Arts & Entertainment
Dating app encourages users to make ‘virtual’ connections


A dating app is telling its users that “now is not the time” for meeting up in person and encouraging them to use their platform to explore virtual relationships instead.
A relative newcomer among the array of dating apps, #open was launched by co-founders Amanda Wilson and David Epstein, who themselves met on a dating app in 2015 and decided to build one of their own a year later. By 2018, their brainchild was in the Apple app store, and Android began offering it in April of 2019. Since then, it has grown to serve over 48,000 users – with an impressive 43,000 matches made.
What makes this app different from Grindr or Tinder, or any of the other better-known players in the game?
According to Epstein, “As our name implies, it’s an app that’s been built for people with a fairly open mindset, when it comes to human sexuality.”
A look at the wide array of identities and orientations among their users (besides offering 24 different gender identities and 23 sexual orientations to choose from, the app also lets you enter your own), as well as the high percentage of people identifying as being in non-traditional relationships, gives a clear picture of why #open has a unique appeal.
Epstein elaborates, “The one thing the users have in our community have in common, more than anything else, is that 95% of our users identify as being in some kind of an open relationship – whether that’s the 28% that are polyamorous or the 5% that consider themselves ‘monogom-ish’ or anything in between.’ That’s the common thread.”
Perhaps the fledgling app’s targeted focus accounts for the growth in its numbers, but with the last two months seeing a particular rise in both new user profiles and user interactions, it’s likely also a reflection of coronavirus fears beginning to drive people online in greater numbers. Whatever the reason behind it, the company’s co-founders want to live up to their core value as an “honest dating app” and make sure its swelling membership is practicing “social distancing” by getting to know potential partners remotely instead.
As Wilson puts it, “People right now are trying to figure out how they’re going to maintain their connection and their community, and their social lives, and apps are meeting one of those needs, obviously. We’ve been saying for a while that dating has been changing, and now this is going to bring more change, for a little bit.”
With that in mind, she says, the company made the decision to send out a message to all of its users on Monday, “urging them to remember that there is no safe sex, there is only safer sex, and that now is not the time to be swapping spit with people, and to stay home.”
Epstein elaborates further, “We’re a sex positive app, and the people in our community understand the incredible importance of transparency – especially when you’re talking about people in polyamorous relationships, or practicing ethical non-monogomy. And of course, we have huge at-risk populations here. We just don’t think you can play it too safe right now.”

Rather than using the app to arrange intimate in-person encounters, the company suggests taking an opportunity to work on aspects of dating that are often ignored in our age of instant gratification.
“We really think it’s a time to explore communicating,” says Epstein, “through the app, or through Facetime or any of the other tools people have available to them on their smart phones.”
“Relationships are all about communication,” Wilson interjects. “So, you know, swipe right more often, talk to people that you wouldn’t necessarily usually talk to.”
“And you know it doesn’t have to be boring,”she adds. “There are things that you can do to spice up your lives when you’re stuck inside.”
“If you are exploring your sexuality,” Epstein elaborates, “we think this is a time to explore it in a virtual way.”
Anyone with a smart phone and a libido is sure to understand exactly the kind of thing they are hinting at, and though it may not be as good as “IRL” for a lot of us, it’s definitely something to explore as a means of getting through what could be a long haul of ethical self-isolation.
“We need to lean into the long game,” Wilson stresses. “In this day and age when you can get anything at any time, within a couple of hours, we’re used to immediacy – but now we can get to know people again, and play around with delayed gratification.”
Epstein interjects, “There will be a lot of delayed gratification built up on the other side of this, and that’s not necessarily a bad thing.”
Wilson, with a similarly positive attitude, sums the situation up.
“We’re going to be in our own homes for a while now – and that’s okay. Dating will rebound.”
Books
Tragedy and comedy intertwined in witty ‘Quietly Hostile’
Irby’s fourth essay collection addresses pandemic, TV writing career, more

