Unicorn hunters, swipe left: The best dating apps for bi people

The bisexual community has an inside joke describing what it's like to date as a bi person: People think it means double the options and double the fun, but it just means double the rejection.

You have to be able to laugh at self-deprecating jokes like this if you're a member of the Lonely Hearts Club, regardless of whether you're diving into the straight or gay dating scene. But bisexual people do face extra roadblocks in the dating world.

Bisexual people make up the majority of the LGBTQ community, according to 2024 data from Gallup, 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 hypersexualized on dating apps

Something bisexual people, particularly women, are familiar with is potential matches hypersexualizing their LGBTQ status. Bisexual people are more vulnerable to intimate partner violence than straight and gay people for several reasons, including this stereotype that bi folks are more sexual than others.

On a dating app level, bisexual people may be susceptible to upsetting messages. Megan, a 23-year-old woman from Virginia, told Mashable via Facebook that she couldn't even count the number of ignorant (and gross) messages she'd received from men about 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."

Bisexual people also encounter couples looking for their "unicorn," or third for a threesome (more on "unicorn hunters" below). Threesomes aren't wrong, but let's not assume that every bi person is dreaming of sleeping with you and your partner. You'd think the user base on queer dating apps would be more enlightened than on comparatively general apps, but that's not always the case.

Queer dating apps aren't always inviting, either

Does "gold star lesbian" sound familiar to you? It refers to lesbians who have never slept with a man, and some may even proclaim they're looking for "gold stars only" on their dating app profile. If you're a bisexual woman who sleeps with men, that may hurt to see.

Another issue bisexual people may face on explicitly LGBTQ dating apps is feeling invisible when they're deemed too "straight passing" (aka looking straight). This kind of invalidation contributes to many bisexual folks' struggles of not feeling queer enough.

Why you might still want to put "bi" in your dating app bio

Adding those two simple letters to your bio may draw unwanted attention, but in the long run, it also acts as 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 believe bisexuality is a pit stop on the road to being a "full-blown gay"? Of course not. Another old stereotype is that bisexuality means you want to have sex with anything that moves. The easiest way to ensure that you won't be left heartbroken over someone rejecting or questioning your sexuality is to let them know how you identify from the jump. You deserve the very best, which means only those people who accept you as you are.

With all of this in mind, we wanted to review the best dating apps for bisexual people. We can't promise you'll never have a bad experience on these (indeed, mishaps are all but guaranteed when you brave dating apps), but we believe these particular apps give bisexual men, women, and non-binary folks the very best shot at finding a compatible partner.