← Back to Book Table of Contents
Fit of the Target Group | Consonance (Gleichklang)
A provider may be serious and yet still be unsuitable for you, especially when considering niches in online dating.
-
The decisive question is ultimately whether you encounter your target group on a platform – that is, people who share your fundamental values and your ideas about partnership and relationship design.
On a suitable platform, you are more likely to succeed in your partner search than on a platform whose members do not match your own life and relationship concepts.
Therefore, you should make your decision for or against a dating platform primarily dependent on whether the people active on that platform fit you.
Although it is not possible to assess this with certainty without getting to know these people directly, it is still possible to gather information about the fit of the target group before participating.
This is necessary because you ultimately cannot become a member of every platform. However, you should not leave the decision of which platform to choose to chance.
Use all available sources of information to learn more about the members of a particular dating platform. As described earlier, you can find information through the platforms’ websites, Google searches, review sites, or the advertisements placed by the respective dating platforms.
The platforms’ own websites are undoubtedly of great importance for learning more about their members. While all dating providers naturally want to present themselves in a good light, it is still revealing what these platforms say about their clientele, and what is often even more revealing is what is missing.
Thus, you will quickly discover whether you feel comfortable with your search on a site or whether you perhaps do not feel represented at all:
-
The better you feel represented by the content of a dating platform’s website, the more other people who are similar to you will also be attracted to that platform.
-
If you feel uncomfortable or unrepresented on a provider, this will likely be the case for those who are similar to you and who would actually be a good fit. However, these people will probably stay away from this platform, so you will not be able to meet them there either.
Different platforms can embody different values and fundamental attitudes, which in turn leads to these platforms usually attracting people who agree with these values and attitudes.
This is illustrated below using five such values and fundamental attitudes:
-
Aspiration, wealth, and prestige
-
Gender stereotyping and appearance
-
Ecological sustainability
-
Diversity of gender and sexual identities
-
Inclusivity of people with disabilities
Aspiration, Wealth, and Prestige
There are providers that place aspiration, prestige, and wealth more or less explicitly at the forefront in their name and public image.
People who search there want to use or emphasize their existing prestige to find a suitable partner, want to have their prestige confirmed within a partnership, or want to improve their prestige through a new partnership.
Some participants will prominently highlight their good income and elevated standard of living, implicitly using it as an argument for a partnership with them. Other participants will come to such platforms with the hope of meeting partners with higher income and standard of living.
If this appeals to you, such a provider can certainly be a good choice for you. However, if this rather repels you, such a platform would probably be less suitable for you.
Focus on Gender Stereotyping and Appearance
Some providers advertise with highly gender-stereotypical images and motifs or with a focus on appearance. These platforms convey traditional gender roles and expectations, using status and income for men and appearance for women as marketing tools.
This appeals to people who orient themselves clearly toward the societal mainstream with its gender role, relationship, and life models.
If you share current societal structures with their traditional values and at least subtle gender role expectations, these platforms will be suitable for you.
However, if you are more critical of society or unconventional and do not share traditional role expectations, you will likely not succeed in your partner search on these platforms.
Green Dating: Ecological Sustainability
Global environmental problems do not bypass partner search. Rather, in view of the increasing destruction of our planet’s natural resources, the loss of biodiversity, the disappearance of natural landscapes, and climate change that has already begun, there are more and more people for whom the criterion of ecological sustainability is also of central importance for their partner choice and relationship management.
Ecological sustainability in partner choice refers to the desire to meet partners with whom an environmentally responsible, sustainable lifestyle is possible – away from the excesses of a society focused on unlimited production and consumption.
These are people who have critical attitudes toward consumption and society in general and want to contribute through their own everyday lifestyle to overcoming pressing environmental problems. These people see themselves on the margins or outside the surrounding consumer and entertainment culture, which they reject as superficial and unsustainable.
The shared orientation toward values of sustainability and consumer critique thus becomes the decisive selection criterion for partner choice and also has a profound impact on relationship design.
Lukas Kala (2017) investigated what drives people who are looking for a partner not on the major mainstream portals but on so-called green dating portals, which focus on the desire for ecological sustainability in partnership.
In a qualitative analysis of profiles of participants on green dating portals, he was able to identify the following four recurring themes that connect them:
Taking personal responsibility for the environment: The goal of participants on green dating portals is to meet people with whom they can live sustainably together. An ecologically sustainable lifestyle is considered ethically necessary. Only people who see this similarly and want to take shared responsibility for the environment are eligible for a partnership.
Conscious minimalism: Simplicity, modesty, and consumption reduction are essential characteristics that participants on green dating platforms share. They want to conduct their partnership away from possessions and status symbols and, on the contrary, free themselves from unnecessary items and unsustainable life practices.
Plant-based dietary practices: Studies show (Poore, J. & Nemecek, T., 2018; Perignon et al., 2016; Clune et al., 2017) that a plant-based vegan diet is by far more environmentally friendly than all other forms of nutrition. Participants on green dating platforms value a plant-based diet for ecological reasons, but also for ethical and animal rights reasons. They want to practice a diet in their partnership that is not based on the exploitation and killing of animals and that burdens the environment as little as possible.
