5 Reasons Why You're Failing with Eco-Dating

Five reasons why you’re failing with eco-dating (“Green Singles”)

When I first planned to start this article, I was going to run a review of all the “eco dating” apps and websites available. That didn’t work out as planned.

Firstly, they all force you to pay upfront. I wasn’t interested in spending a lot of money on something that I didn’t believe would work.

Secondly, they barely have any users.

Those factors made me change my mind.

I would rather run an experiment where I tried to actively find solutions for people that want to get a partner that cares about the environment. That included spending money on “eco-apps”, putting my name and face out there as well as spending time to chat with someone.

I learned that active eco-dating is a bad idea. It just doesn’t work.

Not to brag or anything, but I feel that I gathered some pretty useful tips along the way.

5 Reasons Why You're Failing with Eco-Dating

Table of Contents

5 reasons why eco-dating isn’t working out for you

This is a list that will make you understand why your “green singles” adventure hasn’t worked out so far.

It’s also a warning to those who haven’t tried yet but intend to sign up on some of these online eco-dating platforms.

1. Know your platforms – WHERE do you attempt to find green love?


Once I started this experiment, I had no idea about the different online eco-dating platforms out there. I guess there was a reason for that.

They were all bad.

You don’t believe me?

Let me prove my point. Let’s start with a summary of all the options you got if you want to find a partner that’s living an eco-friendly lifestyle.

In the table below, I’ve gathered all the eco-dating apps and websites that I have personally tried – and rated them based on user-experience, price and how easy it seems to find love.

Wouldn’t that be useful?

WebsiteProsConsRecommended?
Planet Eart Singles- Free to create a user
- Been in business since 2000
- Have to pay 23 USD per month to send messages
- Not many (real) users online
- Very bad user interface
No
Green Singles- Absolutely nothing.- Owned by the same company that owns "planet earth singles"

- Terms are exactly the same...however, the website is even worse.
No
Green Passions- Nothing.- Absolutely worst website I've ever seen in my life.

- Have to pay to become a member.
No
Tinder- An awful lot of different people use it

- It's free
- You have to browse through a lot of non-ecofriendly people to find your green loveProbably your best shot at finding "green love"

Why didn’t Tinder work very well?

You can’t go on Tinder to find someone in a specific niche.

It’s all types of people on tinder: emos, people who eat steak 7 days a week, vegans and people that are “just looking for fun”.

No more than 1 out of every 50 people that would have something like this in their bio:

In other words: Tinder is not an app that’s useful to single out a specific type of people. Their algorithm or user options just don’t work that way.

If you are getting a lot of likes, you can potentially filter our the ones who aren’t vegan/eco-friendly. However, it’s probably more efficient to add something like this in your bio:

“If you don’t believe in man-made climate change, feel free to swipe left”.

That should do it.

In other words: no. Tinder is not the best option for eco-dating.

2. “Stock photo profiles” – a lot of fake users

In danger of getting sued by some of the companies, I refuse to name the ones that I believe are “cheating”.

But just to make it clear: on some of the platforms, the profile photos are not real. Even the profiles aren’t connected with real people!

If you clicked on some of the websites that I linked to in the table above, you are probably familiar with photos and profiles like these:

Meet Jeff and Linda!

Looks legit, right? 🙂

Why do online eco-dating websites create fake profiles?

This is a result of the fact that you can’t get anyone to pay on a dating website unless the person believes he or she will find someone to date. Therefore, a quite normal tactic is to manually upload fake profiles that will interact with other people on the platform.

To illustrate how serious this is, FTC (Federal Trade Commission) sued the worlds’ biggest dating website match.com because they believed that “Match.com conned people into paying for subscriptions via messages the company knew were from scammers”. You can read the whole press release from FTC by clicking here.

When Match.com might have used shady tactics, you can be sure that small “eco-dating” websites without any real traffic will do the same.

How can I know that most eco-dating profiles were fake?

I am not going into details on how to do it, but if you really want to know the best way to find out, this Youtube video is brilliant:

3. You are forced to “filter out” a lot of potential partners

“Oh, so he wasn’t good enough? What do you expect in a partner?”

