One thing that generally unites humanity across all demographics is the desire for love and companionship, whether it be romantic, familial, or even just loving friendships. Of course, the romantic kind is what generally seems to most vex people, with different societies playing host to their own complex courtship rituals and mating traditions. Romantic love is complex enough that countless films, TV shows, songs, books, poems, and basically every other type of art has been created, either for the purpose of celebrating it or lamenting its frustrating absence.

In the modern age, countless new wrinkles have been introduced into the dating process, perhaps the most notable being the invention of online dating. While seemingly a way to make the whole dating thing easier by enabling people to connect without the awkwardness of actually standing in front of each other in person, online dating has itself added its own oddities and complexities to the long journey of trying to find a partner.

With all that in mind, popular dating service Match.com has come up with a possibly genius idea: trying to match singles looking to mingle up based on their shared pop cultural loves. Reported by Variety, Match has opted to debut their new project during what is sure to be one of the biggest TV events of the year, this Sunday's season 7.5 premiere of AMC's The Walking Dead. While the episode is airing, Match will invite its subscribers to a live group chat about the show, in which users can either speak to the group as a whole or message each other individually. As one might imagine, the goal is to hopefully create a few connections that might lead to romantic sparks and/or dates.

Match.com CEO Mandy Ginsberg offered the following comment about the move:

"We realized that with singles in America today, one of the things that they connect on the most is the shows they watch and they love, and we wanted to figure out how to replicate what’s happening in the real world on the Match site and on the app."

The idea behind trying to connect users based on shared TV fandom originated from a study Match conducted concerning both the dating and viewing habits of American singles. The study discovered that "millennials are 270% more likely than those of other generations to be turned on by someone who watches the same shows as they do." With the majority of the dating population demographics slanted towards younger folks, this seems to have clicked on the proverbial light bulbs in the heads of executives.

Should this Walking Dead viewing party idea prove successful in connecting singles, one assumes that Match will soon look to expand its scope out to other popular shows like Game of Thrones or The Big Bang Theory. For the sake of the human species, here's hoping that the relationships resulting from chatting about TWD together end up more like Rick and Michonne and less like Shane and Lori.

The Walking Dead season 7.5 premieres Sunday, February 12 on AMC.

Source: Variety