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The Spectacle Blog
According to Match.com insiders, conservatives are more open-minded to dating someone outside their political circle than liberals. This insight comes from a Financial Times report appearing in Slate, in which Amarnath Thombre, an engineer at Match who works on their algorithm, notes that when they started focusing on how users actually behaved versus what they said they wanted, they found some unlikely results:
As a result, Match began “weighting” variables differently, according to how users behaved. For example, if conservative users were actually looking at profiles of liberals, the algorithm would learn from that and recommend more liberal users to them. Indeed, says Thombre, “the politics one is quite interesting. Conservatives are far more open to reaching out to someone with a different point of view than a liberal is.” That is, when it comes to looking for love, conservatives are more open-minded than liberals.
All kinds of reasons may explain this. And that is why, friends, we have a comments section. Go to town.
View all comments (29) | Leave a comment
More Blog Posts by J.P. Freire
http://spectator.org/blog/2011/08/01/conservatives-are-more-open-mi
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Whitney| 8.1.11 @ 3:32PM
idk I'm a pretty discerning conservative. When I was dating, I definitely had a litmus test for guys, but maybe I'm the exception. If I had to guess, I'd say that because young women skew liberal conservative men are forced to be more open about their mate's viewpoints than liberal men have to be and thus that accounts for the difference.
Al Adab| 8.1.11 @ 3:34PM
Perhaps it is simply because lefties are easier and looser. Depends what one is looking for in dating. Ogden Nash knew.
Pete| 8.1.11 @ 4:00PM
I wonder how that shifts by age group. Under 35, you'd have to open up to the liberal ladies or you'd be chosing from a pretty small pool I'd wager.
Zack| 8.1.11 @ 5:30PM
Bingo. I'd bet conservatives are a pretty significant minority on dating websites for any number of reasons (i.e. they're more likely to be set up by family/meet at church, more likely to be in rural areas, more likely to be older, more likely to be married). Ergo, you're more likely to look outside your group because your group is smaller.
Although, I think Al Adab's probably got a point about "loose" liberal values, too . . .
Dave E| 8.1.11 @ 4:01PM
It's a bad idea for conservatives to be open minded in dating liberals. It can make us conservatives into targets to be exploited.
Margie| 8.1.11 @ 4:23PM
"Conservatives are far more open to reaching out to someone with a different point of view than a liberal is." That is, when it comes to looking for love, conservatives are more open-minded than liberals."
Probably because conservatives think they can possibly convert them.
If a conservative more wants "fun," than anything else, I think they'll date a Liberal, but if a conservative wants a serious relationship that leads to Marriage~ they're playing with fire, and will most likely get burned.
Al Adab| 8.1.11 @ 5:24PM
Margie,
I'm being facetious of course but seeking eros is one set of standards; seeking agape quite another.
Margie| 8.1.11 @ 4:24PM
Either that or they're really Liberal at heart!
CalMark| 8.1.11 @ 4:49PM
Actually, liberal women probably like conservative men a whole lot more than this study shows. All but the most far-left women often call themselves "moderate" (online, real life, everywhere) even in Leftist strongholds.
"Moderate" may be part denial, especially for confused Christian women; part ego ("We moderates rise above all that stuff"); and part practical, to widen the search pool: conservative guys who might dismiss a liberal out of hand might give a "moderate" woman a look. She keeps the leftie b.s. under wraps until the guy warms up to her, then springs the shocking truth.
Not speaking ruefully from experience here, or anything.
Al Adab| 8.1.11 @ 6:05PM
Conservative men ould likely be more stable, have better jobs, and commit to long term devotion.
ConservativeWanderer | 8.1.11 @ 6:12PM
I think you just hit the nail on the head.
Margie| 8.1.11 @ 9:04PM
Yes!
Real American| 8.1.11 @ 5:13PM
that's only because conservatives are more open minded about nearly everything. Leftards only pretend to be.
goodspkr| 8.2.11 @ 10:29AM
Sounds right to me. Conservatives are more likely to think Liberals simply look at things differently. Liberals are more likely to think Conservatives are evil if they think differently.
Dave| 8.1.11 @ 6:03PM
This doesn't surprise me at all, and I know why. It's because liberals are so cute with their nonsensical beliefs. Their naivete is endearing, like children. They are fundamentally unserious people, and those can be fun to date. Not marry, certainly, but date.
MikeBee| 8.1.11 @ 6:34PM
It is the Liberals who are extremely closed-minded. Talk to them: it's their way or the highway. Conservatives have always been more open-minded, more well-rounded, more open to other ways. Doesn't surprise me at all that Conservatives are the same when dating.
