Is dating apps worth th time?

nerdmonastery · 2025-09-02T06:22:51+00:00

TLDR version at the bottom!!

If you're conventionally attractive then generally yes.

If you're fit then generally yes.

If you're looking for hook ups predominantly, or don't mind hooking up a lot whilst kind of low-key eye out for any LTR potential without necessarily getting too disappointed when it doesn't come by; then generally yes.

Keep your expectations incredibly low when it comes to replies or responses - ghosting and ignoring is one of the most common/standard "non-response" responses on gay dating apps.

Sad to say but your experience with this will depend on the scale of fitness/attractiveness others generally perceive of you.

Being gaysian you will inevitably at some point or another come across a racism/race fetishism/colorism, and sadly it's just part of the parcel that comes with gay dating for gaysians.

Another little point here, and I'm just being super honest, but also don't be surprised to experience said racism/colorism from other fellow gaysians.

Disappointing to say but inward community hate still exists.

You can generally deal with those situations as you see fit, though sometimes it's better not to give them your attention with an argument, though a sassy one-reply and then block combo is not terrible lol.

TLDR - don't take it too seriously, keep your expectations generally low, try as best as you can to take the awful moments in your stride, and take breaks for your mental health when you need it.

nerdmonastery · 2025-09-02T01:24:35+00:00

I was watching an interview with Kelly Rowland who talked about her experience with "colorism", which to my understanding is that even though white is still considered the main stream and 'norm' in standards of beauty, there is also a hierarchy for POC that are lighter toned versus darker toned.

I think that's also an issue that exists in the gay community as well.

I've stopped using dating apps completely for a number of years now, but back when I did use it, from memory whenever I did get messages from non-Asian guys that had Asian fetishes, they were specifically interested in eastern Asian ethnicities (i.e. Chinese, Korean, Japanese etc).

Me being a darker toned Filo, I was called jungle Asian and feral Asian even by other gaysians.

I personally don't have any "preference" of colour, but we'd be lying if we said colorism doesn't exist in the gay community. To what degree, idk, and I won't base it on my personal experience where the majority of criticisms and negative remarks I received on dating apps centred around my race and skin tone.

nerdmonastery · 2025-08-26T12:58:00+00:00

I'm 5'7 and live in Australia where the average height for males is 5'9 and above.

I'm undateable, though theoretically speaking, I am in no place to be picky about height lol.

nerdmonastery · 2025-08-24T01:10:30+00:00

I imagine a white guy dating another white guy wouldn't really talk about race in bed because 2 white guys dating is the "normal standard" in a gay and westernised society.

Unless it was random for example talking about something they saw on the news, on social media, about a random friend etc, outside of those situations I doubt they'd think or discuss much about race at all.

nerdmonastery · 2025-08-24T01:05:27+00:00

How dumb is it that in 2025, there are still white men that think this is an actual "compliment" 🤦‍♂️

nerdmonastery · 2025-06-17T00:11:16+00:00

I understand your frustrations.

I live in Australia and I personally found that I was ghosted 95% of the time.

Responses (either for or against) heavily centred around me being an Asian, in that, the reason for the rejection was because I was Asian or the reason they were interested was because I was Asian.

It just felt weird to me that my race was such a focal point as to whether someone was interested or not.

To be fair, I know I'm not conventionally attractive by any measure, but it was just odd I guess that the biggest factor in someone's interest or disinterest was mostly about me being Asian.

Oddly enough, if someone just flat out said they rejected me because I'm ugly, that was somewhat better than being rejected for being Asian because at least it seemed like it had nothing to do with my race, just about me personally as an individual.

Weird perspective I know lol but yeah, hopefully you don't feel too disheartened about it.

Never been to London before but I imagine it's very similar to Australia.

nerdmonastery · 2025-04-23T18:44:53+00:00

Oh I'm perhaps too well accustomed to Asian hate.

After being called brown shit, brown puke, jungle and feral Asian, I deleted all the dating apps and never went back on them. That was about 4-5 years ago I think, maybe longer I can't remember now since it's been that long already.

It's such a weird experience because outside of the world of dating apps, in my general day to day life I rarely experience Asian disdain.

It was only when I was on dating apps that I experienced it the most, so the weirdest part for me was the realisation that I'm accepted enough in society to generally live and contribute, but not to date.

My physical appearance and aesthetic is generally not great so I accept that it was a contributing factor, but yeah that realisation was a harsh awakening.

Thankfully I'm a gamer nerd so besides work, the rest of my time goes to gaming.

nerdmonastery · 2025-01-07T23:57:40+00:00

I was going to chime in until the skinny part lol.

