Received: 3 November 2020 Revised: 12 March 2021 Accepted: 12 March 2021

DOI: 10.1111/pere.12375

ARTICLE

Looking for politically like-minded partners:

Self-presentation and partner-vetting strategies
on dating apps

Lik Sam Chan

School of Journalism and

Communication, The Chinese University
of Hong Kong, Hong Kong, China
Correspondence
Lik Sam Chan, School of Journalism and
Communication, The Chinese University
of Hong Kong, Hong Kong, China.
Email: samchan@cuhk.edu.hk
Abstract
Scholarship on politics and romance has found that
political homophily between couples is due to social
sorting (i.e., people seeking politically like-minded
partners from the outset). However, it remains unclear
how people do so in an online context. Based on inter-
views with dating app users in Hong Kong, this study
explores individuals' self-presentation and partner-
vetting strategies in their quests for politically like-
minded partners in a highly polarized political environ-
ment. The study reveals that political participation and
knowledge have become sexual capital on dating apps,
and self-censorship has begun to emerge in citizens'
private use of social media in the city. Finally, this
study proposes a typology along the dimensions of
effectiveness and riskiness to categorize various self-
presentation and partner-vetting strategies.

KEYWORDS
Hong Kong, information seeking, online dating, political
homophily, political polarization, romance, self-presentation

Broader Impact Statement: This study identifies the interpersonal communication strategies online daters use to look
for politically like-minded partners, filling a research gap in social sorting. Furthermore, the typology this study
proposes gives rise to new research questions regarding the Hong Kong context, such as how the use of various
strategies is associated with actual dating outcomes. The typology also has the potential to be applied in other national
and social contexts.

© 2021 International Association for Relationship Research.

Pers Relationship. 2021;1–18. wileyonlinelibrary.com/journal/pere 1

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1 | INTRODUCTION

For decades, relationship researchers have been interested in the role that similarity between
two individuals plays in relational development. Researchers have argued that attitudinal simi-
larities draw people together because shared attitudes lead to more common topics and stance
reinforcement (Byrne, 1961). Empirical studies have found that perceived similarity is related to
interpersonal attraction even in the absence of actual commonality (Montoya et al., 2008;
Tidwell et al., 2013).
Over the last few years, similarities between people's political identities and orientations
have surfaced as an important criterion for romantic relationship development. In the United
States, the terms Democrat and Republican, as well as liberal and conservative, have been used
for political identification. Since the election of Donald Trump as President in 2016, the country
has been divided into those who support Trump and those who oppose him. The American Per-
spectives Survey conducted in January 2020 found that 63% of participants would not date
someone whose views on Trump were different from theirs (Cox et al., 2020).
To date, most studies of political homophily and romantic relationships have focused on the
US context (for exceptions, see Stattin & Korol, 2020; Zuckerman et al., 2005). This article
extends this scholarship to online dating in Hong Kong, a city currently experiencing a signifi-
cant political divide. Since the 2014 Occupy Movement, also known as the Umbrella Movement,
Hong Kong people have increasingly begun to identify themselves as either politically yellow or
blue. Based on in-depth interviews with 20 dating app users, this article explores how
individuals use self-presentation and partner-vetting strategies in their quests for politically
like-minded partners online. This regionally specific analysis contributes to online dating schol-
arship by providing insights into how users express their political identities and assess others'
amid political polarization.

2 | POLITIC AL HOMOPH I LY AND R O M A NT I C

RELATIONSHIPS

Political polarization in the United States has provided an appropriate social context for
researchers to investigate the relationship between political homophily and interpersonal
attraction. Many studies have found that married couples have similar political identifications
and attitudes (Alford et al., 2011; Martin et al., 1986). The American Perspectives Survey rev-
ealed that around 77% of Americans believed that their partners shared a similar political out-
look to their own, and 80% said they and their partner held similar views about Donald Trump
(Cox et al., 2020). Although that survey found a positive association between the length of mar-
riage and the probability of the partners sharing similar political views, Alford et al. (2011)
found that, when the length of marriage and other personal variables were controlled for, the
similarity in partners' political views could be explained by individuals' initial quests for part-
ners with similar political views, a phenomenon known as social sorting.
Huber and Malhotra (2017) supported the finding of Alford et al. (2011). In their experi-
ment, based on a US nationwide sample, Huber and Malhotra assigned participants dating pro-
files of targets whose political views were either the same as or different from their own. They
found that the participants were more interested in contacting the targets and more likely to
reply to messages from them if they shared political views. Furthermore, they examined empiri-
cal data from a dating site. They found that when two online daters had similar political charac-
teristics, they were more likely to contact each other. More recently, Hernandez and
CHAN 3

Sarge (2020) found that individuals showed higher levels of trust in partners if they met on a
dating web site tailored to politically like-minded people; greater trust was associated with more
willingness to date and higher levels of relationship satisfaction.
Consistent with the studies above, Nicholson et al. (2016) found that political similarity
influences attraction. Based on a representative sample of US adults, the authors found that
respondents considered people with dissimilar presidential candidate preferences to be less
physically attractive. Similarly, Mallinas et al. (2018) conducted an experiment and found that
participants were more romantically interested in a target after they discovered that the target
held political attitudes similar to their own.
In short, evidence has been found in the US context that people look for politically like-
minded others to form romantic relationships and are more romantically attracted to them.
However, because these research designs were mostly experimental or survey-based, it remains
unclear how people do so. Online dating provides a different environment than meeting face to
face (FtF) in the quest for like-minded partners (Finkel et al., 2012). The next section reviews
the literature on online self-presentation and partner-vetting strategies as they pertain to the
seeking of politically like-minded partners in online dating.

