I’m Bi and Would Never Share Locations With a Man

But with a girlfriend? Absolutely.

Years ago, I was having dinner with a friend when she wondered why her husband wasn’t home from work at his usual time. To find out where he was, she checked his location, which he’d shared with her. 

“What?” I said, completely weirded out. “You track him at all times? And he tracks you?” I was so disgusted, I couldn’t even find words polite enough to say out loud. Enmeshed! Codependent! Gross! Why didn’t they trust each other? 

I thought of sharing phone locations as a creepy, Black Mirror-coded, necessary evil to be used only as a safety measure — with your kids, for example, when they have their first smartphones and first subway commutes to school. You spy on your child out of love and anxiety and in case they lose their phone the way they shed their beautifully constructed water bottles. (Seriously, where do they go? Is there a raft of titanium thermoses bobbing along the Gowanus?)

I was married to a man at the time, and I couldn’t imagine sharing locations with him. It wasn’t that I thought either of us was doing anything bad. It was just that the idea of him knowing where I was at all times made me feel like screaming. What if he asked how much I’d spent at a cafe I went to in the middle of the day? What if he knew the kids and I were at the playground all day with the stay-at-home dad he thought I had a crush on, and had gone back to his apartment (for lemonade, I swear)? I didn’t feel like explaining every movement of my day. I also didn’t necessarily want to know where he was when, for example, he went out for drinks after work. It just didn’t feel like my business.

At the time I thought, How healthy, the way we give each other space! 

It was a new concept to me — trusting your partner as much as you trust your best friend.

Then we got divorced. 

When I started dating again, all my relationships shifted, including with my phone. I still remember the first time my best friend said, “I’m going on a date with this guy tonight,” and sent me his contact card (the name something like “Ryan Tinder”). She shared her phone’s location with me and texted, “In case of murder, avenge me!” It’s the kind of horrifying thing single women say to each other all the time, and we’re joking, but we’re also not. Like, seriously, Ryan Tinder, if she disappears, you don’t even want to know how many women will make you pay after listening to my podcast about hunting you down.

Soon I shared locations with three of my friends, who were also on dating apps and therefore frequently off in weird corners of the city with random men. It’s simply a strange truth of straight dating that women are always a tiny bit worried about being murdered or at least assaulted. I promise I have mostly dated the gentlest and most feminist of men, and yet still, there is always a tiny threat of — not physical violence, exactly — but there’s always a little … something. And I never shared my location with those men, not even the ones I dated for significant periods of time. Just — why? Ew. The Man watches and judges me enough, so: no thanks. 

One winter I spent a week in Paris by myself. I wandered around alone for hours, getting by with my caveman French. And I met men from dating apps, drank with them in dark bars at night, did things I’d ground my teenage daughter for. But I felt safe knowing Carley, Amanda, and Lena knew my location at all times, felt cozy in the knowledge that Amanda would text every now and then to make sure I was where my phone thought I was, and that I was okay. 

Having my friends watch over me allowed me to feel free to move around a foreign city alone. It’s one of the very particular new emotions that our digital lives have invited into our bodies. Maybe if it had a name, it would be something like spy-joy or surveillove. Sharing locations with someone says, “I’m looking out for you,” and also, “I have no judgment for you, and nothing to hide from you.” 

After my divorce I realized I trust my female friends with more unvarnished information than I’d ever shared with my husband or boyfriends. We text each other about good sex and bad sex and yeast infections and outfit checks and what we dreamt last night and what do you think this mole is. Things no one would want to share with a romantic partner. Or so I thought. 

Now, I’m nearly a year into my first serious romantic relationship with a woman. And I finally did it. I share my location with her, and she shares hers with me. Maybe I’ve just relaxed into the inevitable role of Big Brother (Big Sister?) in my life. Maybe I’m gayer than I thought. Maybe my partner and I actually are as enmeshed as the location-sharing couple I was once horrified by. Maybe we all have different reasons why we share what we share with who we share it. 

No one wants to feel trapped when you’re in a beautiful city like this.

I like knowing where she is. I get a rush seeing her little profile picture — she just had a haircut, and a lollipop from the barber hangs out of her mouth like the cutest bad-boy greaser — running around the neighborhood doing errands, or going down the highway as she leaves town for a weekend. And it comforts me knowing that she knows where I am. That she wants to know. 

Her surveillance feels like love.

Amy Shearn is the author of 5 novels including Animal Instinct, a queer exploration of divorce, sex, and surviving the pandemic, which is available for preorder.