Dating app biases: the least swiped group on dating apps is Asian men & how to challenge our own dating biases

Asian men are twice as likely as Asian women to be single. Black women face the same exclusion from the other direction. This is not a coincidence and it is not about attraction - it is about bias, and dating apps have made that bias faster, more efficient, and easier to never have to examine.

I wanted to make this episode because of two things I have noticed. The first: every time I post about dating in India, Indian men get flooded with racist comments - comments that would never be said about a white man doing the exact same thing. The second: I am a white woman dating in India, and I have had to sit with an uncomfortable truth: in a country still shaped by colonial history, my whiteness makes me more desirable to many people here than I would ever be considered at home.

That is a bias I benefit from.

Harry Au, psychologist and social worker whose practice focuses on the Asian experience in North America, joins me to talk about what it is actually like to be a single Asian man navigating dating apps built on a hierarchy he did not choose and cannot opt out of. We talk about the research, the stereotypes, where they come from, and - more importantly - what each of us can actually do to check our own dating biases instead of pretending we don't have any.

This episode is a departure from my usual single-women focus, and I am not sorry about that. Last Year of Single exists because nobody is having an honest conversation about what it is actually like to be single and that conversation has to include people who are not straight white women, because the rom-com version of single life was never the whole story.

In this episode:

• The research on racial bias in dating apps. What the data actually shows, and why
• Why Asian men are twice as likely as Asian women to remain unpartnered
• What it is actually like to date as a single Asian man in North America
• The specific stereotypes Asian men face and where they historically come from
• Why Indian men get disproportionately racist comments when dating content goes viral
• The uncomfortable truth about whiteness and desirability in post-colonial India
• How to actually check your own dating biases. Practical steps, not just awareness
• Why "I just have a type" is rarely as innocent as it sounds

Harry Au is a registered social worker and psychologist whose practice, Asian Therapy, focuses specifically on helping Asian clients navigate identity, family and relationships. He holds a Master's in Gender Studies and Feminist Research from McMaster University.

This is not a comfortable episode. It is an important one.

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Harry Au: https://www.therapywithharry.com/

Substack memoir: breesteele.substack.com

Instagram: @breesteele.mp3

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