That said, to paraphrase Al Adab: a lot of liberal women are stupid. It's far easier to get them into the sack than it is a conservative woman. THAT said, I'd rather marry a conservative woman, any day of the week.
john dubose| 8.1.11 @ 7:27PM
From How to Tell a Republican from a Democrat ( circa 1965 ) Not an exact quote.
" Republican boys tend to date Democrat girls. They plan to marry Republican girls but think they should have a little fun first. "
Nothing new under the sun !!
roll former | 8.1.11 @ 8:24PM
your kick the point, quite agree with you:" Republican boys tend to date Democrat girls. They plan to marry Republican girls but think they should have a little fun first. " interesting
roll forming machines,
Clint| 8.1.11 @ 8:53PM
It's About Those Hot Liberal Cougars:
Ruth "Buzzi" Ginsberg
Hillary "Piano Legs" Clinton
Janet "The Butchter" Napolitano
Elana " Hot Lips" Kagan
Sonia "The Latina Firecracker" Sotomayor
Foxfier | 8.1.11 @ 9:59PM
Like the quip goes: "Conservatives thing liberals are wrong; liberals think conservatives are evil."
Which viewpoint allows you to consider association with someone who is otherwise a good possible match?
(There may also be the area bias effect-- one guy I dated thinks that he's a conservative because he thinks it's obvious that Obama is a total moderate, not a Republican plant.)
A Grin Without a Cat| 8.1.11 @ 11:18PM
I'm going to play devil's advocate. Many on the left would argue that conservative 'openness' is actually desperation.
Foxfier | 8.1.11 @ 11:56PM
I'd say "accuse." Argue implies that it would be used as something besides an attempted insult.
I don't know if Match has pictures, but they'd probably also claim that it's because conservatives are ugly, they smell funny, and they are trolling for rape victims.
A Balrog of Morgoth| 8.2.11 @ 12:31AM
Match.com has pictures, so the devil's advocate goes down in flames. :)
Controse| 8.2.11 @ 2:02AM
As a Reagan/Palin republican celebrating 27 years of marriage to a charter member of the loony democrat left all I have to offer to those looking for love is don't let politics come between you and the love of your life.
Andrew B| 8.2.11 @ 5:51AM
I was, once upon a time, one of those conservative men who dated liberal(ish) women. One of them said something very revealing: She told me "You're closed-minded."
I replied that I didn't really think so, but asked her why she thought it was the case.
"Because", she replied, "you disagree with me and I'm open-minded."
I realized that liberals are irony-deficient, and moved on to a wonderful, conservative woman. Made the right choice.
Robert Arvanitis| 8.2.11 @ 8:12AM
There's a more fundamental point, that came up in a video interview of Eli Pariser by Clay Shirky.
A search engine may believe our stated preferences, but then we end up in a bubble, never exploring anything BEYOND our nominal interests. The more a search engine "learns" about you, the greater the effort you need to make to hear the alternatives.
Second, and related -- our stated preferences are often different from our real tastes. We SAY we like Brahms and the History channel, but ACTUALLY tune to to pop and reality shows...
demographics| 8.3.11 @ 7:30AM
What sites like Match.com ought to do is reveal stats on the number of liberals in large metropolitan areas. AND tell us their ages.
I'll bet we find a lot of older liberals (paricularly older women liberals seeking a mate) in the big, big cities like NYC and Washington, D.C.
The crazy thing is that these liberal women profiles will state "has no children" but "wants children." Average ages are over 35. Uh huh. Like procreating is going to happen.
Adoption maybe. Your own child out of your own womb? Children? (plural)
Do the thesis: Liberal women (and men) grow up a lot later. Liberal women and men wake up and realize the emptiness of secular hedonism much, much later in life.
Mary Johnson| 8.23.11 @ 1:50PM
I have to agree that conservatives are more open to dating liberals, but I think the main reason is because we are intrigued to find out more about their way of thinking. I dating this guy Ron for a few months last year. We met on http://www.onlinedatingsites.net/ but he had claimed "Conservative" on his profile when he was in fact a pretty hard core liberal. He claimed that it was an accident and the computer automatically selected that but I think he was just looking to attract a nice girl... :p Anyways, I must admit that although I didn't agree with a lot of his beliefs I found it exciting to learn more about how he was raised and how he justified everything. In the end though, the difference was just too much to handle, but the important point is that liberals have more life experiences, imo, that tends to attract more conservatives.