This interesting Slate article on Match.com notes that Match’s statistical data base finds that conservatives are more willing to date liberals on the site than vice versa:
Indeed, says [Match.com’s Amarnath] Thombre, “the politics one is quite interesting. Conservatives are far more open to reaching out to someone with a different point of view than a liberal is.” That is, when it comes to looking for love, conservatives are more open-minded than liberals.
I don’t rule out the possibility that conservatives are genuinely more ideologically tolerant in their dating lives than liberals. But it’s also possible that the conservatives on Match are unrepresentative. Some of the most hard-core social conservatives might either reject online dating on principle or utilize sites like E-Harmony, which are geared to their specific needs.
Back in 2007, I wrote a post arguing that people tend to overestimate the dangers of cross-ideological dating. And in my single days, I practiced what I preached. About a year after I wrote that post, however, I met my future wife, who is not only a fellow libertarian, but is libertarian to almost the exact same degree as I am. We have nearly identical scores on Bryan Caplan’s Libertarian Purity Test. Regardless, I think what I wrote back in 2007 is still valid. Single people who take a rigid stance against cross-ideological dating are probably doing themselves a disservice.