Women find sisterhood in the Are We Dating the Same Guy? Facebook page

Dating is hard, and while Pittsburgh is ranked in the top 20 of cities for single folks, it seems like the women of Pittsburgh beg to differ. 

Divorced with two kids, Heidi Wyno, 45, has had her fair share of trials and tribulations of dating in Pittsburgh. Although the city itself is full of fun things to do and good places to eat, being in the dating pool has made for a challenging swim.

“It’s like a nightmare,” Wyno said. “I never thought I would have this much trouble at 45 finding a connection with someone. The last time I made a match on an app I was on Bumble in January and I got off of it a week later [because of a bad experience].”

Enter Are We Dating the Same Guy? Facebook group dedicated to sussing out potential suitors. With over 3,500 members and counting, users are encouraged to post about online dating matches and men they’ve courted to share the good, the bad and the ugly. 

To put it simply, the group was born because “I got pissed off at a man one day,” founder Katelyn Ziskind said. 

The 23-year-old nursing student explained that the online dating experiences she’s had since moving to Pittsburgh from New Jersey four years ago for college have left her cautious and weary. 

From poor communication to lying about one’s identity to ghosting to refusal to commit, Ziskind feels like she’s seen it all.

In May 2022, she created the Facebook group as a way for women to connect and potentially help one another in undesirable dating situations.

She said the University of Idaho killings, in which four students, three of whom were young women, were stabbed in an off-campus residence last November, emphasized the need for a safe space for women. 

“Pittsburgh is a city, but it’s not that big a city, and everybody knows someone,” Ziskind said. 

At first, activity in the group was pretty minimal, Ziskind said, but today, she sees hundreds of requests a week to join. The group is used almost like a database, she said.

Comments debunking height claims, verifying information through mutual friends and offering opinions and advice flood in underneath a post once a user shares a screen grab of a potential match’s dating profile or message exchange. 

“You don’t know a person,” Ziskind said. “They’re very capable of a lot of things that you don’t realize, and if you could save yourself the heartache and just throw it up in a group rather than wasting so much time and energy into a person, might as well.” 

Although the group consists predominantly of women, Ziskind said it is open to anyone looking to date men. Recently, the group was closed so that only current members could invite others to join, in an effort to control membership requests.

Kaylin Martella, 36, said being in the Facebook group has saved her “a lot of hassle.”

“Guys that I see on dating apps that are already posted in the group with a history of violence or being inappropriate, I just swipe left now instead of wasting my time,” Martella said. 

“It’s interesting to see these like warnings about people and just how sleazy some people are,” she continued. “It’s astonishing what some of these guys do. Some of them are married, and they’re still on dating apps. I think it’s a good way to protect other women because if you don’t want to get involved in all of that you already have the warning. You already know about it.”

Wyno learned about the group through an Instagram Reel that highlighted similar Facebook groups in different cities. After looking up Pittsurgh’s rendition of the trend, Wyno said she found a man she had been seeing intermittently for the past two years posted in the group by a number of other users. 

“I should have trusted my gut, but I found this group, and sure enough, I found everything out about him that I thought,” Wyno said. “I can’t say that I was surprised, but everyone was so forthcoming and trusting. … It was eye-opening.”

Because she’s not originally from the area, Wyno is grateful for the women she met and the friends she’s made, calling it “the best part of this group.”

“It’s like a sisterhood,” she said. “There’s a lot of wonderful things about the group. It’s helped me in a lot of ways, seeing things from a different perspective.”

As moderators of the group, Ziskind and Wyno have had to weed out fake profiles, screen posts for malicious comments and combat angry men who learn about their appearance in the group. 

Yet, the two women both seem to it take all in stride, remaining adamant that “If you don’t want bad things shared about you, don’t treat women poorly,” Wyno summarized. 

While some may think Are We Dating the Same Guy? is a “guy-bashing group,” the group works to protect women from dangerous or unsafe situations, Wyno explained. 

Sometimes, women will privately reach out to Ziskind and Wyno to share their stories or ask for the moderators to anonymously post about a man who may be a threat to others. 

According to the National Coalition Against Domestic Violence, about 37% of Pennsylvania women and about 30% of Pennsylvania men experience intimate partner physical violence, intimate partner sexual violence and/or intimate partner stalking in their lifetimes. 

“There’s been a lot of women who have been sexually assaulted, who have been physically abused and mentally abused, a lot of women with restraining orders. They’re coming to tell their story, and I think that’s really important. They’re brave enough to name the person that hurt them,” Wyno said. “So now it’s kind of turned into this labor of love for me because I would just protect every single one of these women if I could.”

Other times, women post about the good experiences they’ve had with men, sharing that although they personally won’t be planning a second date, this guy comes with a good rating. 

Dana S., 46, said the last time she dated was in the ’90s. Since then, she’s had a divorce, a few kids and an established career. Yet, online dating remains unfamiliar, so she welcomes the advice of others in Are We Dating the Same Guy?

“It’s a secure thing, and women have to stick together, especially in this day and age,” she said.

“I had a date with a guy who I didn’t hit it off with, but everything else was great, and I posted him in the group, saying I had a good time but didn’t click … so in the future, anyone interested down the road can search his name, look through the photos and find this guy and see, ‘OK, this woman has had an experience with him and it wasn’t horrible,’” Dana said.

Looking ahead, Wyno said she only sees the group continuing to grow. Despite having to deal with the occasional “angry man,” the group is helping people, and the interactions are fun and empowering. 

“I don’t see the group dissolving as long as everyone can try to get on the same page are you in the group,” she said. “There’s got to be some sort of level of trust there, but it’s not a secret that these groups are out there.”