Online dating — as well as regular dating — is a very segregated activity, but a new study suggests that it may not take much to break racial and ethnic barriers. As much as we like to think that America is a postracial society, Americans still prefer to date someone from their race. Studies have shown that this preference is stronger than almost any other when it comes to finding mates, although it’s not entirely clear why. But an intriguing new study of online dating by sociologist Kevin Lewis at the University of California, San Diego, and published by the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences suggests that people might be limiting their choices out of a fear that they’re not attractive to other races. Lewis examined the interactions of 126,134 newly signed-up members of the online-dating website OKCupid over two and a half months. He found that, indeed, most people very rarely strayed beyond their own ethnicity in reaching out to potential dates. And if they did, they were less likely to get a response than from people of their same race. White folks, both male and female, overwhelmingly made more contact with whites, which is hardly surprising since there are more white people on the site to choose from. White folks were the most likely to seek out people of another race. Minority groups (those who identify themselves on OKCupid as black, Hispanic, Indian or Asian) were much more likely to stay in their own racial lane when in search of mates online. Only Asian women didn’t fit this trend. They were more likely to contact white guys than other Asian guys, which my Asian girlfriends tell me is because, in part, they’re not fans of the traditional role that girlfriends and wives have played — and continue to play — in many Asian societies. They were more likely to respond to white guys too, but then again, all races were most likely to respond to white guys. (MORE: Love Isn’t Color-Blind: White Online Daters Spurn Blacks) The preferences weren’t immutable,![]()
