If you are a hopeless romantic like myself, you may have turned to dating apps at one point or another. Dating apps like Hinge, Tinder and Bumble are so easy to use and popular among college and teenage students.
This summer, I thought I would give these apps a shot as I was living at the Jersey Shore for the summer and didn’t know many people in Ocean City.
While using the platform Hinge, I noticed some interesting information that the app asked me to fill out.
I was honestly confused on why the platform required information pertaining to my religious and political beliefs. I consider myself to be apolitical and could careless about people’s views pertaining to politics.
However, as I continued to scour through the various dating platforms, it became evident that political views were something that a large segment of people viewed as important when it comes to dating.
Other common phrases that I would commonly see would be “Don’t swipe Right if you support Donald Trump,” and other comments related to being a Republican or Democrat, or getting the vaccine.
The fact that people feel so strongly about politics to the point that it would influence who their significant other could be is honestly disappointing. This type of thought process just shows how divided we are right now as a nation and how the system is broken.
The two major parties in this country want to pin us against each other and make us hate the other side. When in reality, we all have more in common than we realize.
Take my grandma and grandpa for example.
My grandmother was a far left-liberal. My grandfather was a far-right conservative who only voted Democrat once in his life, and it was for John F. Kennedy because he was a Catholic. They were married for over 50 years and loved each other wholeheartedly, despite their political differences.
We should be able to have respectful differences in this country without hating people who have a different opinion.
This type of viewpoint that I have been seeing on these dating platforms just shows how broken our nation is, and it deeply needs repairing. Social Media is pinning us against each other, and this is just another countless example of how it is weaponized for political purposes.
Just because you support Joe Biden or Donald Trump does not mean that I should view you any differently. We should be able to associate with people who possess different viewpoints, rather than just drown them out due to our differences.
A hallmark of a healthy relationship is having different opinions than your partner. Nobody is perfect, which is why you should not discard a person if they see the world differently than you do.
A more healthy way of going about disagreements such as politics is by talking to the person and trying to understand their thought process.
By better understanding a person’s viewpoints, you can learn more about someone, and maybe it could open up your eyes to a different perspective.
When I saw on different dating platforms that people are not willing to give somebody with different political ideologies a chance, I was quite frankly shocked and appalled.
Political views should not influence who you date or associate with. If we don’t wake up as a society and stop contributing to this divisive and broken system, I honestly believe that democracy could crumble.
We need to stop this hatred and get back to the days of my grandparents when respectful disagreements were encouraged, not frowned upon.
So, when it comes to dating, the move to swipe left or right should have nothing to do with you elect at polls.
