Values in Online Dating and Partner Search

“In a world where much goes wrong, you should not be alone but improve it together.”

We at Consonance (Gleichklang) follow this motto and consistently implement it in a value-based dating practice. Green Dating for us is an expression of an attitude that connects dating, partner search, and matchmaking with the desire to bring together people who think ecologically and sustainably. It is not only about romantic relationships but equally about finding friends, building friendships, and enabling sustainable communities to emerge.

Through our value-based dating, we also bring your relationship search to success:

See for yourself and join: ➨ SIGN UP NOW!

The People Who Choose Consonance as a Dating Platform

Consonance (Gleichklang) specifically addresses people in the German-speaking area who are looking for relationships in which personal happiness and shared responsible action for a better world are connected. Members of Consonance advocate for sustainability, environmental protection, and climate protection as part of their lifestyle. Green Dating for us means taking ecological responsibility seriously in social networking, encounter, and partner search. At Consonance, you will find like-minded people who care deeply about ecological values and a conscious approach to resources, nature, and consumption. Partner search, finding friendships, and communities become an expression of shared ecological values in our alternative online dating.

Value-Based and Inclusive Green Dating

Consonance (Gleichklang) is part of the Green Dating movement. Within this classification, the Consonance community stands out by not only referring to ecological concerns but also supporting and living other emancipatory basic attitudes in its vast majority.

A recent member survey clearly illustrated this orientation. For nine central emancipatory issues, respondents stated that these were “particularly close to their hearts” — with the following approval rates:

• 99.5%: Commitment against the progressive destruction of natural life foundations

• 96.8%: Engagement for an end to the exploitation of animals

• 98.6%: Promotion of genuine equal opportunities for people with disabilities and illnesses

• 96.7%: Rejection of racism and antisemitism and commitment to overcoming them

• 93.6%: Support for measures against right-wing populism and right-wing extremism

• 90.6%: Equality for homosexual and bisexual people, including the right to marriage and adoption

• 86.1%: Solidarity with refugees

• 85.5%: Commitment to gender justice and overcoming patriarchal structures

• 84.5%: Commitment to social participation and emancipation of trans*, intersex, and other gender-diverse individuals

A comprehensive foundational text by our co-founder and psychologist Dr. Guido F. Gebauer on the foundations, theory, and practice of ecologically oriented Green Dating can be read here: Ecological Dating in Foundation, Theory, and Practice.

Green Dating: Value-Based and Inclusive Partner Search and Friendship Search

Five Central Ethical-Social Themes of Consonance Members

Within these four central thematic areas, the members of our dating community move:

1. Personal ecological responsibility
Central is the will to live one’s own life as responsibly, sustainably, and healthily as possible. Many experience a lack of support in their immediate environment and therefore seek people who share this aspiration. The focus is on protecting one’s own living environment and health through simple, natural, and ecological lifestyles.

2. Desired minimalism
A simple, self-sufficient life serves as a counter-model to hyperconsumption and overload. The focus is on practicing modesty, reducing one’s ecological footprint, and strengthening emotional connection with people and nature. Minimalism is understood as a personal path to finding inner peace and clarity.

3. Distancing from majority norms (“green codes”)
Many consciously orient themselves against the cultural and consumption-related models of mainstream society. They strive for a lifestyle that is philosophically, spiritually, and practically different from the mainstream and focused on meaning, diversity, and personal development. Their lifestyle is seen as an approach to initiating social change through one’s own actions.

4. Alternative dietary practices and animal rights orientation
A plant-based, cruelty-free diet is considered a fundamental component of ethical living. People with this attitude reject speciesism and do not want to be in living environments where their ethical standards are ignored or devalued. They consciously seek social relationships in which these convictions are shared and respected.

Currently, we are the only dating site in the German-speaking area that consistently focuses on enabling people with sustainable, ecological, and solidarity-based ways of thinking to find friends, partners, and communities. This makes us an alternative to the major dating apps, which stage dating primarily as a market-driven and gamified consumption process in which it is ultimately not about sustainable relationship building but about permanent dating.