3 | S E A R C H I N G FO R L I K E - M I N D E D P A R T N E R S
I N O N LI N E D A T I N G

In general, online daters can use two approaches when searching for compatible romantic part-
ners. First, they can include personal information (such as age, height, occupation, interests,
race, and sexual orientation) on their dating profiles, which should attract people who find their
personal qualities appealing and deter those who do not. Second, they can vet their romantic
targets to decide whether they want to pursue them further.

3.1 | Self-presentation in online dating profiles

On dating web sites and apps, users are asked to create profiles for themselves. Research has
shown that one's online profile plays a nuanced role in their first FtF interaction
(Sharabi, 2020). Gibbs et al. (2006) found that online daters who were more eager to develop a
long-term FtF relationship would engage in more self-disclosure (in terms of amount), more
honest disclosure, and more intentional disclosure. Chan (2018) found that no matter how
superficial gay dating app users found the profiles to be, they still worked hard on their profiles
to present a certain image.
Research on gay online dating has widely explored how people present their personal infor-
mation and preferences when looking for compatible partners online. On dating apps such as
Grindr, gay men describe their masculinity, sexual roles, and relationship goals and specify
what qualities they are looking for in their partners (Fitzpatrick et al., 2015). Gay online daters
have also been found to request partners of specific races on their dating profiles, which results
in racial sexism and racial discrimination on dating apps (Robinson, 2015; White et al., 2014).
These studies suggest that self-presentation on one's profile is pertinent to looking for com-
patible partners. However, based on roughly 3000 online dating profiles collected from a dating
web site, Klofstad et al. (2012) found that, although more than 60% of the online daters
expressed interest in movies, dining out, music, and traveling, only 14% of them mentioned an
interest in politics. The authors concluded that “politics does not appear to play a conscious role
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in a date's initial attempt to attract a mate” (p. 107). Nonetheless, the research team only
examined the “checkbox” element of dating profiles rather than open-ended text or photo-
graphs. We do not know how online daters make use of the entire dating profile for political
self-presentation. Therefore, the first research question of this study is:

RQ1. How do Hong Kong dating app users look for politically like-minded partners through
expressing their own political views on the apps?

3.2 | Partner vetting in online dating

Looking for the best possible partner requires partner vetting. In an offline context, Buggs (2017)
articulated the centrality of this vetting process among mixed-raced women looking for male
romantic partners. One of the respondents pointed out that any Trump supporter would be a
“huge turnoff” (p. 548) for her. Partner vetting was also observed among single mothers assessing
the suitability of male romantic targets in taking care of their children (Reid & Golub, 2015).
Online dating researchers have studied the vetting process in the lens of information seek-
ing. There are four types of information-seeking strategies according to communication
researchers (Berger, 1979; Ramirez et al., 2002). First, a passive strategy in an FtF encounter
means unobtrusively observing a target. On social networking sites, this behavior could mani-
fest as looking at the target's Facebook posts (Fox & Anderegg, 2014). Second, an active strategy
involves creating an artificial social environment and observing how a target reacts or asking
third parties about a target. On social networking sites, this strategy takes the form of compar-
ing how targets describe themselves and how their friends talk about them (Ramirez
et al., 2002). The third strategy is interactive, and it depends on direct contact with a target. In
an online environment, it could involve commenting on the target's Facebook posts or asking
the target questions (Fox & Anderegg, 2014). Fourth, the extractive strategy is unique to the dig-
ital environment as it relies on the searchability of the Internet. For example, one may perform
an online background check on a target or organization (Ramirez et al., 2002).
Gibbs et al. (2011) examined how online daters engaged in information-seeking behaviors.
They took “comparing photos to the written/demographic description in a profile” as passive;
“saving emails/IM chats to check for consistency” as active; “asking follow-up questions in
email or IM to see if they are who they say they are” and “asking questions on the phone about
what they said in a profile, email or IM” as interactive; and “Googling prospective dates” as
extractive (p. 83). They found that the use of these information-seeking behaviors predicted the
amount of self-disclosure online daters were willing to engage in online dating.
This study explores how partner vetting is done in relation to looking for politically like-
minded others. The second research question is:

RQ2. How do Hong Kong dating app users look for politically like-minded partners through
seeking information about their targets?

