美国国家公共电台 NPR In Britain, New Dating Apps Let Brexit Opponents 'Remain' With Each Other

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KELLY MCEVERS, HOST:

Britain's upcoming exit from the European Union dominates the news headlines in Europe. It cast a shadow over last month's election in the U.K. and the recent G-20 summit in Germany. It's the topic of family arguments over many British dinner tables. And as NPR's Lauren Frayer reports, it's even upended the search for love.

LAUREN FRAYER, BYLINE¹: Outside a London pub on a sunny afternoon, pints² of beer in hand, Brittney Cornwell and Amy Hussey are gabbing³ about their love lives. They're in their early 20s and work together at a bank around the corner. They say one topic seems to come up more than ever on dates these days - Brexit. Here's Amy.

AMY HUSSEY: Yeah, you can't avoid it. It's always a topic (laughter).

FRAYER: She voted to leave the European Union and is getting razzed for it.

HUSSEY: By my work colleagues (laughter), by Brittney in particular.

FRAYER: Because her friend Brittney voted remain and says she doesn't want to hang out with leave voters. Would Brittney date a leave voter, I ask.

BRITTNEY CORNWELL: It depends how hot they are.

FRAYER: Really?

CORNWELL: Yeah, definitely.

FRAYER: So they have to be hotter than a remainer (ph)?

CORNWELL: I don't know. I don't know.

FRAYER: They're joking, but many British singles are not. Since the EU referendum a year ago, people have started posting how they voted - leave or remain - on their dating profiles on apps like Tinder, OKCupid and match.com. John Kershaw, an app developer from Manchester, spotted⁴ a market.

JOHN KERSHAW: Took us I think a few hours from deciding that Better Together Dating is, like, a really cool name to having it in the app stores.

FRAYER: Better Together Dating is a smartphone app that bills itself as Tinder for the 48 percent. That's the proportion of British voters who chose remain in last year's EU referendum.

KERSHAW: So you log into Better Together. You get a nice little EU flag with hearts in it. And then it's just a list of people nearby. And you can star them or you can chat in the app. You can send each other messages and all that fun stuff.

FRAYER: Another company is crowdfunding to create a dating app called Remainder - same kind of thing. But there's no app, at least that I could find, for leave voters.

SAM FREEMAN: I suppose for leavers (ph), you know, they won the referendum, didn't they? So there's no sense of alienation⁵ or, you know, anything like that.

FRAYER: Sam Freeman voted remain and uses the Better Together app for a little respite⁶ from the Brexit arguments that dominate dinner tables across the U.K. these days.

FREEMAN: I've had plenty of arguments with people over it. I mean, I think the bulk of the people at work disagree with me. My parents both voted leave, strongly disagree with what they thought.

FRAYER: He just doesn't want to fight those battles on a date, too. He's on other apps, and he says he always swipes left - that means not interested - when he sees profile photos with the word leave emblazoned on them or with a nationalist flag in the background. But it's not all about politics. There's even a bigger deal breaker for Sam in these apps, something that always makes him swipe left.

FREEMAN: It's always a little bit worrying when every photo has a cat in it. I mean, that's always a bad sign. And I'm allergic⁷ to cats, so...

FRAYER: Lauren Frayer, NPR News, London.

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