How Our Members Want to Live Values in Relationships

We have comprehensively surveyed our members, revealing a good picture of our community:

• Diversity of sustainable lifestyles: Consonance unites people with a shared ecological and emancipatory basic attitude, which they integrate into their lives to varying degrees. The range extends from individuals who consistently live resource-saving, plant-based, and consumption-critical to members who share the same values but are only gradually implementing them. What is decisive for relationship compatibility is that the basic direction and future life plans align, not that all behaviors are already identically pronounced.
• Development instead of static life models: Many members see partnership as a framework in which ecological and responsible ways of living can be deepened. Relationships provide stability, orientation, and motivation, making planned changes more realistic and sustainable. Without a suitable value base in the social environment, many ecological projects remain unstable or are not even begun.
• Nutrition as a shared transformation process: About 7% of members live vegan, while roughly twice as many indicate they want to completely avoid animal products in the future. 27% live vegetarian, but overall, even 50% state that they either already live vegetarian or vegan or would like to do so in the future. Therefore, many specifically seek people who already live plant-based or plan the same step in order to make ethical principles and everyday practice compatible. Relationships often serve here as a starting point for permanent dietary changes that would be difficult to realize without suitable social support.
• Distancing from conventional consumption patterns: A large part of the members consciously chooses a lifestyle that distances itself from dominant consumption and production patterns. This distancing results from a value-guided decision in favor of simplicity, ecological responsibility, and conscious social engagement. At the same time, there are significant differences in intensity, clarity of goals, and implementation, which play an essential role in relationship compatibility.
• Green Dating as a socially effective relationship form: Consonance extends beyond individual relationship search by strengthening connections in which sustainable lifestyles are shared, supported, and jointly developed. Compatible value orientations increase the likelihood of long-term consistent decisions in everyday life. It would be a mistake to dismiss criticism of sustainable practices as “self-righteous” without recognizing that ecological stability and social justice are particularly important for people with limited resources. Consonance therefore enables relationships that combine personal well-being with social responsibility and jointly shape sustainable life plans.

Green Dating as a Response to Environmental Crisis, Consumption Pressure, and Social Isolation

Many people want to change their lifestyle but quickly reach limits alone — acting together with like-minded people increases the chance of actually implementing good intentions. Those who want to reduce overconsumption, shed ballast, or break deeply ingrained habits benefit from social relationships that support the same path. At the same time, we experience daily how the environment, climate, and wildlife are massively damaged, while large parts of the population, although not welcoming this development, barely adjust their behavior. For many, short-term needs have a higher priority than long-term responsibility, making fundamental changes difficult. In addition, politics and the economy often convey the impression that a “business as usual” is easily possible, which further blocks the necessary reorientation.

In this situation, ecological networking can prevent people from resigning, withdrawing, or falling back into old patterns out of helplessness. Relationships based on shared values convey stability, strengthen emotional balance, and facilitate the step toward a sustainable everyday life — perceived sacrifices then become gains. Classic dating platforms, on the other hand, mostly reflect exactly that indifference that dominates society: superficiality, short-term gratification, and a life in the stream of conventional consumption patterns. Those seeking an alternative lifestyle rarely find people there who share the same motivation.

Ecological dating therefore consciously starts at a different point: People should meet who do not view environmental destruction, animal suffering, and social injustice as marginal issues but as something that should actively guide their lives. In such relationships, responsibility is not felt as a private burden but as a shared task that gives them meaning and provides orientation. Thus, a social network emerges that helps withstand the dominant consumption pressure and not be absorbed by it.

For 20 years, Consonance (Gleichklang) has created frameworks in which people come together whose life priorities are not in contradiction to their ethical convictions. Here, partnerships, friendships, and communities are formed based on solidarity, awareness, and the will for a different life model. With the help of our progressive partner search and friendship search, we bring together people who experience a high level of connection with each other and can engage meaningfully in society. Those who become part of such a connection act not only for their own happiness but also contribute to ensuring that sustainability and compassion retain a place in human coexistence.

We value a friendly, open, and caring interaction with each other in the Consonance (Gleichklang) community. This also includes appreciation for the diversity of sexual orientations and gender identities. All members of Consonance accept the community rules of such a solidarity-based coexistence. Membership at Consonance requires a willingness to interact with each other in a humane way. We do not want misogynistic, sexist, insulting, dehumanizing, or otherwise degrading behavior at Consonance, as is unfortunately common on dating apps.

“In a world where we pet dogs and eat lambs, you should not be alone but live responsibly together.”

