Almost half of Australia is in love right now, although if you’re a dog owner who likes Vegemite the chances that you’re in love are far higher than if you’re into cats and wear budgie smugglers.
To celebrate the 2017 Sydney Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras festival, we partnered with Australian Marriage Equality to ask people from all over Australia about love - from what’s an acceptable public display of affection, to who we love and how deeply we feel it, to whether we believe in marriage equality.
Using Google Surveys and YouTube Poll Everywhere, we gathered insights from thousands of people in all states and territories with the goal of showing how love can take different shapes yet have many common threads. We called our survey Love by Numbers - check it out (it looks best on a smartphone).

The Love by Numbers survey was launched at Mardi Gras Fair day. Picture: Chris Meier

 We asked people if they were in love, how strongly they’re in love, we even showed people photos of other people in love and asked if they could spot love when it was right in front of them
The team worked with Professor Lev Manovich from City University of New York’s Culture Analytics Lab - a world leader in the field of culture analytics - as well as local experts to design the survey and ensure the questions asked were not leading or biased.
Among our findings were:

• 45% of Australians say they are in love right now
• 67% of South Australians claim to have fallen in love at some point in their lives, whereas just 48% of Western Australians claim to have ever been in love, while Tasmanians are the most in love right now, at 67%
• Australia has slightly more big spoons (or spooners) than little spoons: 51 to 49%
• When it comes to PDA, holding hands is fine (84%), but pashing is a little too much (-63%)
• People in their 20s feel love five times more intensely than everyone else
• There are significantly more dog lovers in love than cat lovers - some 74% to 36%
• If you prefer Vegemite to Marmite, you're five times more likely to be in love right now
• Despite being in love, we're not willing to tolerate budgie smugglers over board shorts: 87% of those who are loved-up right now think there's no excuse to smuggle budgies on the beach
• Eight out of ten Australians recognise love when they see it, in all its diverse forms 63% of Australians think it’s fair to make same-sex marriage legal in Australia

The Love By Numbers data is hosted online by Australian Marriage Equality, which campaigns for equal marriage rights for all Australians.
We're proud supporters of marriage equality as well as the LGBTI community through our sponsorship of the Sydney Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras Community Parade Grants.

Meet the team of awesome Googlers who contributed to Love by Numbers. Picture: Chris Meier

At Google, we encourage people to bring their whole selves to work. In all of our 60 offices around the world, we are committed to cultivating a work environment where Googlers can be themselves and thrive.
We also want our employees to have the same inclusive experience outside of the office, and for LGBTQI communities to be safe and to be accepted wherever they are.”
Posted by Tara McKenty, Creative Director at Google Australia, who is a little spoon and Marmite fan