‘Quietly Hostile: Essays’
By Samantha Irby
c.2023, Vintage
$17/304 pages
You know from the get-go that “Quietly Hostile,” essayist, television writer and humorist Samantha Irby’s fourth essay collection, is filled to the brim with the author’s mordant wit, cynicism and empathy. Who else but Irby, 43, who has struggled with depression, would write: “This book is dedicated to Zoloft”?
There are zillions of essay collections. But few are as memorable, poignant, funny (sometimes grossly, in a good way) and heart-filled (a term Irby might hate) as “Quietly Hostile”

This long-awaited collection is filled with what Irby would call “good shit”: from hilarious descriptions of her bad dog in doggie day care to bits about, literally, shit, (that will gross you out, but reduce your shame about pooping).
Irby, who is Black and bisexual, grew up in poverty in Evanston, Ill. Her parents died when she was 18 (her mother from multiple sclerosis; her father, who gambled, likely, suffered from post traumatic stress disorder).
At the age of nine, Irby’s mother’s MS went out of remission. While still a child, she was called upon to care for her Mom.
“When I was an actual kid growing up on welfare with a sick mom and expired Tuna Helper from the dollar store, the future and its infinite possibilities stretched before me like a sumptuous buffet I couldn’t afford to go to,” Irby writes.
There is a backdrop of pain, sadness and, sometimes, anger to much of Irby’s humor. But self-pity and rage don’t consume the book.
Irby, the author of “Meaty,” “We Are Never Meeting in Real Life” and “Wow, No Thank You,” knows that the cliche is true: tragedy and comedy often are often intertwined.
It’s fun to learn in “Quietly Hostile” that Irby, who was a writer for the popular TV shows “Shrill” and “Tuca & Bertie,” is as much a fan as the rest of us of the TV shows she loves.
In 1998, Irby couldn’t afford cable or HBO. She had to wait to watch the “City” until it came out on VHS. “The show reflected nothing of my life,” she writes, “but provided something of a road map for my future…” she writes.
In a future, she wouldn’t have dreamed of then, she grew up to become a writer on “And Just Like That,” the “Sex and the City” reboot. (She’s a writer on season two of “And Just Like That” which premieres on June 22 on Max.)
Irby was stunned when Michael Patrick King of “And Just Like That” asked her to write for the show. “I was like … Are you allowed to work on a show like this if you only wear nine-dollar T-shirts,” she writes, “and have no idea how many Brooklyns there are.”
“During my interview,” Irby jokes, “I said, ‘Can I give Carrie diarrhea?’ and I was hired immediately.”
Even ardent “Sex and the City” aficionados may find too much of SATC in “Quietly Hostile.”
No worries: Irby who speaks of herself as being “fat” and “sick” (she has arthritis and Crohn’s disease), riffs on many things in “Quietly Hostile.” Irby turns her sharp wit on everything from what it’s like to run for a public toilet when you have diarrhea to why she’s a David Matthew’s fan girl to her love for (approaching addiction to) Diet Coke to the “last normal day” before the pandemic to the “food fights” that are a part of the most loving marriages.
Grab a Diet Coke (or libation of your choice), tell your bad dog to quit barking and enjoy “Quietly Hostile.”
The Blade may receive commissions from qualifying purchases made via this post.
Theater
Arena’s ‘Exclusion’ is a piece of art about art
Majority Asian production features intelligent performance by Karoline