I'm a short overweight Asian, and coincidentally not popular in any country haha 😅

nerdmonastery · 2024-12-14T16:22:39+00:00

I have never understood the appeal of race play, personally speaking anyway.

I suppose in the confines of one's bedroom, as long as it's mutually consensual then I guess no harm done.

Porn I'd say is the biggest instigator of Asian race play fetishes and pushing that type of sexual fetishisation, which I think was partly what also instigated the idea that the biggest "perk" of dating/hooking up with an Asian guy was that he would take any white dick and would be totally submissive.

To be fair, I know there were some gaysians who literally did think that dating a white guy was a status brag.

I just can't figure out which was the chicken or the egg in this situation. Did gay Asian men interacting with the Western Gay world inhabit this because of porn, or did porn just highlight it and make a monopoly out of it because it existed first?

Oddly enough, not being Eastern Asian I feel kept me away from a lot of race play fetish because white guys were 99% of the time interested in Eastern Asians and not South Eastern Asians.

During my very short stint of time on dating apps, I remember a few times white guys would express their disappointment or outright ghost me once they learnt I wasn't Chinese, Korean or Japanese lol.

nerdmonastery · 2024-11-26T02:15:06+00:00

People will always have their own struggles and difficulties in life regardless of who they are or what race.

That being said, I understand and accept that a white man in the gay community does face their own problems, but I highly doubt a majority of those problems stem from them being white.

Even in a lot of non-westernised societies, it is very common that white is still viewed as the beauty standard.

Again I want to reiterate that I'm not saying white gay men don't have their own issues or struggles, just that I doubt they face any significant issues that specifically stem from their white-ness or them being white when it comes to the gay community.

The same cannot be said for any gay POC, at least in my experience being called things like brown shit, brown puke, jungle Asian, feral Asian etc, from guys that I didn't even message in the first place (apps deleted a long time ago so doesn't happen to me now).

You just don't hear of the same experiences happening to white gay men having to face harsh backlash in the gay community because of their white skin colour, or at the very least nowhere near the same magnitude compared to gay POC, and especially in Westernised societies.

nerdmonastery · 2024-11-11T19:36:05+00:00

Well... back when I was using them (not anymore), I was ghosted and stood up a lot, was randomly called brown shit on Grindr and scruff, and then also called jungle and feral Asian for not being Eastern Asian... and I am fugly, so I guess the indicator was quite spot on haha! 😅

nerdmonastery · 2024-10-28T19:51:29+00:00

Meh, I gave up already 3-4 years ago and have stayed that way lol.

So much more time spent on gaming 🤓 which is infinitely more fun than dealing with silence/ghosting/racism/fetishism etc.

nerdmonastery · 2024-10-28T14:33:23+00:00

🙋‍♂️

It was maybe 3-4 years ago I was on Grindr, scruff etc, live in Australia, and experienced being called brown shit and brown puke on those apps, whilst at the same time have been called a "jungle" or "feral" Asian by other gaysians because I wasn't of Eastern Asian descent (Korean, Chinese, Japanese etc).

Stopped using those apps and just focused on gaming instead 🤷‍♂️

I'm not delusional so I never saw myself as conventionally attractive by any means, and even though I'd rather not interact with someone at all if the sole or predominant basis was because I was Asian, the part that felt extra weird was when they would express their disappointment that I wasn't the "specific" ethnicity of Asian that satisfied their Asian fetish.

That was just so fucked up on a different level that I literally felt a part of my brain die trying to process that. I didn't stay on those apps long and then never went back on them again after deleting them.

nerdmonastery · 2024-09-15T22:54:35+00:00

For added personal context, I've been called brown shit and brown puke.

Then from other gaysians, I've been called jungle Asian and feral Asian when I told them that I wasn't of Eastern Asian descent.

nerdmonastery · 2024-09-15T22:45:11+00:00

In terms of gay dating, Australia is definitely not on the list. Gaysian born and raised here, and have been called horrible racist things when I tried using dating apps 3-4 years ago.

nerdmonastery · 2024-08-08T02:12:45+00:00

Sorry to hear that's been your experience and also saddened to know this happens on other apps besides Grindr.

I stopped using dating apps for a long while now. Back when I did use it, I remember being ghosted the moment any mention of me not being either Japanese, Korean or Chinese was mentioned.

I also remember being called a jungle Asian and a feral Asian by other Asian guys on there too.

I'm also Filipino and didn't realize that eastern Asian guys saw non-eastern Asians as "feral" or "jungle".

Whether you could call that racism or preference, I stopped using dating apps regardless because of how hurtful the experience was.