4 | R ESEAR CH CONTEXT

Since the Umbrella Movement, Hong Kong society has been increasingly polarized in terms of
political orientations. The movement was a reaction to the Chinese government's decision that
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the city's leader would be elected from two or three candidates nominated by a committee,
effectively limiting who could run for the position. Yellow ribbons were initially tied to trees
and fences around the city to show support for the movement (Dearden, 2014). The proponents
of the movement then self-identified as yellow ribbons or simply yellow. The opponents of the
movement identified themselves as blue ribbons or blue.
The yellow–blue divide intensified in March 2019. In February 2019, the city government
proposed a bill to expand its extradition arrangement to mainland China and Taiwan. The yel-
low camp and the business sector were highly skeptical about the bill because of their distrust
of the judicial system in mainland China. This opposition resulted in a protest on March
31, marking the onset of the Anti-Extradition Law Amendment Bill Movement (Anti-ELAB
Movement). The government decided to suspend the bill after a violent protest on June 12, dur-
ing which the police forcefully cracked down on the protesters. However, the government's
choice of the word “suspension” left open the possibility of reintroducing the bill; therefore, on
June 16, 2 million citizens joined the largest protest in Hong Kong's history. Over time, pro-
testers' political demands were formulated into the slogan “five demands, not one less,”1 and
the protests turned more confrontational as the government failed to address these demands.
On July 21, a group of Triad gangs violently attacked protesters and uninvolved civilians at a
metro station as they were returning home. There is strong evidence that the police knew about
the attack beforehand but did not attempt to stop it. On August 31, the media reported that the
police had indiscriminately attacked protesters and civilians on a train. All of these incidents
resulted in an unbridgeable gap between yellow and blue. Yellow stands for pro-democracy,
anti-Hong Kong police, anti-Hong Kong government, anti-Chinese government, and, at its
extreme, Hong Kong's independence. Conversely, blue supports the police and the governments
of Hong Kong and China.
If we treat yellow as pro-democracy and blue as pro-government, then the majority of the
younger population in Hong Kong are yellow. Of people aged 15–29 years, 80.9% aligned them-
selves with pro-democracy political parties in October 2019, whereas only 2.1% identified as
supporting pro-government parties (Lee, 2020).
The yellow–blue divide has extended beyond politics. Chu and Yeo (2020) found that, after
the Umbrella Movement, politically active youth engaged in a series of disconnective practices
on social media, including avoiding political talk with contacts whom they believed were blue
and “unfriending” these contacts on social media. A so-called yellow economy was also formed
in late 2019 among commercial entities that openly supported the movement. In professions
such as education, healthcare, and aviation, yellow-leaning employees were reported to their
employers by blue-leaning colleagues and customers. In some cases, the employees were fired.
Hong Kong, therefore, provides a prime social backdrop against which to evaluate how political
homophily affects partner-seeking behaviors.

5 | METHOD

5.1 | Research design overview

I conducted in-depth, semistructured interviews with 20 dating app users in February and
March 2020. I began by inviting the respondents to share how they had come to use dating apps
and asked them to reflect on their political identities. Subsequently, I asked how their political
identities intersected with their use of dating apps.2 This approach can be described as
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respondent interviews as I was less interested in learning about objective facts than subjective
standpoints (Lindlof & Taylor, 2011). My conversations with the respondents were “a local
manifestation of the discursive formations that circulate broadly in society—for example, gen-
der, racial, sexual, and political discourses” (pp. 179–180). This interview approach was appro-
priate for the study because both romantic relationships and political identities are highly
subjective issues.

5.2 | Respondent recruitment and demographics

The criteria for participating in this research were as follows: 18 years old or above, living in Hong
Kong, identifying as either yellow or blue, and had logged onto any dating app at least once a week
for the previous month. I recruited the respondents by inviting people from my personal social net-
work to forward a recruitment message through their networks and by posting recruitment mes-
sages on online discussion forums that appeal to people with different political orientations.3
A total of 20 respondents were successfully recruited. Their ages ranged from 21 to 35 years,
and all reported being single. Their gender and sexuality compositions were as follows: eight
straight women, one lesbian, six straight men, and five gay/bisexual men. The majority of them
(n = 14) had a Bachelor's degree or above.
Although I intended to recruit both blue and yellow dating app users, everyone who contacted
me self-identified as yellow. This may reflect the intense political polarization and distrust
between people of different political orientations. My university campus was one of the most
intense battlegrounds between protesters and the police force during the Anti-ELAB Movement
in November 2019. After the event, the university was condemned by the blue camp as “the uni-
versity of rioters.” This impression might have discouraged blue dating app users from participat-
ing in this research. Furthermore, when I recruited respondents from yellow-leaning online
forums, patrons questioned whether I was a policeman using “academic research” as a cover to
identify protesters. The difficulty in recruiting blue respondents and the distrust from yellow
respondents in this study exemplify how the political divide has gone beyond politics.

5.3 | Author positionings

Interviewing is a social process. My identity inevitably influenced the kinds of narratives that
my respondents did and did not provide. This issue is particularly relevant to the current study
as Reinharz and Chase (2003) pointed out that there is a power relationship between female
respondents and a male researcher. Before and during my interviews with female respondents,
I emphasized my academic training in gender and communication studies and my previous
research in the gender politics of online dating. Furthermore, researchers have highlighted the
importance of building rapport with their respondents (Scharp et al., 2020). My previous dating
app experience allowed me to build trust with my respondents.