‘Exclusion’
Through June 25
Arena Stage
1101 Sixth St., S.W.
$56-95
Arenastage.org
When Asian-American historian Katie’s best-selling book about the racist Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882 is optioned for a mini-series by a Hollywood mogul, she couldn’t happier. However, artistic and commercial visions clash and things go awry. This is the premise of Ken Lin’s new comedy “Exclusion” now at Arena Stage.
Katie is played by Karoline, the mononymously named New York-based actor who brings intelligence and energy to every role they tackle.
“I’m similar to Katie — honest to a fault, optimistic, both strong and naïve,” says Karoline, 28. “For me, the challenge is watching Katie choose yes or no at every turn. Should she address what’s coming at her with truth or not? Or hide what she’s thinking? My struggle in life has been similar. How do I stay true and at the same time get what I want in a corrupt world.”
When asked to be part of “Exclusion’s” early development, Karoline was unsure: Doing a piece of art about art can be tricky. But they soon changed their mind.
“The workshop changed my life. I got into the room and it was majority Asian. Seeing Ken [Lin] talk about coming back to theater and about being able to write about Asian people with a play that’s ostensibly a comedy and obviously super personal, drawing from his life and what he’s learned from colleagues.”
Karoline describes their experience with anti-Asian racism as more microaggressions. “I don’t have people point at me saying ‘you’re a chink.’ It’s been subtler versions of that.”
As a stage actor, they’ve had an activist history, taking complaints of racism to a company’s board, a move that can be contentious. Typically, it’s preferred actors “be grateful, listen and interpret, and not speak up.”
When a respected mentor later asked Karoline whether they wanted to be an actor or an activist, they didn’t understand why it had to be mutually exclusive. “I was too young to say it could be both. Now it depends on the situation. Maybe both in theater because I have more of a career there. But in TV, I don’t know.”
Karoline was born in Shanghai and grew up in South Texas where they had little exposure to the arts. After graduation from a pre-med magnet high school (with no intention of a career in medicine), they headed off to Harvard on full scholarship: “I showed my family that I can be smart, but I was going to do my own thing.”
They took a gap year from Harvard to train at Atlantic Acting School, then went to apprentice at Actors Theatre of Louisville. Weeks after moving to New York they were cast as closeted lesbian Bo in Tom Stoppard’s “The Hard Problem” at Lincoln Center Theater.
“I’ve played more than one lesbian in my career,” says Karoline with a chuckle. In the fall, they can be seen in the entire first season of “Death and Other Details” (Hulu) as a very rich lesbian heiress, a darkly funny role.
“It seems when you’re Asian, you’re expected to talk about your parents’ accents or dumplings,” they add. “The narrative is vivid and bright. I wanted to do classical theater so my work could speak about everything else. From the start, I was ready to do the work, and hoped to have a long career that included many different things.”
Not long ago, Karoline shed their surname owing to a difficult childhood and a feeling of estrangement from their family. “It’s unusual, especially for Asian Americans, but after some self-healing and thinking, I decided I didn’t need it. Now I feel a lot freer.”
And there have been other changes in addition to their last name including coming out as queer and sharing their gender identity. This is the first year they’ve only used “they” pronouns.
“When you’re queer, I believe you’re always queer even if you’re not in a queer relationship. I think of my character like that. In this space and time, Katie’s with a man but that doesn’t mean that’s the whole conversation about this person.
“For me, playing Katie in ‘Exclusion’ has been a huge vote of confidence. Sometimes it takes someone writing something wonderful and casting you for you to know where you need to be.”
Out & About
Mayor’s office to host Pride tie-dye party
Guests to make colorful shirts for ‘PEACE. LOVE. REVOLUTION’ theme

The Mayor’s Office for LGBTQ Affairs will host “Love Out Loud: Tie Dye Party for Pride” on Wednesday, June 7 at 5 p.m. at the Frank D. Reeves Center of Municipal Affairs.
The event, hosted along with the DC Center for the LGBT Community and Capital Pride Alliance, will be an afternoon for community and artistry. Guests are encouraged to bring their creativity to make some colorful tie-dye shirts in line with this year’s Pride theme, “PEACE. LOVE. REVOLUTION.”
This event is free to attend and more details are available on Eventbrite.
-
Politics2 days ago
Elon Musk pledges to lobby for criminalizing healthcare interventions for transgender youth
-
Opinions4 days ago
Republicans prove how vile and frightening they can be
-
Asia4 days ago
Second Japanese court rules same-sex marriage ban is unconstitutional
-
Arts & Entertainment4 days ago
Must-attend D.C. Pride events for 2023
-
Texas20 hours ago
Texas governor signs bill banning transgender youth healthcare
-
District of Columbia4 days ago
D.C.’s Pride celebrations include parade, festival, fireworks, and more
-
Delaware5 days ago
Carper’s retirement opens historic possibilities in Delaware
-
Arts & Entertainment5 days ago
Washington Blade, Dupont Underground spotlight D.C. LGBTQ Changemakers with new exhibit