Plant-Based Dating and Sustainable Living
“In a world where we pet dogs and eat lambs, you should not be alone but live responsibly together.”
Dating for Vegans and Vegetarians
A new study shows that a rapid switch of global nutrition to a plant-based, vegan diet could stabilise greenhouse gas levels for 30 years and offset 68 percent of human greenhouse gas emissions this century. A further study concluded that switching one’s own diet to vegan is the single biggest individual contribution a person can make to the environment through their lifestyle.
As an ecologically oriented Green Dating platform, Consonance (Gleichklang) supports plant-based nutrition and lifestyle. Members of Consonance advocate for the vegan and vegetarian lifestyle. They want to overcome the billionfold killing and exploitation of animals by abstaining from meat or all animal products. They are looking for a partnership or friendship in which they can share their vegan or vegetarian lifestyle and values with each other. Many still vegetarian members are already on the path to a vegan lifestyle. Many flexitarian members are also already on the path to a plant-based lifestyle. Read also our dating tips for vegan singles or our dating tips for vegetarian singles
A few numbers:
- Currently, approximately 27% of Consonance members are vegetarians.
- Approximately 7% of Consonance members live vegan.
- In addition, a total of about 50% of Consonance members state that they either already live meat-free or would like to live vegetarian or vegan in the future.
- 20% are already vegan or would like to become vegan in the future.
We specifically support the online dating and friendship search of our vegan and vegetarian members with a special vegan-vegetarian search option:
- All members indicate whether they are already vegan, vegetarian, or would like to become so.
- Likewise, all members indicate how important vegan or vegetarian partners or friends are to them, or whether they would also like to meet people who are not yet vegan or vegetarian but would like to become so.
In fact, we see from these responses that many Consonance (Gleichklang) members want to use a new partnership or friendship as an opportunity to become vegan or vegetarian. Among our vegetarian members, many want to make the transition to a vegan lifestyle together in a relationship. So the attitude is already there, but the habit has not yet been fully overcome.
This also applies to our members who still eat meat, the majority of whom are flexitarians. According to our surveys, only 2% of our members eat meat every day. Our pescetarian members (pescetarians eat fish but no other meat) eat fish less than once a week according to a survey, many only once a month.
As a community, Consonance (Gleichklang) is therefore on the whole on the path to a plant-based lifestyle. Even though we have not quite arrived there yet, we are already further than society as a whole. Through the composition of our community, we can ensure a particularly effective form of matchmaking and friendship search for our vegan and vegetarian members. At the same time, we also support our flexitarian and pescetarian members in taking the path to a completely plant-based lifestyle together.
With good arguments, we also advocate within our community for plant-based nutrition as an environmentally, climate-friendly, and animal-friendly lifestyle. Many of our members have already taken this as an incentive to start plant-based in a new Consonance relationship.
Dating Apps for Vegans and Vegetarians
Even though we are not available as an app to download, we fulfil the function of a vegan dating app and a vegetarian dating app for our vegan and vegetarian members, but go far beyond that:
Basic principles of dating apps
- The basic principle of dating apps is simply that users are shown profiles based on photos, geographic location, age, and gender, to which they can then contact. In a vegan dating app, the other users are correspondingly vegan; in a vegetarian dating app, they are vegan or vegetarian. To our knowledge, the existing dating apps are always intended for vegans and for vegetarians, at least in the German-speaking area.
- On dating apps, the selection is almost exclusively based on the photo and this is usually done in seconds. Message exchanges are often short and rather superficial. There are hardly any opportunities to determine whether someone really fits. Many users of dating apps can also develop a consumption pattern where they keep hoping for a newer and better suggestion. This can reduce willingness to commit, which diminishes the chances of successful online dating. Because dating apps are free in their basic functions and registration is very quick, many users of dating apps are not really looking for a partnership. Other motives, such as a hunger for experiences, banishing boredom, trend orientation, self-affirmation, or (possibly purely virtual) erotic contacts, are often present. This can make online dating on a dating app a proverbial search for a needle in a haystack.
- A vegan dating app or a vegetarian dating app has the advantage for vegans and vegetarians that at least one fundamental lifestyle characteristic is considered through the selection of participants. So on a dating app for vegetarians or vegans, there are certainly better prospects than on one of the major mainstream dating apps.
- However, even on vegan or vegetarian dating apps, the other problems of dating apps remain. There is no psychologically based matchmaking based on compatibility of values and lifestyles. Free access and easy registration lead to many users not really looking for partnerships or not logging out when they are no longer searching. Even on a vegan dating app or a vegetarian dating app, a consumer attitude can develop that reduces the ability to bond. The development of long-term partnership relationships is possible but rather the exception.
Basic principles at Consonance (Gleichklang)
- Just like vegan dating apps or vegetarian dating apps, we enable our members to specifically search for people who live vegan or vegetarian. In addition, we also offer the option of searching for people who are not yet vegan or vegetarian but would like to become so in the future. Just like on a vegan dating app or vegetarian dating app, we also consider factors such as age, gender, or place of residence at Consonance. Users also have the option of adding a profile photo and several additional image galleries. There is also an option for an audio greeting message.
- Unlike dating apps, free text plays a central role with us. According to our evaluations, it is even more important than the photo. While many dating apps limit the space, our members can write detailed texts and usually do so. The texts are written in such a way that they actually say something about the person, their wishes, relationship ideas, life situation, and life principles. Unlike dating apps, in-depth getting to know each other is at the forefront with us. Partner suggestions or friendship suggestions are made over time until a relationship is established. It is not about competition among as many profiles as possible, entertainment, fun, self-affirmation, hunger for experiences, or trend orientation. Unlike dating apps for vegans and vegetarians, we focus on engaging with the individual person, deepening acquaintance, relationship building, and fostering bonding.