5.4 | Data collection procedure

The respondents signed an informed consent document and provided basic demographic infor-
mation on a short survey before the interviews began. Each respondent was given HK$150
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(around US$19) as a token of gratitude. The interviews were conducted in Cantonese and lasted
for 30–90 min each. They were recorded and transcribed by student helpers under a confiden-
tial agreement. All of the audio recordings were destroyed after transcription. I translated
extracts from the Chinese interview transcriptions into English. In this article, I use pseudo-
nyms based on the respondents' preferences. The study was approved by the research ethics
committee.
In qualitative studies, the minimum number of respondents required depends on factors
such as the homogeneity of the group (Guest et al., 2006) and saturation of knowledge
(Bertaux, 1981). The central inquiry in this study was how dating app users look for politically
like-minded partners on dating apps, and thus, my yellow respondents could be described as a
homogenous group. Furthermore, data saturation (when themes started to recur) was achieved
by the 17th interview. Three additional interviews were conducted to further confirm data
saturation.

5.5 | Data analysis

I analyzed the interview transcripts in NVivo 11 using a two-cycle coding process (Miles
et al., 2014). First, I created the first cycle of codes for each paragraph. For instance, some
respondents mentioned using a yellow ribbon to represent their political views, which I coded
as “movement-related signs.” The codes for describing how app users assessed their romantic
targets' political identity were based on the passive–active–interactive–extractive typology
(Berger, 1979; Ramirez et al., 2002). Some respondents told me that they asked their targets
seemingly innocent questions to evaluate their targets' political identity. I coded this as “interac-
tive.” In the process, I constantly compared the newly created codes with the existing codes
(Glaser & Strauss, 1967), occasionally combining some codes and splitting some into more spe-
cific codes (e.g., I split the original “interactive” code into three specific codes: testing, direct
confrontation, and reaction solicitation). In the second cycle of coding, the codes were grouped
according to the two research questions. Eventually, I arrived at two sets of codes, each
corresponding to one research question. Table 1 provides a summary of the codes and their
frequencies.

6 | F IN D I NG S

6.1 | Expressing oneself as yellow

My respondents explained that being yellow entails certain political beliefs and actions. Yellow
signals disapproval of the current city's government and its police force. This condemnation is
aimed at the former's bill to amend the extradition law and the latter's unreasonable use of vio-
lence to curb legal protests and indiscriminatory attack of civilians. My respondents considered
yellow to mean advocacy for democracy and resistance against Chinese authoritarianism. They
adopted various self-presentation strategies on their dating app profiles to express their political
identities. They used images, texts, and hyperlinks to other social media platforms. However,
some opted for minimal expression.
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T A B L E 1 Summary of findings

Self-presentation strategies

Strategy Elaboration n
Use of images
Movement-related signs Putting signs such as a yellow ribbon on one's profile 7
Photographs Including photographs of oneself in a protest on one's profile 1
Use of text Including slogans such as “five demands, not one less” on one's profile 6
Use of hyperlinks Linking to one's Instagram account 1
No self-presentation Not engaging in any political self-presentation 10

Partner-vetting strategies

Strategy Elaboration n
Passive Deducing information from a target's occupation and education level 20
Active Stating one's political view on the profile and waiting for targets' 11
reactions
Extractive Examining others' social media posts 4
Interactive
Testing Asking targets innocent questions to deduce their political orientation, 13
such as “Which coffee shops do you often go to?”
Direction confrontation Asking targets about their political orientation 6
Reaction solicitation Broaching an issue to targets and waiting for their feedback, such as 2
“I really hate police”

6.1.1 | Use of images

There were two types of images my respondents used to state their political views on their dat-
ing profiles: movement-related signs from the Anti-ELAB Movement and photographs of their
participation.

Movement-related signs
A sign that can represent the movement as a whole was the yellow ribbon. My respondents put
a photo of it as their main profile picture. Some opted for a blank black image. In all major pro-
tests against the government, yellow protesters appeared as a black bloc. Therefore, to show his
political alignment, John (34, male, straight) put a plain black image as the first picture on his
profile. Matt (29, male, gay) included a Hong Kong flag icon next to his name. The Hong Kong
flag signifies that Hong Kong is different from mainland China. He believed that this icon
would deter pro-China, nationalistic online daters from messaging him.
During the protests, protesters lifted the five fingers of their right hands and the index finger
of their left hands to visualize the slogan “five demands, not one less.” Sophie (31, female,
straight) posted an image that referred to this slogan. She found a comic character online who
happened to have their left index finger and all five of the right hand's fingers lifted. She used
this image on her profile. Protesters also demanded that the government investigate a case in
which a young woman was allegedly hit by a police officer's bean bag round in her right eye,
CHAN 9

causing permanent blindness. Peter (33, male, straight) posted a picture of himself covering his
right eye with his hand to refer to the girl whose eye had been injured.
Other signs my other respondents used included a pig-like character that originated from
lihkg.com, a yellow-leaning online forum, and Pepe, the frog-like cartoon associated with White
supremacists in the United States but appropriated as a symbol of resistance in Hong Kong.

