Vibe check
Gen Z are all about shared values. In my dating app era, if I saw ‘conservative’ I swiped left. Seeing someone on a different political pole was never going to happen
In my dating app era, I was militant about the tag on people’s accounts that identified their political leaning. If I saw ‘conservative’ or ‘moderate’, I swiped left (which for non-dating app users means I had said no to potentially matching with them) before I’d even finished reading their bio. I knew immediately that these were not men I wanted anything to do with, let alone ones I wanted to meet. If they did not believe in reproductive freedom, in the rights of LGBTQIA+ people, in immigrants being afforded fair treatment, well, we’d never work, so they could keep swiping. Seeing my now boyfriend’s work laptop covered in Repeal and Housing for All stickers really sealed the deal for us.
I have always known that dating somebody on a different political pole to me wasn’t going to happen. We don’t have to see eye-to-eye on everything, but it was important to me that the person I fell in love with felt the same way I do about some of the biggies.
My mam and my late dad had completely opposite views on many of the hottest political topics. I have often asked my mother how she and Dad ever managed their different politics, and she tells me it just wasn’t something they discussed as they knew neither would change. It’s hard for me to fathom. Maybe I’m too mouthy for my own good — don’t answer that — but I would never be able to keep the peace.
Is it a sign of the times or just who I am as a person? The past few years have been particularly monumental when it comes to politics. We’ve been forced to think, more than ever before, about politics of the body, about civil rights and who they are afforded to. It’s been a time of great leaps forward but also scary steps backwards. It’s perhaps no wonder that we are less open to debate, when the stakes feel so high.
In their predictions of the big dating trends for 2024, dating app Bumble identified shared values and engagement with social causes as a sizable factor for swipers. For 25pc of people on the app, it is key that their partner actively engages with politics.
Their research also indicated that women are less open to someone with differing political views and for one in three women, it is a turn-off if someone they are dating is not aware of current societal issues at all.
You only have to look at the current political climate to understand why. In the shadow of a looming US election, multiple devastating war zones alight across the globe, the constant threat to the common rights we have fought so hard to have, it’s becoming increasingly important for people to band together for what they believe in.
However, it’s not necessarily easy for people to find said politically engaged partners. Recent research in the US has indicated that while Gen Z women are the most progressive in American history, their male counterparts are moving in the opposite direction.
Is it so wrong to refuse to engage with partners who believe in something different?
Author of The Politics of Gen Z: How the Youngest Voters Will Shape Our Democracy, Melissa Deckman has dubbed this phenomenon a “historic reverse gender gap”. For people seeking heterosexual connections with men or women of the same political ilk, the pool might be shrinking. Is it so wrong to refuse to engage with partners who believe in something different? There’s an argument to be made that all it does is help create echo chambers, or bubbles for us to exist in. Part of me wants to say good riddance. I like my echo chamber, I like surrounding myself with people who see the world the same way I do.
But maybe the reason my parents made it work is down to my mother’s incredible patience and tolerance. She is amazing at seeing the other side of an argument, in a way I have always struggled to emulate when it’s a cause I really care about. And I suppose, as much as I struggle to accept the idea that somebody can openly speak in a discriminatory way, I can’t say I really believe in totally silencing voices I don’t agree with either.
The main concern, in my eyes, is that someone’s political beliefs might seem abstract until you have to grapple with something they touch on. Say you have opposing views on abortion, and you experience an unplanned pregnancy — now those beliefs are making a difficult situation even harder to navigate, if neither of you can agree on what to do.
Of course, at the end of the day, you need open dialogue between opposing view-holders in order for change to ever happen. But if pillow talk is going to be political, I need it to be in a way that doesn’t raise my blood pressure for all the wrong reasons.