- With us, the selection of suggestions is done via a very complex, psychological matching algorithm. Profiles are not displayed immediately for browsing, but a comparison of all members with each other is made with regard to diverse and comprehensive information in order to actually suggest matching members to each other. In contrast, dating apps immediately present profiles that do not have any particular psychological compatibility with each other.
- For our vegan and vegetarian members, we enable online dating and friendship search that takes up the advantages of vegan dating apps or vegetarian dating apps but eliminates their disadvantages. Vegans and vegetarians meet people with us who share their veganism or vegetarianism with them and at the same time have many other compatibilities in relationship models and core values. In this way, we help bring together people between whom the foundation for a happy and stable partnership or friendship actually exists.
More Vegans and Vegetarians Than Elsewhere
Vegan and vegetarian individuals are much more strongly represented at Consonance (Gleichklang) than in the general population. For example, Greenpeace reports a vegetarian share of 3% in Germany and a vegan share of one percent. The National Consumption Study II found a vegetarian share of 1.6% in 2008 and estimated the share of vegans in Germany at only 0.1%. Since then, there has been strong growth in the number of vegans. Currently, the share of vegans in the total population is estimated at 2%. At Consonance, their percentage is much higher than in the general population.
How the Vegan-Vegetarian Search Option Works
With the help of the special vegetarian-vegan search option, Consonance members can restrict their own online dating or friendship search to vegetarians or to vegans. Upon request, members who would like to become vegetarian or vegan in the future can also be included. Of course, any restriction in online dating and friendship search can also be omitted.
We ask all our non-vegan or vegetarian members whether they would like to live vegetarian or vegan in the future, possibly in a new relationship. In this way, we promote the idea of changing one’s lifestyle and enable relationships to develop where such a lifestyle change actually takes place.
Our evaluations confirm the high effectiveness of matchmaking for vegetarians and vegans at Consonance (Gleichklang). Vegetarians can even end their online dating and friendship search more frequently with success than non-vegetarians at Consonance. Vegans have the same probability of success as non-vegans, even though their numbers are much smaller.
Consonance is therefore particularly suitable for vegetarian or vegan singles looking for a partnership. This also includes individuals who feel connected to the concept of vegansexuality, a term introduced based on qualitative surveys by Potts and White (2007). Vegansexual is the orientation of sexual and romantic attraction toward people who eat a plant-based diet, with vegansexual individuals often also describing an aversion to physical-sexual contact with people who consume animal products. Read also our special dating tips for vegan singles.
Consonance as an Alternative Meeting Platform
We are a so-called Green Dating or Eco-Dating platform. The goal is to specifically support people with ecological, sustainable ways of thinking and acting in finding relationship partners with whom they can integrate their beliefs and lifestyles into a lasting partnership or friendship. Through our contact list for projects and communities, we simultaneously support the founding of new ecological projects and communal alliances.
Through our orientation toward ecological relationship seeking, we specifically address nature-oriented, environmentally conscious, animal-friendly, and socially oriented people who often come to Consonance (Gleichklang) for these reasons and can thus get to know each other with us.
The motivation and life attitudes of people who choose Green Dating platforms have meanwhile also been sociologically investigated. In an analysis of profiles of members of such dating platforms, Lukas Kala identified, among other things, the following four central basic dimensions, which we also find in our members:
- Individual assumption of responsibility: The desire to take personal responsibility for preserving the environment and the natural foundations of life on our planet.
- Desired minimalism: The striving for a simple life that renounces hyperconsumption and waste.
- Social criticism: Critical engagement with the attitudes, consumption, and production practices of the majority society.
- Alternative dietary practices: The turn towards plant-based forms of nutrition without the use or killing of animals, without the negative effects of livestock farming on the environment, and for better health.
Out of Personal Conviction
We act out of personal conviction and, with the help of our partner portal vegan.eu, also actively and effectively advocate for the vegan lifestyle.
Through our special vegetarian-vegan search option, we also contribute to the promotion of vegetarianism and veganism. We do this by fostering networks and relationships that from the outset advocate together for a plant-based lifestyle or use their relationship as an opportunity to start plant-based. This orientation is closely linked to the ecological orientation of our members, as plant-based lifestyles conserve resources and show particularly high respect for animal, human, and environment.
People who care about vegetarianism and veganism thus find the suitable platform at Consonance (Gleichklang) to meet like-minded people. By entering their search criteria, our members can specifically steer the search for a suitable person and thus bring their online dating and friendship search to success. The special focus on supporting veganism and vegetarianism makes Consonance equally attractive for singles (online dating) as well as for non-singles who want to find suitable people through friendship search or want to establish or find ecological projects or communities via the contact list.
Consonance differs from typical singles sites, dating apps, or matchmaking services. Because it is not a matter of indifference to us whether the world moves towards more sustainability and a phase-out of livestock farming and animal exploitation or not; rather, we want to promote and accelerate such a development through the relationships found with us. Correspondingly, we attract completely different people than typical dating sites.
The more you identify with the values of an ecological, sustainable, and plant-based lifestyle outlined here, the easier you will find it at Consonance (Gleichklang) and the harder on mainstream platforms to meet suitable people.
