One of my male friends (Jim) complains that discrimination against marijuana people is huge when you use online dating sites and apps.
He showed me his nice-looking profile and Facebook page.
He also showed me responses from women he tried to connect with, and other data from several of the most popular dating sites and apps, such as e-harmony, Tinder, match.com, datehookup.com, chemistry.com, SpeedDate, and PlentyOf Fish.
I saw the fact many women he heard from are prejudiced against marijuana users!!!
“As soon as I tell a woman I’m a stoner, that’s pretty much the end of the conversation,” he said. “I’m a legal weed grower but still I take a risk to be candid, because marijuana is so important to me. What do I get for my honesty? I get dissed.”
Jim said he’s been skyping, online chatting, and app socializing with women who like the fact that he’s a water quality inspector with a master’s degree, a surfer, fit, and a nice guy.
“The chemistry is there and all’s well until I say I’m into weed,” he laments. “Then all of a sudden they’re like ‘Umm, I’m not into druggies. Later.’”
I’ve been talking about this with friends. We agree the old Cheech and Chong, Harold and Kumar, Pineapple Express, Willie Nelson stoner stereotypes are a part of the negative vibe Jim gets from women.
He blames 80 years of reefer madness and other drug war propaganda.
“I ask why they’re against marijuana users and growers,” he reports. “They say we’re lazy criminals, losers, forgetful, dangerous, irresponsible, immature, addicted. All that drug war bullshit. It really pisses me off.”
Jim counters those stereotypes by pointing out he had a 3.91 grade point average in university, has a graduate degree, is a surfer and snowboarder, and has never even had so much as a traffic ticket.
“Sometimes I get pissed off and ask, hey, chick, do you drink alcohol? And they say ‘yeah I’m a social drinker.’ Like, they go out and get hammered on a regular basis, and they’re judging me? I find it offensive, and I tell them that they’re the one with the drug problem, and they’re prejudiced on top of that,” he says.
So how can a stoner, and especially a cannabis grower, safely and successfully participate in the dating scene?
I have to say that telling anyone you’re a marijuana grower is a security risk.
You just don’t do it unless you’re absolutely positively totally 100% sure you can trust that person with information they could use to get you busted, ripped off, or blackmailed.
Which means, especially don’t tell somebody from a dating site or dating app, until you’ve met them in person many times and have totally legit reasons to believe they’re very trustworthy people who’d never nark you or otherwise harm you.
There are marijuana dating sites and apps, but so far the reviews on them are mostly negative, and I wouldn’t even begin to recommend them until they’ve got a positive and proven track record.
I’m referring to services like 420singles.com, my420mate.com, stonersingles.com, cupid420.com (these are online dating sites), and High There, which is a “Tinder” for marijuana users.
The big problem is, how do we know for sure drug warriors aren’t creating or monitoring these marijuana dating sites or apps to bust us? We don’t.
Let’s face it, online dating sites and apps are inherently storing information including your GPS location, your actual IP address, you real name and email address.
There’s no real security when you’re in the online dating or apps world, and if you’re a cannabis grower, lack of security can create disaster.
My advice to anyone who owns or wants to create dating sites and apps for marijuana people is: you have to show us 100% for sure that you’re part of the cannabis community and guarantee that narks aren’t going to sting us via your dating site or app.
Marijuana singles are more likely to find success on marijuana grower forums, which often have a singles or “chill out” section, or on a Craigslist dating section in places where marijuana is totally or almost-totally legal such as Denver, Seattle, Portland, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Boulder, and other 420-friendly places.
Although beware, scammers abound on Craigslist!
If you live in Colorado or Washington, the most legal states in America, you may be able to meet date-worthy people at recreational marijuana dispensaries, and at events or activity sites that cater to weed.
My personal advice is that dating sites and dating apps are for singles who aren’t able to easily meet someone in person and get to know them as a potential lover, dating prospect, or life partner.
Some but not all people who rely on dating sites and apps are people who aren’t physically attractive enough to get hit on every day in real life.
Any woman who is reasonably attractive and has a nice personality is going to get hit on many times per day.
If she’s on a dating site, you have to ask yourself why.
Some people who use dating sites or apps are loners or recluses who have life situations in which they don’t socialize.
Worse yet, some of these people may have personality disorders that make it hard for them to engage successfully in social contact.
In some cases, as with my friend Jim, the person may just be too busy to meet people.
Or maybe the person has been burned in regular dating, and as with shopping on Amazon.com, he just wants to look at a singles “catalogue,” find a photo and profile that looks attractive, and make contact.
Jim finally gave up trying to find dates.
“I realized that relying on a woman to make me happy, well it just wasn’t worth it,” he said. “I’m going to focus on career enhancement, fitness, surfing, and growing the kind of buds I love that are worth $4000 a pound wholesale. If a woman is meant to happen for me, she will.”
One big problem of is most dating sites, including the supposedly premium online dating sites like e-harmony, are full of scammers, fake profiles, losers, etc.
Dating via online sites or dating apps may at first seem easier and less time-wasting than how people met and dated before the Internet and app era, but until the stoner stigma goes away, those of us in the marijuana community must be aware of the prejudices and security risks we face when reaching out for a hook-up, or a potential life partner!
As far as I’m concerned, if a person doesn’t love marijuana, they’re not going to get any love from me!