Online Language Exchanges Apps are Exhausting for Women

Learning a new language is a necessity turned personal passion. However, developing your skills doesn’t exempt you from inappropriate behavior from people online.

Language exchange platforms are online spaces where you can find and talk with people who want to learn and practice languages. There are lots of platforms with different expectations of who’s doing the conversing.

In essence, it’s supposed to foster a better way to find people to speak your target language. Even better if they want to learn your own native language! However, your experience on these apps is drastically different if you’re a woman.

The promise of connecting with new people

When you first log onto these apps, you’re excited. You’re thrilled to find a community — a priceless tool — to build up your language skills. And you can offer up something up to others: your native English. You scroll through the public community feed, observe a few profiles, and send a couple of messages.

Many of these conversations will fall short after introductions and short exchanges. That’s okay. Some people are looking for small, frequent exchanges with different people based on their language level. After some tries, you might even find someone to bond with over long conversations in one or more languages.

Experiencing language exchanges as a woman is exhausting

While you find a handful of great people to connect with, you will find hundreds of others who are creepy, cross boundaries, and/or spam you constantly.

The fact that I’m a native English speaker is enough for others to message me, even if I don’t speak any of their target languages. But in many cases, these messages start as, or quickly delve into, an attempted “courting” session by the other person.

“You’re so much prettier than my English teacher.”

“Oh you look so nice and sweet, would you teach me English darling?”

“Please reply quickly. I’m eagerly awaiting your attention dear…”

Just like that, the “online” status that shows on my profile is like a neon sign attracting these messages like moths to a flame.

The demand for English natives and anglophone-guilt

If you’re a native English speaker, congrats. You’re speaking the most sought-after languages in the world. Your ability to have English as your native language has nothing to do with your worth as a human being and everything to do with the circumstances of your situation.

It’s precisely this though that made me do a double-take with some of the messages I was receiving. Some of these people probably had different senses of “normal” for what’s appropriate in conversation. Like many women, I’ve been gaslit when I don’t respond appropriately to unwanted “compliments” and negging.

But folks is it really worth it to put your time and energy into someone who doesn’t even see you as a person. You already know the answer: it’s no.

Instead, investing your time into people who don't drain your energy (at the least) or harass you (at the worst) is not a sin. Sure, it’s important to be kind and open. But what is kindness worth when you become a doormat?

Use language exchange apps in waves, and try to stay off of them

This is my ultimate advice for women using language exchange apps in general. I’ve made some very nice friends from these places, and it’s been fun to keep speaking with them months down the line. Returning to language apps for a short time to vet a few language partners and then leaving has saved my sanity.

It’s honestly so taxing. I return to these platforms in the hopes that my experience will be better. Yet each time, I’m disappointed.

I can at least control, to some extent, the people I allow into my space in real life. It puts the power back in my hands.

I don’t have the patience to let ill-behaved people cross boundaries, not even on language apps, and you shouldn’t either.

This article was originally published on the author's Medium profile.