Photographs
Apart from these signs, an explicit way for one of my respondents used to indicate his participa-
tion in the movement were photographs that he had taken at the protests. Edward (31, male,
straight) explained, “I just posted pictures of myself at a protest. I think my political view is very
obvious from that.”

6.1.2 | Use of texts

The use of profile texts provides an alternative, often more explicit expression of one's political
identities. My respondents included phrases such as “five demands, not one less” and “liberate
Hong Kong, the revolution of our times”4 on their profiles. Sophie wrote “hand and feet, come
pick me” (this is the exact English phrase she used) in the text area of her profile. The Canton-
ese origin of “hand and feet” refers to one's close teammates and has been used by yellow pro-
testers to address each other. In doing so, Sophie was inviting yellow people to date her.
Although Sophie's approach was inclusionary, others chose to be exclusionary. Edward wrote,
“No blue ribbons, no police” on his profile. My respondents justified their use of exclusionary
language by stressing the importance of shared political views in their romantic relationships.

6.1.3 | Use of hyperlinks

My interviews with the respondents revealed an unexpected use of profiles for political expres-
sion. Tom (31, male, bisexual) chose not to make explicit political statements on his profile;
instead, he included his Instagram information in the text area to signal that anyone interested
in him could find out more about his life on his Instagram account. There, he had posted a
short video clip from a televised public consultation session in which he openly criticized the
government. He said, “Honestly, I have regarded [the clip] as a selling point. It just looks
cool—I did something others did not.” Using marketing terminology, Tom regarded his appear-
ance in a political event as an asset in the dating market. In a similar vein, John (34, male,
straight), a former assistant to a politician, said that he felt his status had been elevated because
“everyone suddenly wants to understand politics and will ask [me about it].” Tom's political
participation, John's career history, and—to a large degree—the other respondents' expressions
of political identities on their profiles are considered attractive in the field of online dating in
Hong Kong.

6.1.4 | No political expressions

However, half of my respondents did not indicate their political identities on their profiles, even
though they all wanted to date politically like-minded people. My respondents had three
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reasons for their hesitation. First, they believed that overt political statements were unneces-
sary. April (26, female, straight) said, “All normal persons are yellow,” assuming that most peo-
ple her age were yellow, which has empirical support (Lee, 2020). Therefore, she did not see a
reason to tell others that she was yellow.
The second reason for not displaying one's political views on dating profiles was the nega-
tive connotations of doing so. Alex (21, male, straight) said that some men would foreground
that they were frontline protesters to catch attention of their potential targets. He considered
this practice to be boastful and did not want to appear as such. Likewise, Katy (31, female,
straight) regarded those who expressed their political identities on dating apps as too obvious
about their intentions, and she did not want that characterization for herself. In their views,
expressing their level of political participation would lead to a decrease in desirability.
Third, some respondents censored themselves. Expressing political views was deemed politi-
cally sensitive. Jeffrey (30, male, straight) did not feel that it was safe to discuss politics with
strangers. After Matt experienced unfair treatment at his company because of his political ori-
entations, he removed explicit political statements from his profiles on social media, including
his dating app accounts, leaving only the Hong Kong flag icon. Two other respondents, Ann
(31, female, lesbian) and April, worked in the education sector. Stringent surveillance by the
government and blue parents of teachers' conduct meant that the educators had to be careful
about expressing their political views in the public sphere.

6.2 | Assessing whether others are yellow

All of the respondents expressed the desire to find someone yellow to be their romantic part-
ners. For most of them, differences in political views had not been an issue before the Anti-
ELAB Movement. Although the yellow–blue divide emerged from the Umbrella Movement, the
respondents reported that they had not considered it to be a significant obstacle in their quest
for romantic relationships back then. Alice (25, female, straight) said, “If you had supported
DAB [a pro-government political party], I would have been interested in your reasons, but this
would not have been a concern [in a romantic relationship].” However, at the time of the inter-
views, all except Matt felt that political differences were a dealbreaker in a relationship,
reflecting an increase in the significance of politics in romantic relationships.
In this section, I group the respondents' strategies for ascertaining the political views of their
targets according to the passive–active–interactive–extractive typology (Berger, 1979; Ramirez
et al., 2002).

6.2.1 | Passive strategy

In online dating, the passive strategy takes the form of studying the targets' profiles (Gibbs
et al., 2011). Ann noticed that one of her targets posted a photograph holding a banner with the
slogan “liberate Hong Kong, the revolution of our times.” Immediately, she recognized this per-
son was yellow. However, assessing others' political identities solely based on observations of
their profiles is not straightforward because not all users express their political orientations on
their profiles. Thus, my respondents had to deduce others' political orientations based on non-
political information. For instance, Tom associated people in the financial industry with being
blue. He elaborated,
CHAN 11

I think those people who make lots of money are out of touch with the real world.
Their income is so high that they have reached a totally different stage where they
say, “I don't fucking care about the troubles in the world. These political move-
ments are just obstructing me from making more money.”

