News

Forty years ago this month, about 100,000 people swarmed to San Francisco's Haight-Ashbury district in search of free love and copious amounts of superstrength LSD. Among them was psychedelic-rock-chanteuse-turned-vegan-painter, Grace Slick.

It would seem that 1967's Summer of Love offered easier pickings for would-be Romeos and Juliets. All they had to do was search through the haze of pot smoke for their attractive, like-minded, wampum-bead-wearing counterparts. But what about the green singles of today - how are they finding romance?

Though the modern eco-sexual bears little resemblance to the free-loving sixties flower child, Ms. Slick still points to the debt that is owed. Recently championing the enduring spirit of the late, lamented counterculture, she quipped: "It lives at every yoga class in a strip mall, at every outdoor rock concert, in the organic produce section of your local supermarket and even in the heart of every personal computer."

Which is where, it turns out, ethically minded singles happen to be flocking to in order to sidestep the lumpen masses and find their eco-soulmates.

While the number of niche green dating sites such as Meetyourgreens.com and Greenpassions.com are proliferating on the Internet, the larger sites have also begun to cater to the tofu set. "Perfectmatch.com, one of the major international dating sites, has recently instituted green questions as a filter for matching people," explains Pepper Schwartz, a relationship expert for the website. "It's a growing trend."

James Houran, feature columnist and spokesman for Onlinedatingmagazine.com, agrees. "Niche sites such as Greensingles.com are a huge trend now because many online daters are tired of being 'lost in the crowd' of large mega-sites."

Take Maggie, a pretty, dark-haired, 23-year-old fair-trade coffee slinger from Surrey, B.C. Maggie, who asked for her last name to be withheld, signed up for Veggiesingles4you.com and has been "experimenting with green dating sites for a couple of months now."

A vegan and an environmentalist, Maggie admits that before her love life went green, she "dated and lived with a meat-eating, apathetic individual who didn't even bother recycling until I got on his case." Needless to say, the relationship "ended with him being unfaithful and being a general liar ... so it was after this I started developing the idea that I was holding the bar way too low."

Green dating sites presumably offer people such as Maggie a way of avoiding such an uninspired match as they connect people based on their passion for a specific lifestyle. Dr. Houran believes that "they give members a built-in, common foundation that helps build healthy and lively connections between people."

For 40-year-old Sean, a freelance photographer from Guelph, Ont., who has been perusing Greenpassions.com for about three months, the implied dovetailing of green concerns doesn't necessarily guarantee anything.

Sean, who also asked for his last name to be withheld, describes his worst date ever as an evening he shared with a "hardcore environmentalist" several weeks ago. "It was all about her radical views. She griped about everything from the food being genetically altered to the selfish people driving SUVs. She kind of forgot to ask much about me."

Sean has yet to find "the right balance" of environmentalism in the women he's met online. "They are either low-end, 'Yeah, I make sure every soda can goes to the blue bin,' or extreme, 'Let's sell everything, move up north and live off the land.' "

Though if it's middle ground we're aiming for, maybe it's time to ditch the computer (at an e-waste facility, of course) and ignite a new social experience. It could start a revolution. Or better yet, 50,000 love affairs.

Heidi Sopinka, a seasoned world traveller, plans to stay put until the afterlife to neutralize her carbon footprint.

hsopinka@globeandmail.com

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The dating environment

80

Percentage of single adults aged 30 to 59 who agree that a partner's commitment to the environment is important to enduring, romantic relationships

28

Percentage who say that a partner's commitment to the environment can be a deal breaker

6

Percentage who say they could "absolutely" see themselves married or in a long-term

relationship with a partner with opposite environmental views

From results of a survey of 16,000 respondents conducted by Perfectmatch.com, an online dating service