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WHAT SINGLES *REALLY* WANT IN A MATCH

A look at Couple’s (surprising!) online-dating intel

Andy Phillips   |   Fri, 29 Jul 2022

When it comes to looking for a date or long-term partner, everyone has a go-to list of dating preferences. It might not be considered “polite” to talk about it outside of our app profiles, but be honest: we all picky AF about certain traits.

Gender, age, height, weight, location, race, religion, ethnicity, political leanings, interests … the potential list of “either/or/both/alls” could go on and on.

Couple’s operations team let us take a peek at their internal dating data to see how users have ranked their top priorities in a match. While individuals’ dating preferences certainly differ in very big ways, there are some attributes that lots of Couple users seem to favor … and they may not be what you’d expect.

Check out the intel we pulled and see how your preferences stack up!

Most important matching criterion

Before we get into the Couple data, take a sec to rank the following match attributes in order of your own priorities: age, location, interests, and race/ethnicity.

Where’d ya land?

If you selected race/ethnicity as your top-most matching priority, you’re among the minority of Couplers and the U.S. at large. Only 11% of Couple women and 7% of men ranked ethnicity and religion as their main priority, a percentage which seems to jive with national trends as reported in this survey conducted by Pew Research Center a few years ago.

For Couple women, the top three results were: age (32%), interests (32%), and location (25%). The men’s top picks? Interests (37%), location (32%), and age (23%).

Not gonna lie, the fact that a higher percentage of women than men prioritize age kinda shocked us. Here’s to Couple fellas bucking stereotypes!

Younger man with older woman embracing

Willingness to date outside of preferences

In what might be the most surprising of all survey responses, a big-ole majority of both the men and women we polled reported that they’re willing to date outside of the preferences they indicate in their profiles (69% of women and 81% of men).

Say whaaa? Is our matching engine working overtime for nothing?

Fear not: Couple remains committed to matching users with the people who best fit their parameters, but it is nice to know that our community is such an open-minded bunch.

We'd be curious to see if this stat is consistent across all dating apps, or if there's something particular about Couple -- perhaps the fact that you're meeting the people directly versus judging them on their profile alone? -- that elicits this response. Food for thought.

Desire to give dating feedback

And finally, here’s a fun little nugget our surveys have unearthed: 52% of Couple women and 64% of Couple men would like the ability to give anonymous advice to their dates.

Dang … is that cruel or cool?

We kinda think the latter. Think your date is dialing it in? Or that their Beanie Babies display is killing the date-night mood? It would be pretty awesome to be able to gently and anonymously let them know for future reference. And even if you’re the person on the receiving end … who wouldn’t appreciate a bit of constructive criticism to help you score more Couples than Cuts down the line? Seems like a win-win to us.

Your turn!

Thanks to all the Couplers who took the time to take our feedback survey! If you haven’t participated yet, add your two cents after our next event. And if you have a burning poll question you’d like to see answered by Couple users, let us know at editor@team.couple.com. Perhaps it will find its way into a future survey!


About the data: Couple conducts user feedback surveys at the end of each online speed-dating event. All survey respondents thus far have self-identified as male or female.


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