Many respondents relied on a broader definition of blue, which encompassed pro-

government people and the entire police force. Candy (23, female, straight) used many small
cues (Gibbs et al., 2006) from targets' profiles to deduce whether they were police officers.
Showing me a profile of a man, she pointed to his self-reported occupation and said, “This per-
son says he is an ‘officer’.” Although he did not specify what kind of officer he was, Candy
looked at his low education level and continued, “It's very obvious. Police officers rarely attend
college; they just have a Yi Jin diploma.”5 Tom's and Candy's hasty elimination of potential
partners perpetuates the negative stereotypes of people with certain occupations and dramati-
cally reduces their chance of finding partners. Nonetheless, given the impossibility of reading
online daters' minds, Tom's and Candy's practices efficiently weeded out potentially incompati-
ble partners.

6.2.2 | Active strategy

The extant literature on information-seeking strategies has described the active strategy as cre-
ating an artificial social environment and observing a target's reactions (Ramirez et al., 2002).
Tom used the clip he posted on his Instagram account to assess the political orientations of
those who approached him on dating apps. He explained, “If they start the conversation by say-
ing, ‘your speech was fabulous,’ then I know they must be yellow.” Indeed, he had identified
dozens of people who shared his political views. To a large extent, anyone who presents their
political views on their profiles and waits for others' reactions is engaging in the active strategy.

6.2.3 | Extractive strategy

Some respondents utilized the extractive strategy by exchanging social media contacts with
their targets. They could deduce the political identities of their targets from their social media
posts. Ah Man (30, male, straight) and Alex studied their targets' Facebook and Instagram posts
to see if there were any yellow material, such as photos from the protests.

6.2.4 | Interactive strategy

Finally, some respondents used the interactive strategy. I identified three different forms.

Testing
Testing was the most commonly reported form of interaction. When testing, my respondents
would pose a seemingly innocent question, such as “Which restaurant do you like?,” to their
targets. My respondents expected to hear the names of yellow restaurants (i.e., restaurants that
support the movement). Katy gave an example of a conversation taking this trajectory.
12 CHAN

They ask, “What do you have for meals usually?” You immediately ask, “Which
coffee shops do you often go?” Then they drop a couple of names. Usually, they will
hint that they won't go to Starbucks [a blue store]. Then you know [that they are
yellow].

Direct confrontation
In engaging in direct confrontation, my respondents would directly evaluate the beliefs of their
targets. Some respondents would stop talking to their targets if the chasm in their political
views was too wide to be bridged. Edward described his conversation with a student who came
from mainland China:

She did not agree with the idea of the social contract, did not think that police
should be the people's servants or that the government should serve its people.
There was a wide gap between our conceptualizations. Discussion was actually
meaningless.

In cases where both sides recognize each other as yellow, further interaction may follow.
Candy would only consider meeting FtF with those with whom she felt comfortable discussing
political issues. Moreover, direct confrontation offered the respondents additional opportunities
for verification and persuasion. John once encountered a woman who stated that she was yel-
low on her profile. However, in one discussion, he found that she was actually opposed to the
protests. Regarding persuasion, Matt had an FtF meeting with a man whom he had met on a
dating app. Matt asked to which political camp this man belonged, and Matt said, “He told me
he was blue at the onset.” Toward the end of the conversation, Matt persuaded the man to read
different news sources. Later, they ran into each other.

One day, he said, “the government is beyond hope. Even now, a mask is a luxury
[commenting on the worsening of the pandemic in the city].” Then, I said, “Now
you know the importance of having an elected government that serves the interests
of its people.” He said that he understood.

Reaction solicitation
Similar to the active strategy, which involves broaching an issue and waiting for another's feed-
back, reaction solicitation relies on sending a message to the target directly. Candy, who told
me that she did not want to date police officers, had encountered several police officers who
were pretending to be firefighters.

I said to them, “I really hate the police,” and sent them an article [about police bru-
tality]. They then could not pretend anymore and started a quarrel … It is so easy to
tell the real firefighters from the fake ones.

Edward's job required him to be at the scenes of the protests, and he shared his work stories
with his targets. He explained, “They usually give me some feedback, and from that, I can see
their political views.” When I asked him why he did not opt for direct confrontation, he said,
“Because I understand that compared with an FtF encounter, asking people ‘Have you been to
any protests?’ on a dating app scares them. I have female friends who have encountered police-
men when they were on dating apps.” After putting himself in these women's shoes, Edward
thought that direct confrontation would drive targets away.
CHAN 13

