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Friday, Jul 10, 2009
Niche political dating sites are the latest rage in online romance. But aren't we already polarized enough?
Jul 13, 2004 | For Chris, a striking blue-eyed graduate student from San Francisco, the right politics, that is, her kind of politics, is a key qualifier for a potential date.
"They don't have to be exactly the same, but politics are an important part of my life and I want to be able to talk to people who I am very close to about them," says Chris, 35. She describes herself as playful and progressive and lists "changing the world" as one of the five items she couldn't live without on her profile on Act for Love, a "cause oriented" and politically progressive dating site.
Chris has tried it both ways. But dates set up online with guys who had very different politics made her realize that she wasn't likely to connect with a person unless he shared her political direction. Match.com and Yahoo.com gave her plenty of options, but the people she found there didn't have nearly enough in common with her. Still searching, she finds herself wishing Act for Love were better known and had more members so she'd have more similarly politically minded options for her next date.
Politically specific dating sites are on the rise. That politics has been co-opted as yet another targeted market for dating sites shouldn't come as a big surprise to anyone, given both the rapid proliferation of dating sites and the hype of the presidential election. Act for Love's co-leader, John Hlinko, says business in the past several months has taken off. Jupitermedia reports that at least 29 million Americans used online dating services last year, and there are as yet no signs of a slowdown, with revenue growth of $250 million forecast over the next four years. Many site owners expect the election year will increase the traffic on their sites.
The growing popularity of political dating sites raises some provocative questions. The United States has already been sectioned into red and blue states, and the dialogue between people who share differing political views seems to some observers to be at an all-time low. Dating sites are supposed to bring people together. But doesn't ruling out possible dates on the basis of their politics simply contribute even more to the walls dividing people from each other?
Some experts on dating are unworried. Author and online dating consultant Evan Marc Katz sees the recent explosion of political dating as just the latest niche in the Internet dating phenomenon. He agrees that the sites play a hand in at least slightly polarizing the political landscape, but he still thinks narrowing one's dating field by joining dating sites that correspond to a brand of politics makes perfect sense.
"When people have fundamental beliefs or core values, why would you go out with someone who doesn't have the same?" says Katz, the author of "I Can't Believe I'm Buying This Book: A Commonsense Guide to Successful Internet Dating" and founder of the dating consultant firm E-Cyrano. "James Carville and Mary Matalin are the exception and not the rule."
Katz says that people already self-segregate, and the people capitalizing on this idea are just making it easier for people to find like-minded mates.
"For people who are really serious Democrats or Republicans, or liberal or conservative, it makes perfect, rational sense to go to a site where everyone is starting with that same base. There's a site for everything. They're not equal in size, but for people who have a common interest, whether that be politics or religion or sexual fetish, it makes sense to start there. And then they can build on that."
