Harvard Men, Seeking Men Online

“Harvard senior, just back from the bars.... looking for something now and on campus” reads one post under the “men seeking men” section of personals on craigslist.org. Another post is a bit less explicit: “Hey, im 20, a student at Harvard… i hate using craigslist and im pretty skeptical about it however hopfully ill be able to meet some chill guys from the area for whatever really. we can grab coffee and see where things go.”

For many students at Harvard, online dating is a prominent (albeit, not often talked about) part of their social lives. JDate.com, eHarmony, match.com, and craiglist all have their share of Harvard posts. Yet among Harvard undergraduates, it seems as though the gay community feels less of a stigma attached to online dating.

“Especially with craiglist, gay men are the people who use it the most. If you look at the ads for men seeking women, or women seeking men, or women seeking women there are fewer of them,” says Brandon J. Ortiz ’12, who has used the site in the past.

“Informally, anecdotally, I do notice that there tends to be more open conversation about it amongst my gay friends than amongst my straight friends,” says Marco Chan ’11, Co-Chair of Harvard College Queer Students and Allies. While he is less certain that online dating is truly more prevalent in Harvard’s gay community, he does suggest a possible reason.

“To some extent, being queer makes you more keenly aware of the fact that the dating pool statistically, numerically, will be smaller than the general population,” says Chan. “In Harvard, like any other community, there are people with very diverse interests and very diverse needs.”

Rafael T. Quintanar ’10 met his boyfriend of nearly a year and half, who attends Tufts, through OKCupid.com, an online dating site. “It’s the only way that I would have met him and I’m really glad that I did it,” he says.

Quintanar’s use of online dating sites began when he was in high school. “There weren’t really any other gay guys at my high school. The Internet was an easy option,” says Quintanar. “Then I just continued staying on it because I had experiences of meeting new friends.”

But be wary of a craiglist user like “hot, horny, close to Harvard Sq.” He might have something more than friendship on his agenda.