7 | DISCUSSION

The two incompatible political orientations that have emerged in Hong Kong since 2014 pro-
vide a context to investigate the relationship between political homophily and romantic rela-
tionships. Several studies conducted in the United States have supported the social sorting
hypothesis, yet most of these were experimental or survey-based studies (Alford et al., 2011;
Hernandez & Sarge, 2020; Huber & Malhotra, 2017; Mallinas et al., 2018; Nicholson
et al., 2016), thus leaving room for studies to explore how people look for politically like-minded
partners in practice. Based on in-depth interviews, I explored how yellow Hong Kong dating
app users used a variety of self-presentation and partner-vetting strategies to look for yellow
partners.
My first research question asked how Hong Kong dating app users present their own politi-
cal orientations when looking for politically like-minded partners. The respondents fully uti-
lized their dating apps' affordances to convey their political views. They posted images with
political meanings, included political slogans in the text sections of their profiles, and inserted
hyperlinks to social media accounts. These findings highlight the shortcomings of relying on
profiles alone to determine whether individuals are interested in politics (Klofstad et al., 2012).
However, half of the respondents did not engage in political self-presentation. My second ques-
tion addressed another aspect of dating app use: how dating app users seek information about
their targets. Based on the typology of Berger (1979) and Ramirez et al. (2002), I identified the
passive, extractive, active, and interactive strategies used by my respondents. They passively
observed their targets' dating profiles, looking for clues to deduce others' political orientations.
They checked their targets' social media accounts and extracted politically related hints. Some
actively shared their political views on their profiles or via their other social media accounts
and waited for a response. Finally, they engaged in a variety of interactions with specific targets.
In the following section, I elaborate on the theoretical and practical implications of this study.

7.1 | Theoretical and practical implications

The study offers three theoretical advancements. First, as the cases of Tom and John demon-
strate, political participation and knowledge have become what Green (2014) referred to as
“sexual capital.” Sexual capital is a mix of attributes that are collectively considered attractive in
a specific field. The criterion for sexual capital changes according to the context of the field.
Over time, members of a field come to agree on what is or is not desirable and then judge others
against these community-based criteria. For instance, a nude picture of oneself is considered a
form of sexual capital in the field of gay dating apps (Lemke & Merz, 2018). In this study, the
majority of my respondents did not care about their romantic targets' and partners' political ori-
entations before the Anti-ELAB Movement. Expressing political views on dating profiles in the
past was not viewed as particularly desirable or “sexy.” However, after the movement began,
politics became salient in everyday lives; therefore, displaying political participation and knowl-
edge on one's dating profiles constituted sexual capital in Hong Kong at this specific time. In
this sense, dating profiles can serve as a proxy to gauge what is highly popular in a region. For
instance, Tinder reported that mentions of Black Lives Matter on its platform grew exponen-
tially in 2020 (Tinder, 2020), implying the social significance of this issue for US users.
Second, this study provides evidence that self-censorship has begun to emerge in citizens'
private use of social media in Hong Kong. In their exploration of the use of social media by
14 CHAN

politically active youth, Chu and Yeo (2020) discussed social media ambivalence among young
social media users who recognized the opportunities and challenges of social media platforms
and engaged in disconnective practices. My respondents recognized the usefulness of using dat-
ing apps when looking for politically like-minded partners; however, they also recognized the
risks of publicly displaying their political views. Pressure from their employers was perceived as
a significant risk. One respondent, Matt, opted to express his views in a subtler manner,
whereas others decided not to mention their political stances at all. Extending beyond the con-
text of Hong Kong and its specific political landscape, this study suggests that the relationship
between FtF relationship goals and self-disclosure may not be positive and linear (Gibbs
et al., 2006) if such self-disclosure might pose risks to online daters. For example, when people
living with HIV look for romantic partners online, they may not want to disclose their
serostatus because doing so may lead to outright rejection by others (Skinta et al., 2014). A simi-
lar dilemma is faced by people with disabilities (Porter et al., 2017).
Finally, the twofold nature of this study considers self-presentation and partner-vetting
strategies simultaneously. To offer a more theoretical discussion of online dating, these various
strategies are grouped according to two dimensions. The first is their effectiveness in locating a
compatible partner. In this study, a compatible partner refers to a person sharing a similar polit-
ical orientation. In other scenarios, a compatible partner might be someone who, for instance,
supports the same presidential candidate, has the same serostatus, or is accepting of a partner
with a disability. The second dimension is the riskiness of presenting one's information online.
In this study, the risks included retaliation at work; in other situations, they might include the
loss of privacy or online harassment.
Regarding self-presentation strategies, there is a stark contrast between engaging and not
engaging in self-presentation. Because engaging in self-presentation can screen out incompati-
ble people, doing so can be considered effective in locating a compatible partner. Nonetheless,
as everyone can access the disclosed information, self-presentation is also highly risky. Con-
versely, not engaging in self-presentation entails no risk, yet it is an ineffective strategy for find-
ing a compatible partner.
The various partner-vetting strategies entail different combinations of effectiveness and risk-
iness. The passive strategy (i.e., observing others' profiles) and the extractive strategy
(i.e., checking targets' social media posts) are both low-risk strategies as they do not involve the
disclosure of personal information. The passive strategy may be the least effective because it
depends entirely on the extent to which targets disclose information on their profiles. The
extractive strategy is moderately effective because people usually share more information on
social media than on dating apps. The active strategy (i.e., presenting one's qualities on the dat-
ing profiles and waiting for a response) is, in practice, equivalent to engaging in self-presenta-
tion. Therefore, it is deemed effective in attracting targets who are interested in these qualities
and weeding out those who are not. The strategy is risky because it involves exposing one's per-
sonal information to everyone on the dating platform. An interactive strategy is moderately
effective. In an actual implementation such as direct confrontation (identified above), online
daters can acquire personal information about their selected targets. However, an interactive
strategy can only be carried out on one target at a time, rendering it only moderately effective
in narrowing the pool of potential partners. At the same time, online daters using an interactive
strategy bear a moderate level of riskiness because they have to disclose their information to
selected targets during the process (although online daters may tactfully avoid disclosing per-
sonal information when using the testing tactic).
CHAN 15

