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We're Engaged To Be Married. We're Also On Tinder Looking For Threesomes.

“Either it sucks and the two of us go home and have sex with each other, or it’s awesome and the three of us go home and have sex with each other.”
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Swiping on Tinder is so much more time-consuming when you’re also busy planning a wedding.

Just ask Michael and Zara. The 20-something couple, who chose to use pseudonyms for this interview for their privacy, recently got engaged after dating for three and a half years. Last year, the Los Angeles-based pair made the mutual decision to scour dating apps for threesome partners and other couples to hook up with.

“So far, we have only gone on these dates together,” Michael told us. “It has been a very fun experience, especially being able to elicit those feelings of excitement, flirty nervousness and jitters that come with a first date.”

Couples’ profiles can verge on creepy, or at least overtly sexual, but Michael and Zara’s Tinder profiles are far from it: Right up front, Michael’s profile mentions that he and his fiancée are looking for down-to-earth people. Once you scroll past his solo pic, there’s plenty of couple selfies to confirm his and Zara’s coupledom.

Since creating the accounts, the pair have been on dozens of dates. Some are better than others, but even when the date is lackluster, Michael and Zara always get to go home with their favorite person. It’s a win-win.

Below, we talk to Michael and Zara about their dating app “rules,” their best dates so far and how their relationship has changed since Tinder.

How did you guys come to the decision to open up your relationship? Who broached the subject? What was the conversation like?

Zara: It was something we’d been joking about for a few months. Then I had an injury that kept me bored at home and I wanted to make having a threesome my new project. It was much easier than I thought it would be. We joined an app called Feeld (formerly 3nder) and just started chatting with a few people.

Michael: We always talked about it as a way to have some extra fun in our relationship and meet new people, so there was never a moment we had to sit each other down and say, “We need to have a serious conversation about opening up our relationship.” We just decided to entertain the joke and see where it took us.

Do you both have accounts? Who’s been more successful in finding people?

Zara: I have a separate Tinder account that I use for my own dates. I look mostly for women or couples. Michael looks for anyone he thinks will interest either or both of us. I’m primarily interested in using Tinder to connect one-on-one with other women since I feel like I’ve had my fair share of experiences dating cis-hetero men.

Michael: I have various profiles, some of which are connected up with Zara or mention her. I will usually quickly make it clear to anyone I am chatting with that Zara and I are looking for dates together.

I tend to not want to spend a lot of time chatting unless I think it’s likely to turn into a date. That was the case when I was single as well. So I will usually talk to Zara about who I have matched with to gauge her interest in going on a date with them. If she isn’t interested, more often than not I will let the conversation with the other person or couple die off online. We are both pretty successful at finding matches. The struggle is finding people we are both are interested in going on dates with. At this time, Zara is open to going on some solo dates with women, and I am exploring doing the same with some men.

Did you have any idea going into the relationship that either of you would be willing to explore an open relationship?

Michael: It was not necessarily a goal I had for my relationships, but dating or sleeping with other people felt like a natural progression from a monogamous relationship where we both felt very secure. In a past long-term relationship of mine, my ex actually pushed for something similar but our relationship was very rocky. Given the bad state of the relationship, the idea at the time was very off-putting to me and we never pursued it.

Zara: Before this, I don’t think I thought I’d be able to do it. I’d dabbled in group sex, but never with my own partner involved. I thought I would be too jealous and too possessive or distrustful, but then again, I didn’t think I’d ever be in a very stable loving relationship, either. I also thought that I had a finite amount of love to give and that splitting that between my primary partner and someone else would somehow lessen the love I had for Michael, but I’ve found that to be untrue.

How many people have you met and hooked up with through dating apps?

Zara: We’ve probably been on about a dozen or so dates from the various apps we’re on, Tinder and Feeld.