[This blog was written in 2014. Ten years later it seems nothing much has changed other than the names and number of apps available in the online dating market in 2024. What are your thoughts? Do leave comments.]
Remember the time you were in a crowded room and your eyes locked across the space and the rest was history? Well, consider this: the rest - and the way you met - is all history. That electric connect in the first meeting is now synonymous with a semi-distracted finger-swipe across the screen of your smartphone. It is the 21st Century, and it sure is reinventing itself with every cultural facet that offers itself up for examination. Dating to begin with was a rather frowned upon dynamic in our urban Bangalore once upon a time. While it began to be acceptable about a decade ago, and even commendable, before we know it it has become the rage. From a somewhat benign cultural nuance to occupying all forms of social interactive forums, dating is online, on-phone and only occasionally in person.
Every single (sometimes even that is not a given), young (another changing factor), or just “available” person with a smartphone will have tried a dating app or two. You have a data plan to support your Internet activities, the ability to navigate app downloads and installations, and you are set. Tinder, Woo, OkCupid, Thrill, Zoosk, Let’s Date, DesiCrush, and SinglesAroundMe are all examples of the new age trend that has beset the dating scene. It is tempting to implicate the new gen Y (or is it Z now?) and their psychology but the truth is that the epidemic affects people across all demographics. So the relevant question then is - is this new age method of meeting here to stay? And is it for everybody?
Anita (name changed), 36, recently separated from her husband of ten years, has this to say: “The ease with which I was able to download the app and start using it somewhat eliminates the embarrassment of being nearly-divorced and a single-mom looking for love.” Ten years ago, Anita would never have been out dating again so soon in Bangalore, let alone not be stigmatised for it. While she does find it liberating, she says, “It’s sometimes humiliating when they realise that I have a lot going on in my life and I never hear back, even though we have a great time chatting (the apps invariably have a chat forum) and the first meeting is a hit… It is hard to find an empathetic as well as interested man. Everyone has so many options, that no one feels the need to stick around to find out more after the first date.”
With the number of users for each of these apps growing exponentially every day, the app-dating trend seems here to stay for a while. However, there are those who don’t much care for it. Thirty-eight year old Armaan (name changed) describes apps as completely “transactional”. Having tried the most popular ones, namely Tinder and Woo, he has now deleted them from his phone as he feels “they take away from the organic nature of meeting people, and make dating so synthetic and forced.” He also feels they “are extremely superficial” and encourage this kind of judgment in people. “After all,”he says, “What can you tell about a man from his face other than whether he looks good or not?”
While the idea of a dating app seems very relevant in the squeezed-for-time lives we all lead, the truth remains that in order to know if the “match” can go anywhere (like a relationship), you do have to meet in person. And what about all the other criteria we have when selecting a partner? Swiping right or left will not tell you whether you have similar backgrounds / jobs / incomes, or whatever else your requirements may be for a suitable mate. At the end of the day, no matter how you look at it, dating in person is hard to replace by chatting up ten different matches made in app-heaven. Those first moments where you exchange a smile, a pleasantry, some polite conversation - the stuff of memories and heady romances - are they so easily replaced by tone-deaf text boxes flying to the left and right of your screen, punctuated by little else than emoticons and the occasional thumbs-up? This is as good a time as any to wake up, smell the coffee, and get REAL!
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