Plant-Based and Vegan in Partner Search and Friendship Search

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. Consonance supports its members on the path to a vegan lifestyle, which many members have already taken during their membership.

Read also our dating tips for vegan singles or our dating tips for vegetarian singles

We specifically support the partner search 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.

With the help of this query and our matching algorithm, it becomes possible for our members, for example, to specifically find vegan friends or partners. Often, however, the dating start at Consonance or the beginning of a new friendship or partnership is the occasion to switch to a vegetarian or vegan lifestyle.

In fact, we see from the responses of our members that many Consonance members become vegan or vegetarian within the framework of friendships or partnerships found through us. Especially among our vegetarian members, many indicate that they would like 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. Dating at Consonance thus becomes a motor for change for many, a change they have often long wished for but had not pursued.

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 this composition of our dating 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. Through our focus on Green Dating and Veggie Dating, we fulfil a central function for our members to enrich their lives with value-based relationships beyond the superficiality and relationship-damaging structures of dating apps.

How the Vegan-Vegetarian Search Option Works in Dating at Consonance (Gleichklang)

With the help of the special vegetarian-vegan search option, Consonance members can restrict their own partner search 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 partner search 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 in which 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 partner search 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 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.

Why a Shared Vegan Lifestyle Strengthens Relationships

The survey results reported here apply not only to the vegan lifestyle but also generally to ecologically oriented, sustainable, or minimalist lifestyles that oppose the destruction of the environment and nature with resource-conserving living. These and many other findings support the idea of Green Dating, as alignment in ecological, sustainable, and nutritional lifestyles can significantly improve relationship quality in partnerships, friendships, and communities.

• Why should it be helpful for partner search or friendship building for vegans to join with vegans?

We surveyed 600 vegans on this, and the following results emerged:

• Everyday life and life organization: A matching dietary and consumption style facilitates daily coexistence because shopping, cooking, meal situations, and social activities can be designed without conflicts and special solutions. Those who share the same basic principles experience everyday life not as a negotiation process but as natural cooperation.
• Ethics and core values: Vegan couples benefit from the harmony of their moral convictions. A relationship is more stable when central value orientations align and no one has to relativize or defend their basic attitude.
• Relationship climate and communication: Shared veganism promotes connection, reduces conflict, and facilitates an understanding conversation level. Emotional closeness grows because a potential permanent point of conflict is eliminated and both partners experience their worldview as mutually respected.
• Motivation and further development: Couples reported that shared vegan living strengthens motivation and ability to further develop their own lifestyle, avoid relapses, or become politically and socially active. The relationship becomes an amplifier of a value-oriented lifestyle.
• Protection from burdens: A shared vegan lifestyle protects against situations that create emotional burdens in mixed relationships — such as animal products in the household, feelings of disgust, the loss of an emotional safe space, or constant justifications toward the partner. Affection and closeness become easier, not more difficult.
• Family planning and children: When both partners share the same dietary and educational orientation, a central area of conflict is eliminated. The shared life model can be consistently passed on to children without fundamental discussions or contradictory expectations.

The findings show that human connections — whether partner search, friendships, travel companions, communal projects, or life communities — become particularly stable and strengthening when central ethical convictions harmonize. Shared values facilitate closeness, create trust, and prevent permanent value conflicts that burden everyday life.

When this alignment is missing, for example on such fundamental issues as the vegan lifestyle, people often report moral dissonance, inner tensions, practical everyday problems, or the loss of an emotional safe space. An environment in which fundamental value orientations are shared, on the other hand, provides a stable basis for self-development and emotional balance — and this in every form of interpersonal relationship.

That is why vegan couples, friendships, and communities often report higher satisfaction and greater stability because their lifestyle is simultaneously common foundation and common path of development. This applies in a similar way to other central ethical values. Incidentally, 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 partner search and friendship search to success. The special focus on supporting veganism and vegetarianism makes Consonance equally attractive for singles (partner search) 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.

Diversity and Inclusion

Diversity and inclusion are an expression of a fundamental ethical self-understanding for our community. People who meet here share values such as empathy, ecological responsibility, and solidarity-based action. From this attitude arises the obligation to understand difference not merely as something to be accepted but as an indispensable part of a respectful community. Those who take compassion seriously cannot justify exclusion.

