and we all were libbing out.
Q3: Unfortunately, the post-Pride Month crash hit hard. I hit rock bottom in July after a series of truly cursed and devastating romantic encounters that had me questioning whether something was profoundly wrong with me. I felt homophobic and could not believe I had risked it all as a public advocate for lesbianism. I even called my parents and mentors for advice and they helpfully reminded me that I am only twenty-four years old and figuring things out, but I also learned a lot of valuable lessons about how to protect my heart, listen to my body, and move with dignity in this life.
The recurrent cause of my homophobia is my belief that LGBTQ people are our own worst enemies. Even as everyone seems to agree that dating is cooked, few people are willing to take the brave leaps of committing to a relationship, to compromising, to potentially surrendering some of their comfort in order to be in partnership with another person. I sometimes feel like because gay people spend so much time being told we are unworthy of love, or even life, it can feel difficult to actualize either for ourselves, even with no oppressors in the room. I was recently very moved to see new data from Hinge showing that 73 percent of Gen Z LGBTQ daters are worried about asking deep questions early into dating because they don’t want to seem too intense. As someone who has always loved deeply, and with an existential sense of stakes, I have never forgotten that queerness is a marginalized identity: This shit is hard.
Q4: I experimented with what I jokingly called a “pussy fast,” but was actually a period of intentional celibacy for me. To me, celibacy is not just about avoiding sex, but also stepping aside from the chaos of dating, flirtation, and the pursuit that leads up to it. The experience of being out and about as a single person is something I call the hoe-llercoaster: a period of unimaginable thrill, excitement, and danger. I believe it has a similar physiological effect on your body of doing hard drugs. You can get addicted, or at least attached to, the highs of being hit on, seeing who likes your story, entertaining flirtations with people, even if they lead nowhere.
I was inspired by Melissa Febos’ memoir The Dry Season about her own year of abstaining from queer intimacy. I was curious to learn what new things might grow in my heart when I de-centered romance; while the obliterating rush of queer desire has been the number one driver of my artistic energy for my early adulthood, I wanted to tap into something sustainable, measured, intentional. I also simply had to quiet the voice in my head, perhaps awakened during the pandemic, that was saying life was too short to afford to be discerning. I achieved unprecedented levels of lesbian powers and peace during those three months. But that’s not to say that I had no fun – I wrestled at Lesbian Oil Wrestling, which added at least a hundred years to my lifespan.
Now, at the time of writing, I’m pleased to report that I am at peak lesbian powers. My pussy fast yielded really great results, such as selling another book, finding a job I cared about, and moving into my first studio apartment. I still have a heart full of love, mouth full of opinions, and not a single straight bone in my body. Going into 2026, I want to find a relationship with queerness that is not contingent on partnership, on an idealized happily ever after, but on the wide and deep oceans of queer platonic love and the many friends who have cared for me — whose love enables my own. I am crossing my fingers and toes and hoping that it is all uphill from here.
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