Love at the Intersection of Identities
By: Krishen Samuel
Tags: Dating App, Relationships, LGBTQ, Love, Identity

As I search endlessly for love in the digital era, I wonder if my hopes of meeting Mr. Right will ever be fulfilled.

Of course, it’s not impossible to meet someone using dating apps and online sites: success stories of happily partnered couples who have met virtually abound. However, this has not yet happened for me. And as I am faced with more disappointing dates and unanswered messages, I find that I have become steadily more dejected.

The search for love, and its resultant lack of fulfillment, has left me in a state of yearning that is akin to being really hungry with no possibility of finding food. If this sounds like a depressing state of being, it is indeed. However, my unfulfilling search for love has also had the unintended consequence of producing some incredibly valuable insights.

The most salient of these insights is that there is absolutely nothing wrong with me. I am loving and lovable. I am smart and funny. I am eloquent and empathic. I am also chronically single.

This has been an affirming insight — a cherished piece of information which I remind myself of frequently. However, if I am not the problem, then what is?

Why the lackluster performance when it comes to falling in love?

It appears that love in the digital age is structured and distributed along the same hierarchy that underlies so many other facets of our existence. This is the hierarchy where whiteness, heterosexuality and cisgender status are conferred greater privileges. This is the hierarchy that determines who has higher amounts of social capital and who will be left out in the cold.

As a gay man of color, I find the intersection of these two aspects of my identity causes quite a calamity when it comes to finding love.

The term intersectionality comes from Black feminism where it aims to describe the intersection of oppression resulting from combinations of different identities. The concept has been applied in various contexts and to diverse disciplines. I’d like to consider its role in finding — or not finding — love in the digital age.

According to the originator of the term, Kimberlé Crenshaw:

Intersectionality is a lens through which you can see where power comes and collides, where it interlocks and intersects. It’s not simply that there’s a race problem here, a gender problem here, and a class or LBGTQ problem there. Many times that framework erases what happens to people who are subject to all of these things.

As a caveat, I am not implying that finding love when you are white, cisgender or heterosexual (or any combination of these) is always a walk in the park.

My belief is that intersectionality creates a unique, and often more challenging, situation given our current social and power structures.

When it comes to finding love as a gay man, there have been various hurdles to overcome. Among the first of these were accepting my sexuality, opening up to others about it and living openly as a gay man. Once I had achieved these prerequisites, I believed that love would fly towards me like bees to flowers in the Springtime. This was not to be. Coming out is an incredibly important and liberating first step. But being gay means being different; you remain othered in the world even when you accept yourself.

Additionally, the gay community itself is not always the most accepting place. Unrealistic beauty standards and constricting notions of masculinity combine to form an online world where Men’s Health cover models are the most sought-after love matches.

Adding race to this equation results in a lamentable love intersection. Sexual racism is rife on online apps such as Grindr and Scruff. Profiles with text such as ‘no fats, no fems, no Asians’ are in abundant supply. And this experience is not unique to LGBTQ online spaces, straight people of color have had similar othering experiences.

Just to be clear: it is not that I want to date those who would not have me and reject me based on my race or because I am not masculine enough or due to some other characteristic. I am not expressing a yearning to be with those who would have no interest in dating me. Many would say:

Focus on those who are attracted to you and forget about the haters. You don’t want to be with them anyway.

This is sage advice. However, it is also somewhat misleading in this instance. Because, of course, that is precisely what I have aimed to do.

However, the intersection of two different types of discrimination — both of which happen to run rampant in online spaces — has meant that the process of finding love has become somewhat complicated. This has not been a function of where I have focused my attention or whom I have focused it on, but rather a problem that is almost systemic when it comes to online spaces. Certain identities are valued above others and some of us are at a distinct disadvantage from the beginning.

Photo by Victor on Unsplash

But intersections are also places where two or more roads meet or cross. They can be places where things come together; places where there is the possibility to change direction.

So I remain hopeful.

Hopeful that someday I will be loved because of my intersecting identities and not in spite of them.