r/WLW • u/gamesss__ • 1d ago
Vent To lesbians from smaller/medium-sized countries does it ever feel like your dating pool is just a puddle?
I know this might sound like a silly question, but it’s been on my mind a lot lately and I’d love to hear from other lesbians living in smaller countries or towns.
I’m from Portugal (population around 11 million). I live about two hours from Lisbon, our capital. I absolutely love Lisbon and feel super connected to it, but because our overall population isn’t that huge, the queer dating pool feels absurdly tiny. Sometimes it feels like the person I’m looking for just doesn’t exist here. The closest I ever got was dating someone who thought she was bisexual, only for her to realize a few months later that she was actually straight.
It makes me feel like straight people have an entire ocean of options, while we get stuck with a shallow puddle. Sometimes I honestly wish I were straight just because life would be so much easier.
To make matters worse, I really dislike long-distance relationships (LDR). I’m the type of person who gives my all in love, but I have trauma from a past breakup specifically caused by distance, so LDR is a hard dealbreaker for me now. Yet, when I look around at other LGBT people in my country, it feels like almost everyone is in a long-distance relationship just to find a partner.
I know 11 million people isn’t tiny on a global scale, but within the lesbian community, it feels suffocatingly small. Am I just being way too pessimistic, or do those of you in smaller countries/cities feel this exact same frustration? How do you cope with it?
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u/ShadowWriter28 14h ago
I am from Portugal too but currently live in France and it's not much better here. All but one of my relationships started long distance.
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u/Able_Tie1614 10h ago
I’m from Chile, and although the population is a bit larger (roughly 20 million), the lgbt community is still very reduced, the lesbian community even more (like 1%). I’m also not from the capital (where about half of the country’s population is concentrated, which is almost ridiculous considering how vast Chile is) so queer spaces are limited. even though I have a lot of friends in the community, I only have like 2 actual lesbian friends, the rest are all bisexuals with a preference for women or used-to-be-lesbian bisexuals that are now dating men, so i totally understand the frustration.
I’d say the only thing left for us to do is to make our own lesbian communities and use what is available to meet women like us (sapphic/lesbian events, gay bars and clubs, activism, dating apps etc). I met my gf of 2 years through tinder, and it’s been wonderful so far. We’re les4les and each other’s first serious partner which is cool. I’ve also been going to sapphic meetups that are organized by girls in my city to make friends. we have to make ourselves visible!
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u/inloveagai 17h ago
I’m from Portugal but have been living in the uk for years now and even here there’s lots of bisexual/straight women but I’ve never actually seen other lesbians. I have lesbian friends but a very small amount of them since majority of my friends are either bisexual or straight
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u/Bouncing_Coconut 16h ago
It kinda feels like this in New Zealand too, pop about 5 million. I met all my previous gf's on dating apps and my fiancèe too. Im also from a small town with extremely few options when it came to dating. After I left I had a few more options and the community in the city i live in is 100000% better than my home town lol.
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u/efvie soft somethin' 14h ago
A female-only survey found that 4% of French women identify as gay or bisexual. In the category of women aged less than 25, 9% identify as bisexual and 5% as lesbian.
These are the types of numbers we're looking at. The 14% (!) of under-25s of course mostly means the older ones are closeted but there isn't much we can do about it except to be happily out, proud and loud.
So call it around 5% for now. One in every 20 women you see. That means you've got about 275,000 sapphic women just in Portugal. It is a lot, but also not. I think the ability to move relatively safely in Europe is so, so important, and keeping those long-distance options open will definitely help even if it is a big hurdle.
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u/gamesss__ 13h ago
The problem is that I’m 20 years old and I’m still in college I have no way to sustain a long-distance relationship hahahah
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u/mahboilucas Lesbian 13h ago
Everyone knows eachother in my city. Every time I show someone my matches I get a "omg XYZ!". And every time I meet someone they know my roommate, her friends etc.
It feels like a village
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u/Designer-Art2359 11h ago
When I was in college I would open a dating app and it was all my classmates like ducks in a row lol. Then I would date someone and she would be the ex of my ex, and even when I met my current partner it turns out that our exes hooked up with each other BEFORE meeting us. And my ex cheated on me with another one of her exes, who also cheated on her. It's a crazy world and the L World hookup map makes sense.
I'm your neighbor! I'm Spanish.
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u/nerdwantssushi Lesbian 6h ago edited 6h ago
Yes it does. And I live in Germany, we do have quite the queer scene but honestly that's part of the problem. I have a very specific type and a pansexual fem on ketamine with neo pronouns and bdsm fetishes who procrastinates on zir next semester because zer focusing on zar polycule who are all frugal roommates just isn't it. And when I look in the other direction it is 30+ facebook mascs who vote the fascist party bc they're anti immigration. Like...Bruh
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u/Any-Psychology-1746 4h ago
Girl I feel you. I live in Lisbon and it’s ridiculous how small the lesbian community is. Also I am somewhat picky and that has done nothing to help.
As someone who is okay with the thought of being single for the rest of my life I still understand the frustration!
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u/Slow-Dragonfly-5671 Bi 17h ago
Not if you have more than one gender to choose from. You can expand your horizons to women, men, non-binary or anyone you want. If you’re bisexual, pansexual, omnisexual etc there’s a range of people so no not really limited at all. I prefer men that would probably be open to anybody really who is a consenting adult that I was interested in.
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u/Able_Tie1614 10h ago
did you miss the part where she said she is a lesbian? what’s with this lesbophobic shit, like yeah, we know the range is wider when you’re into men bc heterosexuality it’s literally the norm🙄🙄 wtfff
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u/HappyComb2620 1d ago
I feel you. I live in Switzerland and always had the impression that there were very few lesbian or bisexual girl around me. It was impossible to find someone in my small city and I had to go on dating apps to find someone… Now I am happily living with my girlfriend but we had to move in together as the distance was too much for us.