The most important questions on OkCupid

Not all questions are created equal

We’re not shy about asking the hard questions at OkCupid — in fact, they play a big role in fueling our insanely sophisticated matching algorithm. After all, if you answer “no” to the question “Should the government defund Planned Parenthood?” wouldn’t you want your potential date to answer the same way?

Because we’re always, well, questioning our questions, we looked at which ones are least often skipped, most often skipped and most often marked as “very important” — meaning these are the questions that matter the most to people when finding a date.

The least skipped

There’s nothing like agreeing on a no-brainer answer to a question with a new date. Below are the questions that people are least likely to skip—which means these are great to test on a date to see if you’re on the same page.

It’s great to see topical and ethical questions up there, like the ones about government-required vaccines and interracial marriage. But it’s interesting to see those strong questions alongside ones like “Are carbohydrates something you think about?” Then again, doughnuts are objectively delicious.

If this chart tells us anything, it’s that there is no trend in easily discussable topics. It’s sort of all over the place. Just like, sigh, life.

The deal breakers

On OkCupid, you can define the importance of questions—from “A little” to “Somewhat” to “Very.” We thought it would be fun to peek at what people most often marked as “very important,” making these the true deal breakers among OkCupid members.

What’s interesting about this set of questions is that they’re mostly related to relationships—with people, the earth, and higher powers. Seems like most people do care if you’re likely to cheat (surprise), how you feel about faith, and if you think the earth is at risk of melting, or if it’s just a big conspiracy theory created by the liberal coastal elite — who will be under water in +/- 50 years.

Dinosaurs though? 🤔 We’re at a loss, but perhaps it’s an easy way of asking whether or not someone believes in evolution. And that can be a pretty important thing to address with someone new.

The avoided

On the other hand, we include questions that don’t easily elicit a yea or nay. Part of the OkCupid legacy is that, back in the early aughts, we included questions that were user-submitted, so as a result, there are some questions that are truly difficult to answer — but still important to think about. Perhaps these questions are where the real conversation begins.

Almost half of OkCupid members skipped a question about monkeys, vanity and sibling relationships. Even more skipped a question about the politics of the education system. Do you think you can readily answer these on a date?

While these questions are fun to think about, the point of asking them on OkCupid is not only to feed our magic algorithm— it’s about taking a step back and remembering that dating is about getting to know someone, learning from them, and hopefully becoming a better person because of it.