Distinction from mainstream society: Participants on green dating platforms view society critically overall and experience the societies they live in as predominantly superficial, selfish, and unsustainable. They value getting to know partners who also distinguish themselves from mainstream society in this sense.
Kala also identified a fifth theme, which relates to interest in personal growth, development, and spirituality, and is often associated with experiential practices such as yoga or meditation.
However, this theme should only be considered an optional topic. Similarly, attitudes and life patterns oriented toward sustainability and consumer critique can occur without spiritual beliefs.
If you place great value on ecological sustainability, you will have difficulty on general dating platforms meeting people who share your attitudes, values, and life practices in this regard.
The recommendation in this case is accordingly to look for ecologically oriented dating services, where you will more likely find people who align with you.
Diversity of Gender and Sexual Identities
Dating platforms differ in the extent to which they take gender and sexual diversity into account:
-
If your own gender or sexual identity is not listed on a dating platform, you must expect poor prospects as well as discrimination and rejection.
Gender identity and sexual orientation play an important role for most people in partner search. If an incorrect gender identity must be stated or a central sexual orientation must be omitted, the chances of success in partner search are likely to be rather low.
When reviewing dating platforms, you will find that a number of dating platforms in the German-speaking area – including the best-known online matchmaking services – only recognize men and women as well as only heterosexual or homosexual individuals.
Non-binary gender identities, transgender, and intersexuality are often not represented:
-
Non-binary individuals therefore cannot participate in partner search on these platforms, or only by specifying an incorrect gender identity as male or female. If they do participate anyway, they are put in a situation where they are highly likely to have to deal with accusations of deception, harassment, insults, and derogatory comments. In the better case, they will be ignored or rejected when they disclose their gender identity.
Bisexuality, as the third major sexual orientation, is also apparently unknown to the majority of dating platforms. Nina Horcher (2020) wrote a noteworthy article on this in the Austrian newspaper Der Standard, titled: »Online Dating: How Bisexuals Are Made Invisible« .
Instructive quote from the article:
“The Corona pandemic gave online dating a boost. But what if people want to get to know women and men? At least on the large, fee-based matchmaking portals, this is not possible for bisexual individuals. They must decide on one gender. Those who do not want that have to create two profiles, thus pretending to be both heterosexual and homosexual and bear additional costs. This forces users to make their bisexual orientation invisible.“
Asexuality is also invisible on most dating providers. Asexual individuals looking for a partner are seeking a relationship without sex. If an algorithm-based matchmaking service does not take asexuality into account, participation for asexual singles is likely pointless. Because in almost all suggestions, the other person will expect sex in a relationship. With a prevalence of only about 1% in the adult population, asexuality is so rare that it would almost be a miracle if a suitable suggestion were made without targeted matching.
On general dating sites and dating apps, it will also be extremely difficult for asexual individuals to find the minimal number of profiles among the countless suggestions that value a sexual relationship, where this might be different.
Therefore, when searching for a suitable platform, make sure that your gender identity and sexual orientation are represented by the platform.
Disabilities, Impairments, and Inclusivity
Have you ever looked at the posters and television commercials of the major online matchmaking services? Did you also notice that the selection of people shown is limited to individuals without visible physical handicaps?
The major matchmaking services follow a pattern of societal normativity in their public image, which excludes numerous real human phenomena and focuses on highlighting characteristics of an apparent “wholeness.” Thus, not only people with handicaps fall through the cracks, but also people with physical or mental illnesses or indeed any special physical (e.g., short stature) or mental (e.g., learning disabilities) characteristics.
However, the public image is only one side of the coin. Unfortunately, rejection and exclusion by participants within the platforms are also often part of it.
The desire for partnership is universal and is shared by people without and with disabilities, illnesses, or other special physical or mental characteristics.
For individuals with disabilities, health impairments, or other special physical or mental characteristics who are looking for a partner, it is essential to deal confidently with their situation and not allow themselves to be reduced to their respective disability, illness, or other special characteristics.
When choosing a platform, it is best to pay attention to how both the public image and the matchmaking process handle possible disabilities, illnesses, or other special characteristics.
If you have such a disability or significant chronic illness, unfortunately, you must expect increased rejection on platforms where this topic does not appear.
Moreover, there may be very low response rates if you address the situation openly in your profile. If you decide instead to address this topic only during communication, sudden contact breaks or deletions may occur.
However, this does not necessarily have to speak against searching on such platforms if you prepare yourself for this situation, so to speak, immunize yourself in advance, and thus do not let yourself be deterred from a confident partner search.
Alternatively, you can consider choosing a platform that directly addresses people with disabilities or illnesses. Here, you need to fear rejection less and can assume that your disability is not an exclusion criterion for many participants.
The price for this, however, is less societal desirability and also less frequently sought-after individual inclusion. For on such platforms, the majority are people with disabilities who are looking for partners with disabilities as well.
Another alternative is platforms where you can see in the public image that an inclusive approach is present and where the topic of disabilities, illnesses, or other special characteristics is explicitly addressed visually or textually on the respective websites. If this is the case, the chances increase that people will be found on these dating sites who are more willing to practice inclusion and who less frequently sort out others based on characteristics perceived as deviant.
← Back: Quality Criteria for Dating Sites | Back to Book Table of Contents | Continue to: Selecting Dating Options →