The quote might sound like something sleazy from Sex & The City 2. Yet, it’s a quite useful question to ask yourself when you do so-called “niche dating”.

Questions you should ask yourself before you start any eco-dating

Once I opened one of the apps, I had to fill out some long questionnaires. These were some of the questions that I had to answer before my profile was “complete”:

– Is it important for you that she is vegan?
– Is it important that she only takes public transportation?
– Is it necessary that she is a climate change activist? (oh God, no!)
– Are you a flexitarian?
– Many more.

As you can see, there are so many DEGREES of being eco-friendly.

It’s not black and white.

To be completely frank, the filter option didn’t work out very well. Once I completed the questionnaire, I was told that “it’s not a lot of people nearby that fits your criteria”.

Illustration of what I had to fill out to become a member on one of these websites (I am not even joking):

Eco-dating can be tough.

4. Most eco-friendly singles don’t spend time on these apps

I am not referring to some scientific evidence here. However, I did a quick check on some of my single friends that I KNOW care an awful lot about the environment.

My question to them was simple:

“If you were to try to find a partner today, where would you start to look?”

Person 1: “Tinder”.
Person 2: “I don’t like online dating. Guess it would need to happen at work or in a cafe.”
Person 3: “The only place I meet other partners is when I’m drunk at some bar”
Person 4: “Tinder or some other dating website”*
Person 5: “Tinder or work”

*= This guy never specifically mentioned online eco-dating apps as an option.

In other words: people are not using these websites at all. This is probably not what you came here to read, but online eco-dating isn’t a thing.

From what I’ve seen and heard, it’s dead. Or even more accurate: it was never alive.

5. Being eco-friendly isn’t everything…it’s just a part of the full package

I do understand that a vegan isn’t meant to be together with someone that wants to eat red meat 7 days a week. The same goes for traveling habits.

That being said, whether or not you want to live an eco-friendly lifestyle should not affect EVERY decision you take in life. Finding a partner that has a slightly different view of the world might be a positive thing.

You do limit yourself if you require your next partner to share all your values.

Conclusion – is it possible to find an eco-friendly partner by using online apps and websites?

Not sure about that. I found it very difficult at least.

You either have to pay for some ridiculously expensive subscription at some unknown website. Or you would have to be so pretty that you can filter out all the non-eco-friendly people that come your way while using Tinder.

Either way, it’s not very easy to find “green love” online.

FAQ

Q: Can eco-dating only be done by people who care about the environment?

Well. I guess you can sign up to these apps if you’re one of those people who doesn’t believe in climate change.

However, that wouldn’t be very popular among the other people on the app/website. People sign up to these apps in order to meet people that care about the environment. Even though you would probably have an interesting (and heated) date, I guess we can conclude that these apps are mainly built for people that care about the environment. 😉

Q: Do you need to pay to subscribe to these websites?

Yes, most of them demand a fee up front.

However, it’s free to go and meet people from Extinction Rebellion and/or join Tinder.

Good alternatives to online eco-dating

I can come up with some other areas that would probably perform better for you:

– Join some group outdoor activity. People who spend time outside are often also more eco-conscious. I’ve heard hiking classes could be fun.

– Greenpeace and Extinction Rebellion have group gatherings all over the world.

– There have been several studies linking “being sexy/attractive” and “caring about the environment”. It might sound weird, but you should brand yourself as someone interested in making the planet a better place.

Go out in the woods and take some new photos to your Facebook/Tinder profile. Go to some renewable energy conference – and brag about it on Linkedin. Be active and make sure that people notice that.

Those are my best suggestions. If you have some other eco-friendly love-seeking tips, feel free to share them in the comment section below. I am confident that my readers will appreciate any tips that could potentially lead them in the right direction on this topic. 🙂

1 thought on “Five reasons why you’re failing with eco-dating (“Green Singles”)”

  1. Avatar

    I started using your trick about having an “eco-friendly” profile on Tinder. Sooooort of works. Wouldn’t say that I ONLY match with people that care about the environment.

    But it helps as an icebreaker to the guys who match with me as well. Many of them talk about green marketing, eco-friendly products etc with me 🙂 That’s superb

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