There are plenty of ways to go about dating — more than ever before, really — but nevertheless, it’s a challenge for the vast majority of us. When it goes well, dating can be magical. When it doesn’t, it’s worse than a root canal without Novocaine.
What’s important is finding a connection. And as much as it’s good to keep an open mind when you’re trying to partner up, we all have our preferences.
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With the number of people on dating sites and apps these days, there have to be ways to narrow them down and sort through them all.
Dating sites tend to be getting better at matching you up with someone who shares your interests and aligns with your preferences, but one thing that’s popping up more and more goes well beyond who likes long walks on the beach: climate change.
Now, OKCupid is letting its users filter out climate change deniers in their preferences.
Apparently, this isn’t a gimmick, either.
The company told Earther that they’ve noticed a 240% increase in its users adding terms like “climate change,” “environment,” “global warming,” “Greta Thunberg,” and “recycle” to their profiles, indicating that people consider the planet a priority in a dating partner.
OKCupid has some pretty granular filtering for preferences in general.
You can filter out those who you don’t think would agree with your political beliefs, for example, if that’s going to be a deal-breaker. But according to OKCupid, climate change is quickly becoming the hot button issue for its users.
OKCupid’s global communications manager told Heated that their users are “really engaged and passionate about the leading issues of our time, including climate change. There was actually an 800% increase in mentions of Greta Thunberg on profiles around the world on OKCupid in 2019.”
The data makes a pretty compelling case for including a climate change filter.
OKCupid says that 97% of its users believe climate change is real and more than 82% are concerned about it.
The number of users who ranked climate change as the cause most important to them, above things like the economy, eradicating disease, and world peace, rose by 138% over the past decade, reaching a clear majority, 51%, in 2019.
It’s not just OKCupid seeing climate change becoming a big deal-breaker for daters.
Tinder reported that, especially among those under the age of 25, climate change was one of the most popular topics its users mentioned in their profiles, according to Reuters .
Whether the increased focus on issues like climate change is actually helping dating app users find deep connections with partners is unclear, but apparently it’s enough of a priority to make baking it into the algorithm worthwhile.