F I G U R E 1 A typology for seeking a Riskiness

High Mod. Low
compatible partner that considers both
self-presentation and partner-vetting Self-presentation;
High
Active strategy*
strategies according to effectiveness and
riskiness
Interactive
Extractive
strategy -
strategy/
direction
Mod. Interactive
Effectiveness confrontation and
strategy -
reaction
testing
solicitation

No self-
Low presentation;
Passive strategy

Note: Mod. = moderate.

*Engaging in self-presentation is equivalent to using an active partner-vetting strategy.

Figure 1 illustrates how online daters consider self-presentation and partner-vetting strate-
gies along the dimensions of effectiveness and riskiness. The levels of effectiveness and riskiness
depend on the combination of various self-presentation and partner-vetting strategies used in
online dating. Both effectiveness and riskiness are conceptually aggregable. For instance, engag-
ing in self-presentation has a high level of effectiveness and a high level of riskiness. One way
to further increase the effectiveness is to incorporate an extractive strategy. In the current con-
text of Hong Kong, being yellow is a potential reason for political persecution. Yellow dating
app users may opt for a mix of strategies that provide the highest level of effectiveness with
minimal risk. That is, not engaging in self-presentation and using only extractive and passive
strategies (and, potentially, the interactive strategy of testing).

7.2 | Limitations and directions for future research

Some limitations of the study should be acknowledged. This study was based on a small conve-
nience sample of self-selected dating app users. The frequencies of the strategies listed in
Table 1 cannot be generalized to dating app users as a whole. Furthermore, all of the respon-
dents identified themselves as yellow, and interviewing blue dating app users may reveal differ-
ent strategies. Future collaborative research could be conducted by researchers with different
institutional and political affiliations, which would help to build trust with dating app users
across the political spectrum. This is particularly important when conducting research in a
highly politically polarized society such as Hong Kong.
However, given these limitations, this study identifies various self-presentation and partner-
vetting strategies, filling a theoretical gap in existing scholarship on political homophily and
romantic relationships. The typology this study proposes gives rise to new research questions:
What demographic and psychological factors determine the strategies dating app users employ?
How is the use of these strategies related to the actual success in looking for a compatible part-
ner? A large-scale survey can answer these questions. Such typology can also be applied beyond
the specific context of Hong Kong. Taking the United States, where political homophily in
romantic relationships is commonplace (Alford et al., 2011; Martin et al., 1986), as an example,
the dimension of effectiveness refers to how effective a dating app user can seek someone with
16 CHAN

similar political views; unlike Hong Kong where displaying one's yellow political orientations
may entail detrimental consequences to one's career, the dimension of riskiness may refer to
threats of being harassed online because of one's political views (Anderson, 2017). Researchers
in different national contexts can conceptualize effectiveness and riskiness according to their
situations.

E N D N O T ES
1
“Five demands” include the withdrawal of the extradition bill, retraction of the “riot” characterization of the
protest on June 12, release of all arrested protesters, independent investigation of the police actions, and uni-
versal suffrage for the city's leader and legislative councilors (Lee et al., 2020).
2
The interview protocol is included in the Appendix.
3
Lihkg.com is yellow-leaning, while discuss.com.hk is blue-leaning.
4
The latter phrase was declared by the Hong Kong government as connoting “Hong Kong independence.” Peo-
ple displaying this phrase can be prosecuted under the Hong Kong national security law introduced on
July 1, 2020.
5
The Yi Jin program is an alternative educational path for those who are not competitive in Hong Kong's main-
stream education system. The program fulfills the minimum entry requirement for becoming a police officer.
In April 2020, the government reported that 45% of newly recruited police officers had a Yi Jin diploma only,
while 22% had received tertiary education (Shum, 2020).

DATA AVAILABILITY STATEMENT

As part of IARR's encouragement of open research practices, the author has provided the fol-
lowing information: This research was not pre-registered. This qualitative study does not test
any hypotheses. The data used in the research are not available. The material (i.e., interview
protocol) used in the research is available in the appendix.

ORCID
Lik Sam Chan https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9153-2234

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S UP PO RT ING IN FOR MAT ION

Additional supporting information may be found online in the Supporting Information section
at the end of this article.

How to cite this article: Chan LS. Looking for politically like-minded partners: Self-
presentation and partner-vetting strategies on dating apps. Pers Relationship. 2021;1–18.
https://doi.org/10.1111/pere.12375