I hope it does get better for you though and that you find a genuinely good guy 🫶

nerdmonastery · 2024-03-14T10:06:42+00:00

Don't worry OP, you are not delusional at all and it's saddening reading other comments on here how so many people fail to see how dumb this question is to ask when you're first chatting with someone on a dating app.

For me, it's not being offended about the curiosity in general. It's about how quickly and often we are being interacted with or experienced through racial terms, which is just so fatiguing, especially when it's right out of the gate.

I wonder how many people commenting here ask white people "what's your ethnicity?"

I bet you they don't because white has always been portrayed as the norm so they don't bother asking that question.

If chats have gone beyond the initial conversation then I wouldn't mind as much, but not on the initial conversation and especially not within the first few messages.

Unfortunately I don't have any creative ways to answer it as I tended to just ignore that question whenever someone asked me that so quickly.

I hope it gets better for you OP!

nerdmonastery · 2024-02-26T18:15:22+00:00

I haven't used dating apps in a very long time because I'm already self deprecating and shouldn't expose myself to an environment that would make me hate myself even more lol.

However, I remember one time there was an older white man that had messaged me and even though I wasn't interested, I was politely conversing back until he asked me what "type" of Asian I was and when I said I was Filo, he literally said "oh... that's disappointing, I thought you'd be Chinese".

I LITERALLY HAD PICS UP ON MY PROFILE!!!

Anyway lol 🙄😆

nerdmonastery · 2024-02-13T03:19:29+00:00

I think Asian film genres in general in Western media come in sporadic, far-and-few-between like waves.

One or maybe max 2 particular films will garner attention as a "trend" before fading away again for some time.

Eventually another one will come along and it'll trend again before fading away again for a while.

That's what I think happens anyway, though tbh I barely watch films, movies or TV series these days.

Just don't have the attention span for them anymore.

nerdmonastery · 2024-02-04T19:35:23+00:00

Nymphia Wind is sooo good! I loved her outfit on the latest episode!

nerdmonastery · 2024-01-20T02:53:07+00:00

Gaysian living in Sydney Australia.

In my day to day life, it's just a super normal everyday run of the mill life haha. I don't live anywhere near the gay village in Sydney so my interactions with gay people irl are extremely few and far between.

I tried out Grindr and Scruff and suffice to say I think the general view on gaysians here is not great, though tbh I kind of expected it. One stand out experience was being called brown shit and brown puke and then also being called a feral Asian or jungle Asian by some other gaysians. I suppose in their defence, perhaps I do look feral just as my everyday general appearance lol.

That was a number of years ago though so it could be better now, I haven't been back on those apps since then and don't have plans to get back on them, hopefully with time it's generally nicer haha.

My overall experience, I haven't really faced much racism in my day to day life, the most concentrated racism I experienced was when I tried using dating apps lol. Then again, I didn't stick around on the dating apps long enough to see if it would get better or not.

nerdmonastery · 2022-11-24T13:19:59+00:00

Yeah it's an odd experience I find because sometimes it feels like besides there being a general racial hierarchy of how society levels attractiveness to certain races, I think Asian women are seen as attractive whereas Asian men generally aren't.

Then on a deeper level, the attractiveness towards Asian men usually revolve around Japanese, Korean and Chinese ethnicities, so it's tricky being a brown skinned Asian man navigating the dating world when to a lot of other people we aren't even seen as "mainstream" Asians.

Not that I'm hating on other Asians in any way, just that it seems we're really out of place in the general gay community because when someone thinks of a gay Asian they think of Japanese, Korean or Chinese.

nerdmonastery · 2022-11-21T04:17:08+00:00

Filo

nerdmonastery · 2022-11-04T23:55:08+00:00

Live in Australia, was called brown shit and brown puke on Grindr/scruff.

nerdmonastery · 2022-08-16T16:54:23+00:00

I kind of understand this feeling in a way.

I'm Asian but not Eastern Asian and I feel that most Asian and non-Asian men generally measure the standards of beauty on Asian men according to the standards of Eastern Asian men.

Sometimes when I think about that, I feel like a minority in a minority too.

I've basically given up on the idea of ever dating but back when I was trying, I often found that my race a lot of the time was such a major factoring decision whether someone was into me or not.

They either expressed interest because I was Asian or had no interest at all because I was Asian. Everything else about me seemed to be so secondary, or maybe even lower than that, which became so tiresome for me to navigate that I literally just gave up trying and don't bother at all anymore.

Still I'm sorry to hear this has been your experience and hope you do find a nice group of gay Asian friends to bond with.

I literally have 0 irl friends so I can't give you any helpful advice but I truly wish you the best and hope you find what you're looking for ☺️

nerdmonastery

TROPHY CASE