As a dating platform, we unite people of all age groups, starting from the age of 18 to over 90. In friendship search and the search for projects and communities, we promote intergenerational encounter. The average age of our members is 50, so we also particularly care about partner search from age 50 and the support of partner search for seniors.

Members freely determine what kind of connection they seek — partnerships, friendships, travel communities, project collaborations, professional collaborations, or life communities. Just as diverse are the relationship models within partner search, from classic two-person relationships to open and polyamorous forms to swinger relationships. This matching principle is based on scientific, psychological findings showing that some people become happier in a monogamous relationship while others become happier in a consensually non-monogamous relationship. In our community, it ranges from shared living to Living Apart Together to long-distance relationships. This openness does not follow arbitrariness but the insight that people find their personal happiness and psychological compatibility in different relationship concepts.

Coexistence in the Consonance Community

We kindly ask our members to consider some fundamental manners in the community so that Consonance becomes an enriching place for everyone:

• Consonance is a dating platform, an online matchmaking service, and at the same time a matching service for friendships and other appreciative contacts. Our suggestions are based on psychological principles and the search criteria specified by the members themselves. Behind every suggestion stands a person who is genuinely interested in a connection. We therefore ask that suggestions be taken seriously and profiles be looked at carefully.
• Likewise, we ask that incoming messages be answered. Messages show that someone is interested in a contact, and the absence of a response can lead to disappointment. Since all matching suggestions are based on one’s own information, it can be assumed that viewing and a brief response are possible.
• Criticism is welcome and important for the further development of the community. However, we ask that criticism always be expressed respectfully and constructively. Insults and derogatory communication do not fit the values of Consonance. Respectful interaction also includes accepting the boundaries of other members, especially when someone signals that no further contact is desired.
• The Consonance team also takes its responsibility seriously and responds to all inquiries, suggestions, or criticisms. We make every effort to address them promptly but ask for understanding if a response sometimes takes a few days due to the large number of incoming messages.

We are delighted about every new member who feels connected to the social-ecological orientation of the Consonance community. Those who share these values and seek partnership, friendship, shared travel, projects, or new forms of coexistence in a mindful and respectful community are warmly welcome with us. We kindly ask people who do not share this attitude to refrain from membership so that Consonance remains a place where shared values form a truly sustainable foundation.

Our Stance for a Compassionate and Sustainable Community

In the Consonance community, people meet who bring different experiences, perspectives, and biographical backgrounds under a common ecological-social umbrella. At the same time, there are ideological orientations that are not compatible with the core values of our community because they contradict the guiding principle of humanity, respect, and ecological responsibility.

Not compatible with the basic orientation of Consonance are right-wing populist and right-wing extremist positions, as well as racism, xenophobia, antisemitism, sexism, and misogyny. The same applies to homophobia and biphobia, as well as the devaluation or discrimination of people with non-binary gender, transidentity, or other forms of gender diversity. Incompatible is also the denial of profound environmental problems, including man-made climate change. A proximity to right-wing populist parties such as the AfD, FPÖ, or SVP or to völkisch-ecological projects also contradicts the foundations of our community.

Consonance understands itself as a community that, in addition to ecological values, diversity, and social justice, also advocates for animal rights. For this reason, the community supports plant-based nutrition and promotes it. Activities or hobbies associated with the killing of animals — such as hunting, angling, or fishing — are not compatible with membership at Consonance, as they contradict central ethical principles of our community.

All members of Consonance share that ecology, compassion, solidarity, and humanity are important to them and provide orientation in everyday life. Many live vegan and shape their daily lives consciously in the sense of mindfulness toward the environment, people, and animals. Through Consonance, appreciative, loving, and socially responsible relationships develop between people who want to bring more humanity, kindness, and solidarity-based action into the world together. Depending on personal orientation and current life phase, members use the various options of the platform — from partner search to friendship search to the diverse community contact lists for shared activities, travel, or projects.

Among the values of our approach to online dating is also the reference to psychology as a methodological standard to support our members in their partner search as well as in their friendship search. We have oriented our activity solely on psychological findings that can contribute to enabling high relationship satisfaction for our members in the relationships found here. In contrast, we have not incorporated any game elements, short-term rewards, or addictive components that characterize modern online dating and dating apps.

We welcome all new members who feel connected to the social-ecological orientation of the Consonance community — you are warmly welcome:

See for yourself and join: ➨ SIGN UP NOW!