People Aren’t Willing to Go Very Far to Date

This Is How Far We'd Go for Love ...

If you’re not having any luck in the dating game, you might need to try new tactics … say, for instance, expanding your radius beyond what’s convenient.

Although dating apps have made it possible to find a partner who can live a continent away, it seems that most people still choose to stick close to home. According to a study in Sociological Science, there’s a clear limit as to how far people are willing to travel for love. While you might think you’re not getting many matches because of poor photo choices, it could potentially be because you’re not willing to step outside your comfort zone — literally.

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During their analysis of 15 million online dating messages from an unnamed dating site, researchers Mark Newman, Ph.D., and Elizabeth Bruch, Ph.D., found that we tend to self-organise ourselves into 19 regions when pursuing online relationships. Meaning, the New England region includes Maine, Massachusetts, and Rhode Island; the Pacific Northwest region includes Oregon, Washington, and areas of Idaho and Montana, and so on.

“It was a little surprising, at least to me, how perfectly the geographic regions follow accepted divisions of the country,” Newman told Inverse. “For instance, in many cases, they follow state boundaries.”

The voluntary subregions weren’t always by state or region as you might expect, and some are wider than others. If you’re dating around in either Missouri, Arkansas, Kansas, or Oklahoma (a fairly large area of the Midwest), you’re more likely to communicate or date someone in this area as well — not to mention, have far more options because of the geography covered.

At this point, you’re probably wondering why anyone would consider dating someone in Texas if, for example, they live in New York. Well, as it turns out, research points to it as being more than a total aversion to long distance dating that keeps people in their own state.

According to the study, singles in some states often rarely opt to message people outside of their current location. Those in Northern California typically don’t exchange messages with anyone outside of the state, nor do Texans, even if they’re close to a border state like Oklahoma. This, according to Newman, might indicate some sort of psychological barrier — dating someone in a different state seems much farther than it actually is.

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“There’s no practical reason why they should do this,” adds Newman. “If you live near a state boundary, it’s quite possible that there are plenty of potential dating partners within easy travel distance in the next state over. But apparently there is little such interstate dating going on.”

This all seems to point at people severely limiting themselves when it comes to dating. The solution? Consider expanding your horizons outside of your state border. No harm, no foul.

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